What to do if you want to search for an actual asterisk?

Since * has a special use in the search function (searches for "anything"), it wouldn't give the actual punctuation in the results.
If this sounds confusing, I'm talking about written asterisks present in stuff like comments, not one drawn on an image.

Most text fields support regex search, but you have to manually write it in the url. See this for an example of all comments with an asterisk in them. See also this wiki article for more details.

It's possible to search for a literal asterisk by writing \*. Example: https://danbooru.donmai.us/notes?search[body_matches]=\*bump\*

evazion said:

It's possible to search for a literal asterisk by writing \*. Example: https://danbooru.donmai.us/notes?search[body_matches]=\*bump\*

This works for single asterisk and asterisk+text+asterisk, but for some reason doesn't for single asterisk+text?

magcolo said:

This works for single asterisk and asterisk+text+asterisk, but for some reason doesn't for single asterisk+text?

Normally when you're searching text fields Danbooru will automatically add wildcards to the start and end of a term. If you include an asterisk in your search, however, it does not do that. Searching \*bump will then only include results that exactly match "*bump", of which there are none.

Talulah said:

Normally when you're searching text fields Danbooru will automatically add wildcards to the start and end of a term. If you include an asterisk in your search, however, it does not do that. Searching \*bump will then only include results that exactly match "*bump", of which there are none.

Can you add wildcards manually?

magcolo said:

Can you add wildcards manually?

Asterisks (without a backslash to escape them) are wildcards. Remove the second backslash from your "asterisk+text+asterisk" link for example.

Talulah said:

Asterisks (without a backslash to escape them) are wildcards. Remove the second backslash from your "asterisk+text+asterisk" link for example.

Thanks! It works now