This week I worked with two different customers, helping them locate data buried in a large system with hundreds of tables. In both cases I had to use the table filter method to help me find the correct tables. For instance, when we needed to find the vendors table we looked first in the V section of the table list. However, in the system we were using all of the tables names had a 2 character prefixes for a dozen or more different modules. It wasn’t clear which module might contain this table. So I added a filter to the list of table names shown in the Database Expert. This way only table names that contain VEND somewhere in the name would be displayed. It made it easy to spot the correct table.
To add a filter to the table list you need to go into File > Options > (Database Tab).

In the middle section you will see two boxes on the right, and the top one is for table filters. It is labeled [Table Name LIKE:]

In this box you enter the characters you are looking for with a percent sign before the characters and/or after the characters. This percent sign is a wild card symbol. So since we only wanted to see tables that contained VEND anywhere in the name we put in a filter like this:

%VEND%

If I wanted all tables that have TMP on the end I could enter a filter with only one wildcard, like this:

%TMP

The only downside I have seen when using these filters, is that it is easy to forget about the filters. It then takes a bit to figure out why the table list is missing or incomplete. So don’t forget to take the filter out when you are done.