Question about *wildcards* (SOLVED)

AtomBomb

So I'm trying to define a whitelist in McAfee Groupshield. I understand that *@xyz* will catch bob@xyz.com and bill@xyz.net. What I'm wondering is will *@*xyz* catch bob@1xyz.org AND bob@xyz.org? Basically, can a wildcard be nothing? Would ROB*OT equal ROBOT or only ROB(something)OT?

Also, is there a good forum for me to ask all my goofy tech questions? I like this forum a lot, and there are lots of tech savvy people here, but I don't want to fill it up with my boring crap.

blincoln

It depends on the software. You'll need to do some testing to determine how this particular product behaves, unless it's in the manual.

PirateJon

I think so.

You should be able to spoof some emails to your server for testing.

DrFrylock

I believe that the use of the star in wildcards derives from the Kleene star, which indicates zero-or-more of something. So an empty string satisfies * under normal conditions.

embrik

In almost every case, * is a wildcard for 0 or more characters. Also, generally a ? is a wildcard for 1 character.

whuppins

AtomBomb wrote: »

will *@*xyz* catch bob@1xyz.org AND bob@xyz.org?

Short answer: Yes, unless your particular program is dumb and implements wildcards differently. But in almost any other application, a star wildcard can be nothing.

AtomBomb

Awesome, thanks guys. This can be locked.