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About Configuring a Prompt to Accept a Percent Wildcard

Query prompts can help users limit the results that will be returned by the query. In some cases, however, users might not know what to select or type in a query prompt. This might be especially true if the prompt does not present a list of values and the user must enter the value as it is stored in the database in order to return any results.

To address this concern, you can configure a query prompt to accept the percent (%) wildcard. When a user enters only a percent symbol in the prompt text box, the query will return records where the field on which the prompt was built contains any value. When a user enters a combination of text and the percent symbol, the query will return records where the field on which the prompt was built contains a value that contains the specified text, preceded or followed by any combination of characters (depending on where the percent symbol is placed in the prompt text box).

Details

To configure a prompt to accept a percent wildcard, you must use the Like operator instead of the equal (=) operator in the expression that defines the prompt.

For example, suppose you build a prompt on the Asset Manufacturer field with no list of valid values. The expression for the prompt would look like this:

[Asset].[ASSET MANUF CHR] = (? :s :caption='Manufacturer' :id=Manufacturer)

If you want users to be able to enter a percent symbol in the prompt to return records where the Asset Manufacturer field contains any value, you can replace the equal operator (=) with the Like operator. The expression for the prompt would look like this:

[Asset].[ASSET MANUF CHR] Like (? :s :caption='Manufacturer' :id=Manufacturer)

When you run the query, you could enter the percent symbol (%) in the Manufacturer box on the prompt window. In this case, the results would display records where the Asset Manufacturer field contains any value.

Additionally, you could enter SEI%, and the query would display records where the value in the Asset Manufacturer field begins with the letters SEI, followed by any combination of characters, such as SEIMENS-AL and SEIGER.

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