Does "<>**" Mean Something?

[SpaceYeti]

I'm looking through a database that needs to be updated, and I found a query with a criteria of "<>**" (without the quotations). As far as I can tell, the author was trying to find something which did not equal any string (or, any two strings?). I made a copy of the query and removed that criteria, and it seems to pull up the exact same information. I then made a query which would find any place the two queries would be different, and it returned zero rows. Is this a way to search for possible nulls without using "IS NULL", or something? I can't figure out what use this might have, or what use it might have used to have.

[CJ_London]

Not sure how you are getting the query to run - as written "<>**" will generate a syntax error, and if you enter the criteria is the query grid, access will automatically add the quotes "<>'**'".

So sounds like a more complete explanation of what you have is required - what is the field datatype being filtered? what sort of data does it contain?

I'd speculate the * are wildcards, but they only work with Like