2.10. Filtering Lists and Using Wildcards

Several tasks in the workflows employ the use of lists (for example, when selecting multiple zones or labels) and can often contain a large number of items to choose from. By default, you can use the Filter Text drop-down to provide text and/or expressions in filtering the list (for example, using *, ?, and []). You can also choose the Use Wildcard option in the drop-down to provide wildcard expressions in filtering the list. When you use either ? or * in your expression, the matching list item(s) are automatically selected in the list.

Note that with the Use Wildcard option, any journal files will capture any wildcards that are used, such that upon replay, the journals recorded with wildcards will dynamically consider all the labels and zones matching the wildcard string found in the journal (for example, in*, etc.). By contrast, journals recorded using the Filter Text option will use only the explicitly selected labels and zones (for example, in1, in2, etc.), thereby making them more static and less flexible.

  • * - indicates zero or more occurrences of the preceding element. For example, in* will list only items starting with "in" such as in1 and in2, whereas *in* will list only items that have the string "in" within the name.

  • ? - substitutes for a single unknown character. For example, gr?y would list "grey" and "gray".

  • [] - indicates a range of numbers or characters at the beginning of a string. For example, [ot] would match anything starting with "o" and anything starting with "t" in the name. Using [a-z] would match anything starting with a character between "a" and "z" inclusively, or using [0-9] would match the initial character with any number between "0" and "9" inclusively.

  • ^ - indicates a boolean NOT function, or negation. For example, ^*in* would list anything not containing "in".

  • | - indicates a boolean OR function. For example, *part*|*solid* would list anything containing either "part" or "solid" such as part2-solid-1, part2-solid-2, part-3, solid, and solid-1.

  • & - indicates a boolean AND function. For example, *part*&*solid* would list anything containing both "part" and "solid" such as part2-solid-1 and part2-solid-2.