Wild cards are used to replace or represent one or more characters in a term, making the search query more flexible and efficient.
Performance Tips
Prefer ? over *
Prefer character range [a-z] over ?
Avoid using a search query like '*c*'. This will search through the whole data set.
When looking for singular and plural forms of short terms that have a common root, such as 'set', the * symbol may retrieve too many irrelevant terms, while the ? symbol may retrieve too few terms. In such a case, do not use wild cards and instead OR together the forms of the term you want, e.g., 'set OR sets'.
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