In a keyword search, a symbol may sometimes be inserted in the middle of a search term to retrieve words containing any character in the designated position. The wildcard symbol may vary from one type of search software to the next. Example: In some databases, the keywords search wom+n (or wom?n) will retrieve records containing both "woman" and "women."
In OpenCrypt we use the 'Asterisk' character as a wildcard. e.g To locate user 'John Smith', you can search for 'John S*' or 'Joh*' or 'John S*h'.
Wildcards are symbols that add flexibility to a keyword search by extending the parameters of a search word. This can help if you are not certain of spelling, or only know part of a term, or want all available spellings of a word (British and American English, for example).
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