Extension:Wildcard search

Early Mediawiki releases did not allow wildcard searches by default (e.g. a wildcard search for rabbi* will return pages with rabbit, rabbits or rabbi), but this can easily be turned on, see below.

This wildcard search is standard now, at least since release 1.12, if not earlier.

How to turn on the wildcard search in early MW releases?
It would be possible to do this by changing several lines in the Mediawiki code. However, this is not a recommended way, as it will create problems at future updates, etc. This 'extension' allows doing the same without changing the core mediawiki code.

require_once("$IP/extensions/wildcardsearch/SearchMySQLwildcards.php");
 * First save this file as SearchMySQLwildcards.php in a sub-folder (let's say 'wildcardsearch' ) of the extensions directory.
 * Then add the following to the end of your LocalSettings.php file


 * Note: The present code is for MySQL database type. For others changes are necessary.

Compatibility
For MW 1.8.3 remove  before   function declaration. For MW 1.7.1 remove  before   function declaration.

Change log

 * 11:29, 2 October 2007 (UTC) Fixed and removed code errors mentioned here
 * 08:56, 8 August 2007 (UTC) Fixed the code error mentioned here
 * 08:32, 10 October 2006 (JST) Made a minor change to make the code compatible with 1.7.1 version of mediawiki. Thanks to Lars Pontoppidan for the suggestion.