Special Features in DOS

Wildcards

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.

MS-DOS searches for any file whose filename or extension matches the pattern. There are two wildcard characters:

? 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.

NOTE:-

There can be LESS than the maximum number of characters/letters/numbers.

For example suppose you had a directory containing the following files,

A.DOC AA.DOC AAA.DOC B.DOC A.TXT B.TXT

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)   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!!   DIR ?.DOC Matches A.DOC and B.DOC   DIR ?.* Matches A.DOC, B.DOC, A.TXT and B.TXT   DIR A?.DOC Matches A.DOC and AA.DOC   DIR A*.DOC Matches A.DOC, AA.DOC and AAA.DOC