Character(s)

 Limitation

[

This character breaks SSRS’s parameter logic by default.  It is replaced with an empty string whenever included in a filter. Do not use this character.

!, #, -

These three characters will cause no records to display when used alone within a filter.  Using these characters within a filter with other characters will produce the expected behavior.

*, ?

These character will cause every record to display when used alone within a filter.  When used with other characters in a filter, this character is treated as a wildcard.  If you wanted to filter down to “TheBest” and “TheRest”, you would filter on “The*est” or “The?est”.

Character(s)

Limitation

[

This character breaks SSRS’s parameter logic by default.  It is replaced with an empty string whenever included in a filter. Do not use this character.

%

When applying a filter, this character acts as a string wildcard.  Using % at the beginning of a filter will result in all records that end with your filter (%EST results in BEST and TEST).  Using % at the end of a filter will result in all records that begin with your filter (TE% results in TEST and TEMP, etc).  Using two % characters wrapped around a string will result in any record that contains your filter (%ES% will result in TEST, REST, PROGRESS, etc)

_

When applying a filter, this character acts as a character wildcard.  Using _ anywhere in a filter will result in any records that matches your filter with any character in the place of any _ characters ( T_T will not display TEST, but it would display TOT.  To display TEST, use T__T with two underscore characters)

SPACE

Using the SPACE character by itself will result in no filter being applied.  To filter down to records that contain a SPACE character, filter the SPACE character in conjunction with other characters.  If you are only looking for the SPACE character, filter on the SPACE character in conjunction with either the % character or the _ character.

<

When a record is displayed, any string containing the < character that is not sandwiched between two SPACE characters will only display until the < character due to the HTML-based nature of the SSRS Reporting engine.

UNICODE

Unicode characters within filters may not be interpreted properly.  To avoid confusion, avoid using Unicode characters within filters whenever possible.