Wildcard Characters in Excel

Wildcard Characters in Excel (*, ?, ~)

Asterisk (*), Question Mark (?), Tilde (~)


A wildcard character is a special character which is used in Excel formulas to find matching text. It is used in functions where criteria's are used. Such functions are:

  • AVERAGEIF, AVERAGEIFS
  • COUNTIF, COUNTIFS
  • SUMIF, SUMIFS
  • VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP
  • MATCH
  • SEARCH

? is used for finding 1 character
* is used for any number of characters.
~ is used for special character. 

Example wildcard usage

Usage

Behavior

Will match

?

Any one character

"A", "B", "c", "z", etc.

??

Any two characters

"AA", "AZ", "zz", etc.

???

Any three characters

"Jet", "AAA", "ccc", etc.

*

Any characters

"apple", "APPLE", "A100", etc.

*th

Ends in "th"

"bath", "fourth", etc.

c*

Starts with "c"

"Cat", "CAB", "cindy", "candy", etc.

?*

At least one character

"a", "b", "ab", "ABCD", etc.

???-??

5 characters with hypen

"ABC-99","100-ZT", etc.

*~?

Ends in question mark

"Hello?", "Anybody home?", etc.

*xyz*

Contains "xyz"

"code is XYZ", "100-XYZ", "XyZ90", etc.

Example of * and ?:

 


In above example you can see we have used COUNT function in cell A11 which simply returns the total number of names in the list. 
In Cell A12 when we use COUNTIF function and give criteria of finding names with R. Here as we have given only 1 character R, it is returning 0, as there are names with character R but they have other characters also with them as Ram has R with am, Rajni has R with ajni. In Cell A13 when we use wildcard * with R it returns 3 as we have 3 names with R. 
In Cell A14 we have used wildcard ?, that too two times, so it is returning value 1 as we have only one name starting with R and having two more characters in it other than R, i.e. Ram in Cell A2.

Example of ~:

 

In above example in Cell A11 Tilde is used with character R for searching such text that starts with R and ends with ?. * is used for any number of characters in between. This results in 1 as there is only one such name in Cell A2. 
In Cell A12 R has been removed from the formula that means that name can start with any character but should end with ?. This results in 2 as there are two cells where ? is used after name i.e. Cell A2 and A9.

These wildcard characters can only be used with alphabets or alphanumeric values. The matter can in any form of text in a Cell. i.e. a single word or a set of words also. Eg. Ram, Shyam, Ram is good, Ram Nagar Colony, etc.



उपरोक्त दी गयी जानकारी को अगर आपको हिंदी में समझना है तो इस मैटर को गूगल ट्रांसलेट की मदद से आप समझ सकते है।  

इस  प्रकार की कम्प्यूटर सम्बंधित जानकारी के लिए हमारी वेबसाइट पर ब्लॉग लिंक पर क्लिक करें। 

द्वारा 
कुमार वैभव 
डायरेक्टर 
वैभव कंप्यूटर सेंटर एवं कंसल्टेंसी 
वैभव सदन, देवकाली रोड, 
फैज़ाबाद, अयोध्या। 
Center website: www.vccfzd1.weebly.com

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