How can I create search terms with wildcards in Python?

Use regular expressions and just loop through the file:

import re
f=open('test.file.here', 'r')

pattern = re.compile("^[^\s]*ello[^\s]*\sWorld[^\s]*$")

for line in f:
  if pattern.match(line):
    print line,

f.close()

I would usually opt for a regular expression, but if for some reason you want to stick to the wildcard format, you can do this:

from fnmatch import fnmatch

pattern = '*ello* World*'

with open('sample.txt') as file:
    for line in f:
        if fnmatch(line, pattern):
            print(line)

The * syntax you describe is known as globbing. It doesn't work for documents, just files and directories. Regular expressions, as others have noted, are the answer.