I have a Text box and the user can enter names like "*smith"

Where "john smith" and "thesmith" would qualify.

The regex is simple. But,does anybody have suggestions on how to interpret that into regex? are there any samples on the internet?

I searched and could not find any.

Nick

You can replace the "*" with ".*", prepend with "^" and append "$":

string regex = "^" + textBox.Replace("*",".*") + "$";

To check for a match, use:

if (Regex.IsMatch(inputString, regex))

...