public static boolean matchesWildcardQuery(String str,
    String query) throws IllegalArgumentException 
{
        int idx = query.indexOf("*");
        if (idx  > -1) {
            // We have a wildcard search
            if ((idx  > 0) && (idx <  (query.length() - 1))) {
                throw new IllegalArgumentException(
                    "Wildcards not supported in middle of query string; use either 'searchtext*' or '*searchtext'");
            }
            if (idx == (query.length() - 1)) {
                return str.startsWith(query.substring(0, idx));
            } else {
                return str.endsWith(query.substring(idx + 1));
            }
        } else {
            if (str.equalsIgnoreCase(query)) {
                return true;
            }
        }
        return false;
}