what's a wildcard-like feature?

[Paul W Lee]

my assignment is Flight By Night. there is a requirment that like below:
"The user must be able to describe enter the string value "any" for the origin, destination, or both, so as to implement a wildcard-like feature. "
what is the "wildcard-like feature"? is it to use * and ? to replace more/one letter?
thanks.
Paul

[dx wu]

use "ANY" to replace any origin airports name or
any destination airports name ,I think
:-)

[Jim Yingst]

what is the "wildcard-like feature"? is it to use * and ? to replace more/one letter?
Yes, that's an example of wildcards. But note that the use of the word "like" makes this line somewhat vague, so be sure to check the rest of your requirements carefully to decide exactly what type of wildcards are necessary. Using "any" may or may not be sufficient. (I don't have FlyByNight myself, so can't help you there.)

[Paul W Lee]

actually, there is only one sentence about this. i am not sure what the exact meaning for that.
can any one who has done or doing it give more comments here?
thanks.
Paul

[Andrew Monkhouse]

Hi Paul
As Dongxiao and Jim mentioned, the "any" is a special value to indicate that all records should be returned.
For example, if you allow searching on the "Destination Airport", you could enter the value "SFO" to indicate that you only want to see flights arriving in San Francisco. If you want to see flights that arrive anywhere in the world, you would use the special value "any" as the criteria.
The "any" is the wildcard - it works in a similar way that "*" works as a wildcard in other environments.
The instructions use lowercase "any" - I think it is a good idea to code that way, since uppercase "ANY" is the airport code for Anthony Municipal Airport, KS, USA. If you use uppercase, then you are stopping that airport from ever being used.
I coded this way in my assignment.
Regards, Andrew

[Paul W Lee]

The "any" is the wildcard - it works in a similar way that "*" works as a wildcard in other environments.

it dose make sense.

The instructions use lowercase "any" - I think it is a good idea to code that way, since uppercase "ANY" is the airport code for Anthony Municipal Airport, KS, USA. If you use uppercase, then you are stopping that airport from ever being used.

so the search should be case sensitive. is it right?
Paul
[ June 25, 2003: Message edited by: Paul W Lee ]

[Andrew Monkhouse]

Hi Paul

so the search should be case sensitive. is it right?

I believe your handling of the entry "all" should be case sensitive.
Your instructions only state that the user should be able to enter "all" in order to get all records. Your instructions dont tell you how or where (client side / server side) to implement handling of that entry. So you may not need to have any code in your search algorithm to handle "all".
Regards, Andrew

[Paul W Lee]

Andrew,
for the search GUI, is it enought that only depature and arrival airports are the two search catalogue, or more search catalogue should be offered?
Paul
[ June 26, 2003: Message edited by: Paul W Lee ]

[Andrew Monkhouse]

Hi Paul,
I think some people have passed with only the origin and destination airport fields available as search criteria. This sounds logical to me, since these are the only two explicitly listed in the instructions.
However, there is an example of search criteria in the instructions:

"Carrier='SpeedyAir',Origin='SFO'"

This instruction has generated lots of discussion in this forum.
There are those that argue that this is just an example of two fields and their values, and has nothing to do with the assignment since one of the field names doesnt match.
There are those that made sure that they can handle the formatting (I am one of them), and there are those that have specified their own formatting.
And there are those that have taken the example of "Carrier" to indicate that they should have a carrier selection field in their as one of the search criteria.
Personally I had a Carrier drop down list in my selection screen.
I also wrote the code server side so that it would handle any column name (not just the ones mentioned), and I wrote the client side so that it would be only a few minutes work to add extra selections.
Regards, Andrew