The asterisk (*) stands for any sequence of zero or more characters, except a leading dot. You can use the asterisk in file names. For example:

ls aa*

lists all files in the working directory with names that begin with aa.

The command:

mv *.c dir1/dir2

moves every file with the .c suffix from your working directory to the directory dir1/dir2.

You can use the * wildcard character in directory names as well as in file names. For example:

cat */*.c

displays the contents of all files that have the .c suffix, in directories under your working directory.