All Include / Exclude rule lists are interpreted in the same manner. The order of the rules in the list does make a difference, and the algorithm applied is as follows : To decide whether an item should be included, the last rule that matches the item is used. If, however, the item matched none of the rules, it is included if the first rule was an Exclude, and excluded if the first rule was an Include. Here is an example :
(1) Include : A*
(2) Exclude : *N*
(3) Include : G*
For this rule list, the following items would be included : ALPHA (matches 1), GAMMA (matches 3), GAIN (matches 2, 3). The following items would be excluded : BETA (matches none, so excluded since first rule was an Include), AGAIN (matches 1, 2), NAG (matches 2).
As you may have noticed, you can use the "*" character as a wildcard in a rule and it will match any series of zero or more characters. For example, the rule A*ND* would match AND, ABANDON and ANDES.
For all rule lists where it would make sense, you can use the keyword "pages" to refer to all page files (where the rules for determining what qualifies as a page is set in the Pages section of the Inclusions / Exclusions panel).
Lastly, for several of the reports, you can also add a Sub Rule (or Sub-Include). These are used in hierarchical reports; see the next section for more details.
