FLP8.1 - Correct use of asterisk

Question

I'm using the criteria R6*212 in the Containing Text field to find matches that are in the order R6 followed by 212 on a different line. This is with "Boolean", "wildcards on" and "Across whole file" selected.
Surprisingly, it resulted in no matches.
More surprisingly, it showed no matches even if the two strings were on the same line.
R6* 212 produces matches but obviously isn't order dependent, ie 212 R6* gives the same result.
Any suggestions? I appear to be misunderstanding the use of the wildcard, unless this only works for DOS expressions, which isn't an option for Containing Text.

This is using FLP8.1 build 2682

Answer 1

With Boolean criteria the wildcard just matches within the word, ie up to a word break character such as a space or punctuation.

Your example:

R6*212

matches any word with R6 followed by (at some point) 212, e.g.

R6P00212

If you want to find R6 near to 212 use the NEAR operator, e.g.

R6 NEAR 212

Or if you want to find 212 AFTER R6 use Multi-line regex, e.g.

R6.*212