Q50075: Limitations on the Use of the ‘*’ Wildcard Character

Article: Q50075
Product(s): Microsoft Disk Operating System
Version(s): MS-DOS:3.x,4.x,5.x,6.0,6.2,6.21,6.22
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): 
Last Modified: 17-DEC-2000

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft MS-DOS operating system versions 3.1, 3.2, 3.21, 3.3, 3.3a, 4.0, 4.01, 5.0, 5.0a, 6.0, 6.2, 6.21, 6.22 
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SUMMARY
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The asterisk (*) wildcard character cannot be placed before a static string in a
wildcard search path. When the MS-DOS file search routines find an asterisk
wildcard character in a path, the routines fill the remaining filename field
with the question-mark (?) wildcard character. When this happens, any static
text in the filename following the asterisk is discarded.

MORE INFORMATION
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For example, the following wildcard string:

  FIL*NAM.*

is interpreted by MS-DOS as follows:

  FIL?????.???

This string finds all files starting with the character string "FIL" instead of
all files beginning with "FIL" and ending with "NAM" and having a non-specific
number and type of characters between "FIL" and "NAM." To find the files as
described above, three separate searches must be made. These searches are as
follows:

  FILNAM.*
  FIL?NAM.*
  FIL??NAM.*

Additional query words: 6.22 3.20 3.21 3.30 3.30a 4.00 4.01 5.00a 5.00 6.00 6.20

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Keywords          :  
Technology        : kbMSDOSSearch kbMSDOS321 kbMSDOS400 kbMSDOS320 kbMSDOS330a kbMSDOS621 kbMSDOS622 kbMSDOS620 kbMSDOS600 kbMSDOS310 kbMSDOS500 kbMSDOS330 kbMSDOS401 kbMSDOS500a
Version           : MS-DOS:3.x,4.x,5.x,6.0,6.2,6.21,6.22

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