Possible bug in SEarch command re wildcards

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

I'm programming an XPL routine to prepare things for the web, and I need to
eliminate email addresses in brackets, e.g., 

I found what seems to be a bug in the wildcard search, but maybe it's my logic.
I first define the line that has the email address I want to eliminate,
then search for the address itself (to define and then rubout define with
rd). I use:

se/s/f / /32A@32A>/
-- where the 32A is the wildcard sequence that's supposed to find any
alphanumeric string of characters up to 32 long. I know that a period is
not an alphanumeric character, but it doesn't seem to mind the periods
after the @. But if there's a period before the @, it comes back "not found."
So it finds  but not . It also
doesn't find 

How come sometimes it accepts periods and sometimes it doesn't?

Thanks,
Harry

Harry Binswanger
hb@xxxxxxxx