# Wildcard datatype lowercase

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/wildcard-datatype-lowercase/245726>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [August 20, 2020, 8:14am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/wildcard-datatype-lowercase/245726 "2020-08-20T08:14:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![covolution](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/covolution/32/22840_2.png) [@covolution](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/covolution)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 8:14am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/wildcard-datatype-lowercase/245726/1 "2020-08-20T08:14:26Z")

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I am looking at the [Wildcard datatype introduced in 7.9](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/7.9/wildcard.html).

I would like to normalize it first by lowercasing and removing whitespace. I can't work out the syntax.

"normalizer" and "analyzer" don't seem to be supported.

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**Author:** ![Mark\_Harwood](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/mark_harwood/32/10538_2.png) [@Mark\_Harwood](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Mark_Harwood)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 9:00am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/wildcard-datatype-lowercase/245726/2 "2020-08-20T09:00:45Z")

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Hi Gethin,

> [@covolution](#):
>
> "normalizer" and "analyzer" don't seem to be supported.

Correct, they're not.  
The ngram index wildcard field uses behind the scenes lower-cases already but the verification phase is currently case sensitive. A regex query can be made case insensitive using `[Ff][Oo][Oo]` type syntax (which [many existing systems use today](https://socprime.com/blog/elastic-for-security-analysts-part-1-searching-strings/) ). Before long we hope to add a case insensitive flag to queries which will allow you to search with a flag eg `/Foo/i` and this will produce the same accelerated query as the `[Ff][Oo][Oo]` syntax you have to use today. However, given people query across legacy indexes and new ones I expect we'll see `[Ff][Oo][Oo]` queries in use for some time to come as people query across old `keyword` field and new `wildcard` fields with one common search.

> [@covolution](#):
>
> removing whitespace.

This would need to be removed as part of an ingest pipeline or could be ignored at query time using a suitable regex.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2020, 9:00am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/wildcard-datatype-lowercase/245726/3 "2020-09-17T09:00:48Z")

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