substring

In computing, a portion of a string. In searching a text database, for example, specifying that a sequence of letters is a substring will widen the search from just matching words to other words in which that sequence of letters appears. For example, searching a database on the string ‘computer’ will not retrieve entries which use ‘computing’ or ‘compute’. Searching on the substring ‘comput’ however, will retrieve all three. The technique adds flexibility when the exact syntax of the search term is unknown.