There are two wildcard characters: “*” and “?”. The wildcard character “*” matches zero or more characters in a name, and the wildcard “?” matches any single character in a name.

For example, you can use the wildcard expression “GD*” to refer to all objects whose names begin with the characters “GD”. The series GD, GDP, GD_F will be included in this list GGD, GPD will not. If you use the expression GD?, EViews will interpret this as a list of all objects with three character names beginning with the string “GD”: GDP and GD2 will be included, but GD, GD_2 will not.

You can instruct EViews to match a fixed number of characters by using as many “?” wildcard characters as necessary. For example, EViews will interpret “??GDP” as matching all objects with names that begin with any two characters followed by the string “GDP”. USGDP and F_GDP will be included but GDP, GGDP, GDPUS will not.

You can also mix the different wildcard characters in an expression. For example, you can use the expression “*GDP?” to refer to any object that ends with the string “GDP” and an arbitrary character. Both GDP_1, USGDP_F will be included.