I don't think this is a concern. For example, the below outputs as I would expect: data dsn; format str $50.; infile datalines dsd; input str $; i = index (str, ".A*,X,Y,Z"); datalines; "zzz.A*,X,Y,Zzzz" "zzz.Azzzzzzzzz,X,Y,Zzzz" ; run; Only the first entry is picked up by Index. If the asterisk (or a percentage sign, etc.) were treated as a wildcard, then it would pick up both rows. If you wanted to include wildcards you might consider using the REGEX functions like PRXMATCH() etc..
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