Lisp : Wildcard Search

A wildcard character is a special character that represents one or more other characters. The most commonly used wildcard characters are the asterisk (*), which typically represents zero or more characters in a string of characters, and the question mark (?), which typically represents any one character. Wild card search is a great trick to maximize your search results in a drawing.  

So I have made a lisp named wildcard lisp that utilizes these search criteria’s to change properties or remove specific text or specific range or texts.

Wildcard lisp is similar to quick select option in AutoCAD this lisp helps more convenient and simple and multiple search can be added with comma “,” e.g.: (A*, C*, 5*, etc.). The below table helps how to use character’s in wildcard search.

It is very useful to remove some specific range of levels from existing survey levels drawings. Normally it will take lot of man hours with this lisp we can save more than 60% of man hours.

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Character’s and their Definitions.

Character	Definitions
# (Pound)	Matches any numeric digit
@ (At)	Matches any alphabetic character
. (Period)	Matches any non-alphanumeric character
* (Asterisk)	Matches any string and can be used anywhere in the search string
? (Question mark)	Matches any single character; for example, ?BC matches ABC, 3BC, and so on
~ (Tilde)	Matches anything but the pattern; for example; ~*AB*matches all strings that don’t contain AB
[ ]	Matches any one of the characters enclosed; for example, [AB]C matches AC and BC
[~]	Matches any character not enclosed; for example, [~AB]C matches XC but not AC
[-]	Specifies a range for a single character; for example, [A-G]C matches AC, BC, and so on to GC, but not HC
` (Reverse quote)	Reads the next character literally; for example, `~AB matches ~AB.

Steps :

• Load Wildcard Search Lisp
• Type Command “WS” to invoke

• Type Command “WS?” to View Characters and definitions table.

Similar Tip : Select Text by Contents