DOS wild cards - technical definition

Wild cards are symbols that let you reference groups of related files. As in card games, wild cards take on any value. DOS wild cards are the "*" and "?."

The Asterisk (*)

The asterisk takes the value of any number of characters; for example, if you typed in:

                  dir xyz*

XYZ, XYZABC and XYZ3 would be selected.

To delete all files with a TXT extension, type:

                  del *.txt

To delete all the files in the current directory, type:

                  del *.*

The Question Mark (?)

The question mark matches any single character. For example, ?ABC would find 1ABC, 2ABC and XABC. Note that *ABC is not valid for this.

To copy CHP files that begin with CO, type:

              copy CO*.CHP a:

To list files that begin with CO and have an extension that begins with D, type:

              dir CO*.D*

Tip!

The dot is a shortcut for *.*. The following commands both copy all files to the B drive:

              copy *.* b:

              copy . b: