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Enterprise Definition Language › EDL Reference › Patterns

Patterns

A pattern is a name or path name constant that contains wildcard characters. You can use the following pre-defined wildcard characters:

'?' (question mark)—indicates a single character. For more information, see Question Mark in this chapter.

'*' (asterisk)—indicates a group of characters. For more information, see Asterisk in this chapter.

'#' (pound)—indicates a group of characters, including the “\” (directory separator). For more information, see Pound in this chapter.

Note: Some file systems allow * and # characters in directory and file names. To specify these characters in a path name within an EDL expression, you must precede them by a single quote. To specify DIR#1 use DIR’#1. If the path name already includes a single quote character, it must be preceded by another single quote.

EDL supports both the Novell and the UNC notations for patterns that refer to path names:

Notations

Paths

Novell

 
COMPUTER/VOLUME:D1D2FILENAME

UNC

 
\\COMPUTER\VOL\D1\D2\FILENAME

For a complete list of examples of how path names containing '*' and '#' patterns are parsed, see the online help.

The wildcard characters are used as follows:

Wildcards

Definitions

Question Mark

The question mark represents one character. The following examples illustrate this:

  • X? matches all 2-character names where the first letter is “X”.
  • A??C matches all 4-character names in which the first letter is “A” and the fourth letter is “C”.

Asterisk

The asterisk represents zero or more characters, excluding path name separators. The following examples illustrate this:

  • matches all names.
  • *.* matches all names that contain a period somewhere.
  • *. matches all names that end in a period.
  • X* matches all names in which the first letter is “X”.
  • A*C matches all names in which the first letter is “A” and the last letter is “C”.
  • \D1\*\D2\*.C matches all files with extension “.C” that reside in directory “D2” under any directory in root directory “D1”.

    The following files match the pattern:

    \D1\Y\D2\X.C, '\D1\Z\D2\XLS.C'

    The following files do not match the pattern:

    \D1\D2\X.C, '\D1\X.C','\D2\Y\D1\X.C'

Pound

Pound matches zero or more characters in directory names, including path name directory separators. The following examples illustrate this:

  • \D1\#\F.E matches all files named “F.E” in any subdirectory of “\D1”.

The following files match the pattern:

\D1\F.E, \D1\D2\F.E, '\D1\D2\D3\F.E'
  • \D1\#F.E matches all files named “F.E” in any subdirectory of “\D1”, including 'D1' itself.

The following files match the pattern:

\D1\F.E, '\D1\XF.E', '\D1\D2\F.E', '\D1\D2\D3\F.E'

You can use wildcard characters in any component of a path name: node name, volume name, drive letter, directory names, and file name. CA SRM interprets missing components in a path name in the widest possible way. The following examples illustrate this: