WILDCARDS
1
Wildcard Meaning
* Matches any characters
? Matches any single character
[characters] Matches any character that is a member of the set characters
[!characters] Matches any character that is not a member of the set characters
[[:class:]] Matches any character that is a member of the specified class
2
Character Class Meaning
[:alnum:] -->[0-9,a-z,A-Z]
[:alpha:] -->[a-z,A-Z]
[:digit:] -->[0-9]
[:lower:] Matches any lowercase letter
[:upper:] Matches any uppercase letter
3
* All files
g* Any file beginning with “g”
b*.txt Any file beginning with “b” followed by any characters and ending with “.txt”
Data??? Any file beginning with “Data” followed by exactly three characters
[abc]* Any file beginning with either an “a”, a “b”, or a “c”
BACKUP.[0-9][0-9][0-9] Any file beginning with “BACKUP.” followed by exactly three numerals
[[:upper:]]* Any file beginning with an uppercase letter
[![:digit:]]* Any file not beginning with a numeral
*[[:lower:]123] Any file ending with a lowercase letter or the numerals “1”, “2”, or “3”
Reference
The Linux® Command Line
William E. Shotts, Jr.
A LinuxCommand.org Book
Page 31