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Why am I getting no results when I use a wildcard in my search?

Symptom
  • A search for ("musical theatre" OR "musical theater") produces good search results
  • A search for (musical theat*) produces good search results
  • But when I group the words together in parenthesis and use a wildcard ( "musical theat*") I get zero results found
Applies to
  • WorldCat Discovery
Resolution

Wildcard truncation does not work with word index unanchored phrases; that is "words combined using quotation marks". Wildcard can be used with simple word searches or with anchored phrases e.g. ti=musical theat*.

    Caution: Truncation of words in a word index cannot be done when combining the words in an unanchored word phrase.     

    Guidance on this is pretty hidden in

    

Additional information

Our help page on Phrase search

More about Wildcards and truncation

 

Page ID
51882