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If you only know subparts of a string of numbers, characters or combined numbers and characters, you can use the wildcard search. The searched part may occur at any place.
*CH55*
e.g. A CH55 0-BCR-046A-2 is found.
If the unknown places do occur at the beginning, at the end or in the middle, doesn't matter. Also the number of used placeholders is arbitrary.[5]
1SF*7102R70001SFA8*102R*000
In V11, single positions could be replaced by the placeholder (?). This placeholder also works in V12, however, much more easier and flexible is the placeholder (*), as it may stand for no, one or multiple characters.
1SFA8? ?102R?000
If the unknown part is separated by empty space, separator such as point, for example, or character of another type (numerical/alphanumerical), a wildcard is dispensable.
By default, terms are fragmented in meaningful minor terms (substrings according to dictionaries).
With hex nut you can find hexagon nut without using the placeholder *.
With hexag you wouldn't be successful. In this case you have to search with hexag *.
For a wildcard search, no stemming is performed[6] . *crew only finds screw, not screws. If you want to find both, you have to enter *crew*.
A wildcard search is always related with a certain loss of performance. However, it is a question of how many hits will be made. For example, searching with s* is significantly slower than searching with *crew. If a search with s* runs over a lot of catalogs it may happen that the PARTapplicationServer cancels the search, because it would cost too much performance. In such a case an error message like: Wildcard search too general. Narrow down the search by specifying additional letters or numbers. is displayed.