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| Wildcards are symbols that enable us to perform an MS-DOS operation on more than one file at a time. A file specification that contains wildcards can refer to more than one file because it gives MS-DOS a pattern to match. |
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| MS-DOS searches for any file whose filename or extension matches the pattern. There are two wildcard characters: |
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| ? |
A question mark in a filename or extension means that up to a maximum of ONE character/letter/number can occupy that position. |
| * |
An asterisk in a filename or extension means that any number of characters/letters/numbers, (up to maximum of EIGHT before the dot, and up to a maximum of THREE after the dot) can occupy that position. |
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| NOTE:- |
| There can be LESS than the maximum number of characters/letters/numbers. |
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| For example suppose you had a directory containing the following files, |
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A.DOC
AA.DOC
AAA.DOC
B.DOC
A.TXT
B.TXT |
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| The following command and file patterns match some or all the above files:- |
| DIR *.DOC |
Is the equivalent to DIR ????????.DOC and matches the first four files (those with the DOC extension) |
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| DIR *.* |
Is the equivalent to DIR ????????.??? and matches ALL files. Use *.* with care e.g. DEL *.* deletes ALL files in the current directory, regardless of extension!! |
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| DIR ?.DOC |
Matches A.DOC and B.DOC |
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| DIR ?.* |
Matches A.DOC, B.DOC, A.TXT and B.TXT |
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| DIR A?.DOC |
Matches A.DOC and AA.DOC |
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| DIR A*.DOC |
Matches A.DOC, AA.DOC and AAA.DOC |
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