Wildmat

Wildmat patterns are used by this program only when refreshing the newsgroup

list.  All other searches use a boolean AND, OR, NOT searching.

The Wildmat Format

A wildmat pattern is anchored at the beginning and end of the line unless it is preceded or appended with a wildcard character.

* (asterisk) matches 0 or more characters.  alt.binaries* matches all newsgroups that start with "alt.binaries".

? (question mark) matches a single character.

A list or range of characters can be grouped in square brackets: [abcj-m] will match a, b, c, j, k, l, or m.  The dash may be included in the set if

it is the first or last character.  The closing bracket ] can be included if it is the first character.

^ (caret) is used as a logical not with a set of characters by including it just after the opening bracket.  [^a-c] will match any character other

than a, b and c.

Each of the special characters [, *, \, ? can be interpreted as a normal character by preceding it with a \ (backslash).  Two backslashes together \\ are treated as a single backslash with no special meaning.