Name Masking

To help you more easily find information and process requests, you can use name masking. By substituting a name with the asterisk wildcard character (*), a character with the percent sign placeholder (%), or by using both together, it is much easier to find information and process requests.

Wildcards

A wildcard is an asterisk (*) character that can be used in a search string to represent the entire search string or the end of a search string. It represents any number of characters. When a wildcard is used as the only character of a search string, all members of the search field are returned. When a wildcard is used as the last character of the search string, the only members of the search field returned are those that begin with the characters in the search string preceding the wildcard.

You cannot have more than one wildcard in a string. For example, the statement ADD ELEMENT U*PD* would result in an error.

Examples: Use a Wildcard

This example shows how to use a wildcard as the only character in a search string. This command adds all elements.
```
ADD ELEMENT *
```
This example shows how to use a wildcard as the last character of a search string. This command adds all elements beginning with UPD such as UPDATED or UPDATE.
```
ADD ELEMENT UPD*
```
This example shows how to use the asterisk wildcard as the last character of a search string to select all package IDs beginning with PKG, such as PKGS, PKGB, PKGC, PKGB2, and PKGC5A.
```
PKG*
```

Placeholders

A placeholder is a percent sign (%) character that can be used to represent one character in a search string. It can be used at the end of a search string, multiple times within a search string, or both. When a placeholder is used as the last character in a string, all members of the search field are returned, beginning with the characters in the search string preceding the placeholder, but which have no more characters than were used in the search string.

Examples: Use a Placeholder

This example shows how to use a placeholder to add all elements with four-character names beginning with UPD such as UPD1 or UPDA.
```
ADD ELEMENT UPD%
```
This example shows how to use the percent sign placeholder to return all package IDs beginning with PKG, such as PKGS, PKGB, and PKGC.
```
PKG%
```
This example shows how to use the percent sign placeholder multiple times in a single search string to return all elements with five-character names that have the letter U as the first character and PD as the third and fourth character.
```
ADD ELEMENT U%PD%
```

Examples: Use a Wildcard and a Placeholder Together

This example shows how to use both the wildcard and placeholder to add elements with names of any length that have U as the first character, any one character as the second character, and D as the third character.
```
ADD ELEMENT U%D*
```
This example shows how to use both the wildcard and placeholder to select all package IDs that have P as the first character, any one character as the second character, and G as the third character, for example, PKGABCD, POGS, PIGGY, PPG1234NDVR, and so on.
```
P%G*
```

Valid Uses for Name Masks

You can use name masks for the following items:

On API list requests, name masking is valid on inventory locations (environment, system, subsystem, type name, and stage ID)
On CSV utility SCL requests, name masking is valid on inventory locations (environment, system, subsystem, type name, and stage ID)
Element names. However, element name masks are not valid under the following conditions:
- When entering a LEVel in a statement
- When using the MEMber clause with an action statement
- When building a package
Environment name masks are valid on the following:
- On API list requests
- On CSV utility SCL requests
- On requests for historical reports
- On SCL statements, only for the FROM ENVIRONMENT field of the WHERE COMPONENTS EQUAL clause
- On ISPF panels when listing elements, except that environment name masks are not valid under the following circumstances:
  - On Add/Update panels
  - On Generate panels, the option COPYBACK cannot be specified when the Environment name is masked
  - On any panels where environment name masking is allowed, the following list options are ignored when you mask the environment name: BUILD USING MAP, RETURN FIRST FOUND, DISPLAY SYS/SBS LIST
ISPF panels
System, subsystem, and type names within FROM clauses
Report syntax, except environment name masking is only allowed on historical reports
Package IDs
Parallel Development Option (PDM) does support name masks on CA Endevor SCM inventory locations (environment, system, subsystem, type, and stage)