Atom name wildcard

OVERVIEW

This setting controls whether or not PyMOL will respect wildcards ("*"). PyMOL automatically disables the asterisk wildcard for atom names in PDB structures read which contain asterisks in the atom name field (as many NA structures do).

USAGE

The following code will restore wildcard usage in PyMOL, if it has been turned off.

# allow wildcards
unset atom_name_wildcard, object-name

Please note, however, that PyMOL will then be unable to distinguish C2 in the base from C2* in the sugar.

If, before running the previous command, you instead issue the following command:

# change all '*'s in names to "'"
alter all, name=string.replace(name,"*","'")

or in PyMol 2.x

# change all '*'s in names to "'"
alter all, name=str.replace(name,"*","'")

you will be able to distinguish C2 from C2' and still have your atom name wildcards!