Search with Wildcards

[PaulD1]

Using a wildcard (%) in a Search with D365 connector is supported but, unless I'm missing something, it appears wildcards are not supported in either SQL or when searching within local collections.

Anoyone know of a way of getting wildcards to work with SQL or local collections? A Search should be translated to 'like' in SQL so I'm guessing the connector is actively escapting the % wildcard character which is a strange thing to do...

Wildcards really should be supported in these cases.

[iAm_ManCat]

Can't really advise on the SQL side, but for local collections have you tried an IsMatch and then used regex to perform the wildcard?

Cheers,

Sancho

[PaulD1]

Thanks for the suggestion @iAm_ManCat 

For the moment I'm experimenting with nesting multiple searches inside one another and splitting the search term on the wildcard character (in this case, a space).

If(
    Len(conSearchText) > 2,
    SortByColumns(
        Search(
            Search(
                Search(
                    Search(
                        '[cr].[Account]',
                        First(
                            Split(
                                conSearchText,
                                " "
                            )
                        ).Result,
                        "AccountName"
                    ),
                    Last(
                        FirstN(
                            Split(
                                conSearchText,
                                " "
                            ),
                            2
                        )
                    ).Result,
                    "AccountName"
                ),
                Last(
                    FirstN(
                        Split(
                            conSearchText,
                            " "
                        ),
                        3
                    )
                ).Result,
                "AccountName"
            ),
            Last(
                FirstN(
                    Split(
                        conSearchText,
                        " "
                    ),
                    4
                )
            ).Result,
            "AccountName"
        ),
        "AccountName"
    ),
    Blank()
)

 It has the benefit that the search terms do not have to appear in order, so search for 'A B Smith' would give 'B A Smith', 'Bob Smith-Allan' and so on. Down side is that if searching for 'M Simon' it will be just the same as searching for 'Simon' as it already contains an 'm'. 

Will see if this suits the user-needs, if not, will looking into IsMatch and regular expressions (though can't recall if IsMatch is delegable, and if not, it won't help as the dataset is large).

[iAm_ManCat]

Yeah, I'd only advise the IsMatch for local collections - definitely not delegable! (yet)

What you're doing at the moment seems the best way to go about it in the short term until more functions are made delegable 😺