Using Wildcards in Phrase Searches in Primo VE
Overview
Primo VE supports the use of wildcard characters within phrase searches enclosed in quotation marks. This allows patrons to broaden a phrase search while still requiring the search terms to appear together in a specific order.
Wildcard phrase-searching applies to both local Primo VE records and CDI records, providing a consistent search experience across all resource types. This feature is enabled out of the box for all Primo VE environments and requires no configuration. It is available in both Basic and Advanced searches, in both the Original UI and the NDE UI.
For general information about searching in Primo VE, see Performing Basic Searches in Primo VE; Performing Advanced Searches in Primo VE.
Until the CDI release on 5 August 2026, this feature only returns local resources. Following the August CDI release, CDI records will also be included in the search results.
How Wildcard Phrase Searching Works
When a patron encloses a search query in quotation marks, Primo VE treats it as a phrase search — returning only results where the terms appear together in the specified order. The following wildcard characters can be included within quoted phrases:
- Asterisk (*) — Matches zero or more characters. Can be used as a prefix, suffix, or in the middle of a word.
- Question mark (?) — Matches exactly one character. Can be used as a prefix, suffix, or in the middle of a word.
Wildcards in phrase searches behave similarly to how they work in non-phrase (unquoted) searches, but the results are constrained to match the phrase structure.
Wildcard phrase searching is supported with the Equals exact phrase search operator. It is not supported with other search operators, such as Starts with or Contains (exact).
Examples
The following examples illustrate common use cases for wildcard phrase searching:
| Search Query | What It Matches |
|---|---|
| "synchronized swim*" | "synchronized swimming", "synchronized swimmers", "synchronized swim" |
| "authori?ed access control" | "authorized access control", "authorised access control" |
| "behavior modifi*" | "behavior modification", "behavior modifying", "behavior modifiers" |
| "catastrophic failure*" | "catastrophic failure", "catastrophic failures" |
Considerations and Limitations
Performance
A wildcard phrase search conceptually expands to all possible terms that match the wildcard pattern. When the number of matching terms is small — such as "catastrophic failure*" — response times remain comparable to standard searches. However, when a pattern matches a very large number of terms — such as "cat* f*" — processing can take significantly longer. In such cases, Primo VE may return partial results to maintain acceptable response times. It is recommended to encourage patrons to use specific terms alongside wildcards in order to limit the number of potential matches and improve performance.
Ranking Differences
Wildcard searches use different ranking factors compared to standard searches. For example, in CDI, the ranking algorithm normally assigns greater weight to less frequent words. However, when wildcards are used, this frequency-based weighting is not applied to the expanded terms. As a result, search-result rankings for wildcard-phrase searches may differ from equivalent non-wildcard searches.
Support for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean
The * and ? wildcards are not supported for Chinese, Japanese, or Korean characters.