Programming challenge: wildcard exclusion in cartesian products

[wkehowski at cox.net]

The asterisk '*' matches any sequence of elements, not just one
element. The wildcard '*1*2*' would then correspond to a tuple with a 1
preceding a 2 in any positions. The wc '1*2' would correspond to a
starting 1 and an ending 2 with anything in between. The wc *12* would
correspond to a 1 adjacent to a 2 with the pair in any position.
Possibilities like '*a*a*b*'  and '*a*a*a*' of any length are also
allowed. If n is the dimension, then any n-tuple wc is just a point. My
apologies for the confusion.