Two types of patterns can exist in the autoaction database:

Standard Patterns

Standard patterns use only spaces (the default delimiter) to separate the tokens of a system message. The majority of system messages can be matched by standard patterns.

Standard patterns can contain a distinguishing token, called a keyword token. AMS processes standard patterns with keywords more efficiently than standard patterns without keywords. Standard patterns without keywords, although processed less efficiently, offer other advantages for pattern matching. Like standard patterns with keywords, they use default delimiters and check the number of tokens in the message by default.

Nonstandard Patterns

A nonstandard pattern uses delimiters specified in a delimiter list or in a delimiter set in the pattern. AMS checks for message matches to nonstandard patterns only after it has checked for matches against all standard patterns.