Finding Stuff

[coolcat]

I seem to be having some trouble with the basics - just finding stuff.

My goal is to find just the records that BEGIN with 3 dashes ... ( some records have three dashes in the center of the text somewhere - which I do not want)...

- using the find command - I will enter:

“---“*

I am expecting to find records in this field that start with 3 dashes - But I will also find those with 3 dashes not at the beginning

Q: how can I search for just those records that BEGIN with 3 dashes only?

[mz123]

Hey There,

Search the following

=="---"*

That should do it!

Martha

[coolcat]

That worked great - Thanks soooo much!

[coolcat]

Thanks Martha,

Your suggestion worked great.

But I'd like to know why *".mp3" - or *.mp3 - dosen't work right... please see below...

- - -

I'm getting some surprising behavior (at least to me) using the find command.

Basically, I'm looking to find all items that end with .mp3 - so:

==*".mp3" - this gets 7 items (as you said)

*".mp3" - or *.mp3 - this gets 4 items

- When I search for: *".mp3" - and then I show omitted records - I can see that the ones it did not find - before the .mp3 - all have either a number or a space like:

"1.mp3" or "file .mp3"

- So the * - which states that it is to be used to find " zero or more characters" - does not seem to be working as expected - is it?

Q: Can you explain this to me?

[comment]

When you search for *mp3, it looks for WORDS that start with zero or more unknown characters, followed by the characters .mp3.

Note that "a.mp3" is one word, but "1.mp3" is two words.

Therefore, "1.mp3" will not be found, because the string "mp3" is in the SECOND word, and that word starts with the character "m", not with a period (which serves as word separator in this case).