# Wildcard search with dash
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/wildcard-search-with-dash/210364
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [December 3, 2019, 2:05pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/wildcard-search-with-dash/210364 "2019-12-03T14:05:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@111220](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/111220)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2019, 2:05pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/wildcard-search-with-dash/210364/1 "2019-12-03T14:05:09Z")
I'm trying to write a query to find all data that contains a specific string with dash, for example:
"abcd-ehd".
however, using wildcard _abcd-ehd_ doesnt work because the dash is not translated.
if the data for example is elastic.ebcd-ehd.search, how can i extract it by using wildcard?
(I have tried using a single (\*) before and after the strring.)
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### Author:  [@dadoonet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/dadoonet)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2019, 2:23pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/wildcard-search-with-dash/210364/2 "2019-12-03T14:23:05Z")
Welcome!
It mostly depends on your mapping and the analyzer you are using for this field.
BTW In general try to avoid wildcards as this could be very slow.
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### Author:  [@htsr](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/htsr)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2019, 3:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/wildcard-search-with-dash/210364/3 "2019-12-03T15:48:53Z")
Knowing the structure of the strings you search for may be you should try to replace the dash with some _searchable_ character. This could be done with a script while indexing the data. A special mapping which takes this transformation in consideration would also be necessary.
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2019, 3:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/wildcard-search-with-dash/210364/4 "2019-12-31T15:48:54Z")
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