DICOM PS3.4 2021b - Service Class Specifications

C.2.2.2.4 Wild Card Matching (Current)
Prev | C.2.2.2 Attribute Matching | Next

##### C.2.2.2.4 Wild Card Matching

If the Attribute is of VR of AE, CS, LO, LT, PN, SH, ST, UC, UR, UT and the value specified in the request contains any occurrence of an "*" or a "?", then "*" shall match any sequence of characters (including a zero length value) and "?" shall match any single character. This matching is case sensitive, except for Attributes with a PN VR (e.g., Patient Name (0010,0010)).

For Attributes with a PN VR, including the case of extended negotiation of fuzzy semantic matching, Wild Card Matching is implementation dependent and shall be specified in the conformance statement.

### Note

1. Wild card matching on a value of "*" is equivalent to Universal Matching.

2. The Wild Card Matching method specified by DICOM might not be supported by some non-DICOM multi-byte character text processors.

3. For multi-component group names, the component group delimiter "=" (3DH) may be present in the Key Attribute Value, but may give unexpected results if the SCP does not support matching on separate components but interprets the entire value literally. E.g., "*=*" or "*=*=*" may or may not return all strings, and hence is not equivalent to "*", nor to Universal Matching.

4. Attributes with VR of AE, LO, PN, SH and UC may contain wild card characters "*" and "?". Attempts to match on a string explicitly containing "*" or "?" will be treated as Wild Card Matching and thus may return multiple results rather than a single one. There is no mechanism for Single Value Matching on values that contain characters "*" and "?" for these VRs - such queries will always be treated as queries with Wild Card Matching.

5. Attributes with VR of ST, LT and UT are intended for conveying narrative text and may contain wild card characters "*" and "?". Attempts to match on a string explicitly containing "*" or "?" will be treated as Wild Card Matching and thus may return multiple results rather than a single one. There is no mechanism for Single Value Matching on values that contain characters "*" and "?" for these VRs - such queries will always be treated as queries with Wild Card Matching.

6. Attributes with VR of UR may contain wild card characters "*" and "?" as delimiters. These characters are reserved according to [RFC3986] Section 2. Attempts to match on a string explicitly containing "*" or "?" will be treated as Wild Card Matching and thus may return multiple results rather than a single one. There is no mechanism for Single Value Matching on values that contain characters "*" and "?" for these VRs - such queries will always be treated as queries with Wild Card Matching.

Prev | Up | Next
C.2.2.2.3 Universal Matching | Home | C.2.2.2.5 Range Matching

DICOM PS3.4 2021b - Service Class Specifications