Need a better explanation of {?} vs {*} vs {* }

[Erica Peers]

The docs about wildcards don't explain the difference between these wildcards very well in my opinion.

• {*}: this wildcard will match any text with blank spaces. Typically, it is used to match the text at the end of a card name or description.
• {* }: this wildcard will match a text until a blank space or the end of the text. Typically, it is used to match the text at the beginning/in the middle of a card name or description. When using this wildcard, make sure that you include a blank space in between the asterisk and the closing bracket.
• {?}: this wildcard will match the minimum amount of text.

What does "minimum amount of text" mean? For years my best guess was that the difference between {?} and {*} is that {?} doesn't match spaces, but I found that to not be true today. I have a Butler rule like this:

when a card with a name starting with "{?}-{?} {* }" is added to the board, set start date now and add link "https://blahblahblah.atlassian.net/browse/{wildcard1}-{wildcard2 }"

I would add a card with a title like "ABC-123 This is the Jira issue name" and it would add a link to https://blahblahblah.atlassian.net/browse/ABC-123, which is what I was aiming for. Today I created a card but forgot to add the ABC-123 before the Jira issue name, and the issue name happened to have a dash in it (let's say it was "Ticket name - testing 123"), so the link it added was something like https://blahblahblah.atlassian.net/browse/Ticket name-. So the first wildcard it found was "Ticket name", which has a space in it even though the wildcard is {?}, not {*}.

As a test, I created a card with the name "this is a - 232 test * 94823" which ended up adding a link to https://blahblahblah.atlassian.net/browse/this is a-

Then I changed the butler rule to look for a card with a name starting with "{*}-{*} {* }" and  created a card with the same name, and the link that got added to that one was https://blahblahblah.atlassian.net/browse/this is a-232 test *

So yeah... can anyone explain how {?} actually works?

[Vongsawat]

(preface that this is my own jank understanding through using Trello over the years)

My understanding is that, if there are multiple ways that a string would satisfy the pattern, {?} will always go for the version where it is shortest. Whereas {*} will go for the longest. Resolving from first to last.

Hence if the string is Mon-Tue-Wed
{*}-{*} will give "Mon-Tue" and "Wed"
{?}-{*} will give "Mon" and "Tue-Wed"

If there is only one way to satisfy the pattern, then they operate identically. so {*}-{*}-{*} and {?}-{?}-{?} would output the same, provided the string has 2 dashes.

----

I am less sure about {* }.. My understanding was that if there were multiple ways to resolve, it would always prefer to cut off at the first space. But after some testing, I find myself completely bamboozled, with certain strings matching {*}-{*} but not {* }-{*} depending on where I add spaces... so I threw up my hands ha