Can you use wildcards in Splunk search queries?

Wildcards are an integral feature in Splunk search queries, enabling users to create more flexible search patterns. By employing wildcards like the asterisk (*) and question mark (?), users can represent multiple characters or a single character, respectively. For instance, using an asterisk can help in retrieving events containing various characters, which is particularly useful for incomplete terms or when searching for multiple variations of a word.

This capability allows users to enhance their searches by including results that might otherwise be missed if only exact matches were employed. The ability to utilize wildcards empowers users to refine their queries more efficiently, thus aiding in the analysis of data sets with diverse and unpredictable patterns. This feature is especially valuable when dealing with logs or text data where certain entries may share common prefixes or suffixes.