Examples: Wildcard Matching

To make a single character a “don't care” character that matches any other single character, use a question mark (?):

To match any string of zero or more characters, use an asterisk (*):

Specify	To match
i.c	main.c, list.c, and so on
st*.h	stdio.h, stdlib.h, string.h, and so on
*	All records of the specified class

To match any character in a list, follow one of these examples:

Specify	To match
[abcgk]	a, b, c, g, or k
[^abcgk]	Any character other than a, b, c, g, or k, such as A, B, d, e, f, or @.
[a-z]	Any character between a and z, inclusive.
[^a-z]	Any character with an ASCII value less than “a” or greater than “z.”
[Z‑]	Any character with an ASCII value greater than Z's, such as a, b, \, or ~.
[^‑A]	Any character with an ASCII value not lower than A's, such as B, a, c, or ~.