Which operator matches a substring within data fields?

• A. equals
• B. beginswith
• C. contains
• D. endswith

Answer: (C)

Substring matching is achieved with the contains operator. This option checks whether the specified pattern appears anywhere inside a data field, not just at the start or end or as an exact full value. It’s ideal when you don’t know the exact field value or when the meaningful string could be embedded within extra characters. For example, searching for contains "host" would match a field like "the host is up" or "host-identifier: 123", whereas the other operators behave differently: equals requires an exact match of the entire field, beginswith only matches if the field starts with the pattern, and endswith only matches if the field ends with the pattern. Thus, contains is the best choice for finding a substring within data fields.