Bug 32578

Summary: Wildcard searches do not work with asterisk
Product: Koha Reporter: Esther Melander <esther.melander>
Component: SearchingAssignee: Bugs List <koha-bugs>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact: Testopia <testopia>
Severity: enhancement    
Priority: P5 - low CC: eb
Version: Main   
Hardware: All   
OS: All   
Change sponsored?: --- Patch complexity: ---
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Description Esther Melander 2023-01-06 17:13:16 UTC 
This bug is split off from bug 32491 and this is what I reported there:

Prior to our upgrade to 22.05, we could do searches like 2913*3456 and have it return results. After the upgrade this no longer works.

The % wildcard appears to work in the search example above. However the % as a wildcard is odd when compared with how other search indexes work. Most major search engines use either an asterisk or a question mark. The same is true with searching indexes at Ancestry or Family Search. The asterisk replaces multiple characters and the question mark replaces a single character. Most of our staff is accustomed to using an asterisk and trying to adapt to a different nomenclature and keyboard position has proven difficult.

Since the asterisk worked prior to 22.05, it would be nice to return that functionality.

Also Lucas Gass reported:

This also effects wildcard searches. Previously you could search for a cardnumber like '2913*' and that would return all patrons with cardnumbers starting with '2913'. Now it tries searching for the exact match '2352*' and returns nothing.
Comment 1 Elaine Bradtke 2023-12-12 17:38:51 UTC 
Just a comment that our staff also finds this to be a problem. We're about to go live with a new archival catalogue which does use asterisks as wild cards.  This is going to confuse users.
Comment 2 Elaine Bradtke 2023-12-12 17:39:55 UTC 
(In reply to Elaine Bradtke from comment #1)
> Just a comment that our staff also finds this to be a problem. We're about
> to go live with a new archival catalogue which does use asterisks as wild
> cards.  This is going to confuse users.
Comment 3 Elaine Bradtke 2023-12-12 17:48:55 UTC 
If you enter an asterisk in a "search as phrase" box it negates the 'as phrase' function and picks up the words separately.
It seems to work in the basic keyword (default) search box.  But not for numbers.