Wildcard commands

Wildcard commands are used when we are working with multiple files instant of a single file at a time. These commands uses '?' and '*' symbol.

The '?' wildcard character

Suppose we want to list out all the files and directories which have primary file name made of four characters and secondary name made of 3 characters. then here we use DIR command with following switches

C:\> DIR ????.???

Here a '?' symbol represent that ? can be a any character or it may be special symbols.

Suppose we want to list out all the files which primary field name made of  4 characters, the first character start with 'C' and secondary name is 'EXE'. Then we uses

C:\> DIR C???.EXE

The '*' wildcard character

If we want to list all the files with extension .EXE the the command we give is-

C:\> DIR *.EXE

If we want to display all files with first character 'D' and extension 'EXE' in floppy disk, then we give the command

C:\> DIR A: D*.EXE

Some Internal commands with wild card

COPY:-If we have to copy the songs from our CD drive to our Hard disk. Then we suppose E:\ is our CD drive and we have to store all the songs in C:\ SONGS directory.

C:\> COPY   E:\ *.MP3   C:\ SONGS

REN:- If we want to rename all the files which have extension of 'TXT' to extension 'MSG' then we give the command

C:\> REN  *.TXT   *.MSG

DEL:- If we want to erase those files which have the extension of 'TMP' from our disk then we uses the command

C:\> DEL  *.TMP
If we use /p switch the computer give ask every time before deleting the file. If we enter 'Y' the it will erase the file from disk either it will leave the file.