# Using Wildcards

Topic phrases can include wildcards to represent specific phrases, characters, or words.

Wildcards are symbols that represent the data you are looking for. For example, a zip code is represented by [zipcode].

SMART supports two types of wildcards

- Specific wildcard: represents specific information (for example, zip code). When SpeechMiner identifies a specific wildcard such as [zipcode], it replaces the wildcard with the actual zip code. When using a specific wildcard you must add text before or after the wildcard. For example, [date] on its own is not valid.
- General wildcard [*]: represents general information. The General Wildcard cannot be entered at the end or at the start of a sentence, it must be entered between words. For example, "I want to speak with [*] please". In this case, the phrase will be recognized if the interaction included "I want to speak with your supervisor please", "I want to speak with an agent please", etc. When SpeechMiner identifies a general wildcard, it replaces the wildcard with "...".

Wildcards give you greater flexibility in defining phrases, because they allow you to include general types of content within a phrase.

The following wildcards are supported for the languages represented in the table:

Wildcard | Description | American English | Latin American Spanish | European Spanish | UK English | European French | German | Brazilian Portuguese | Catalan | Austrailian English
--- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---
[*] | General Wildcard | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x
[abn] | Australian Business Number |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | x
[alphanum] | Any alphanumeric string | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x
[boolean] | Affirmation/Negation | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x
[ccexpdate] | Credit card expiry date | x | x | x | x | x | x | x |  | x
[creditcard] | Type of credit card and credit card number (optional) | x | x | x | x | x | x | x |  | x
[crn] | Customer Reference Number |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | x
[currency] | Type of currency | x | x | x | x | x | x | x |  | x
[date] | Date | x | x | x | x | x | x | x |  | x
[national_insurance] | National Insurance Number |  |  |  | x |  |  |  |  |
[number] | Any number | x | x | x | x | x | x | x |  | x
[phone] | Phone Number | x | x | x | x | x | x | x |  | x
[postcode] | Postal Code Number |  |  |  | x | x | x | x |  |
[socialsecurity] | Social Security number | x |  |  |  | x |  |  |  |
[time] | Time | x | x | x | x | x | x | x |  | x
[zipcode] | Zip code | x | x | x |  |  |  |  |  |

#### Related Topics

Create a Topic
Add Topic Terms
Assign Topic Keywords