Wildcard characters

Use wildcard characters when you want to specify multiple files with similar names in one command. Without wildcard characters, you must repeat the command for each file.

In a command, you can use wildcard characters in the file name or file extension only. You cannot use them to specify destination files, file systems, or server names. You cannot specify a directory whose name contains an asterisk (*) or a question mark (?).

Valid wildcard characters that you can use include:
*
Asterisk. Matches zero or more characters.
?
Question mark. Matches any single character at the present position.

The following table shows examples of each wildcard.

Table 1. Wildcard characters
Pattern Matches Does not match
Asterisk (*)    
ab* ab, abb, abxxx a, b, aa, bb
ab*rs abrs, abtrs, abrsrs ars, aabrs, abrss
ab*ef*rs abefrs, abefghrs abefr, abers
abcd.* abcd.c, abcd.txt abcd, abcdc, abcdtxt
Question Mark (?)    
ab? abc ab, abab, abzzz
ab?rs abfrs abrs, abllrs
ab?ef?rs abdefjrs abefrs, abdefrs, abefjrs
ab??rs abcdrs, abzzrs abrs, abjrs, abkkkrs
Important: Use an asterisk (*) instead of a question mark (?) as a wildcard character when trying to match a pattern on a multibyte code page, to avoid unexpected results.
AIX operating systemsHP-UX operating systemsLinux operating systemsOracle Solaris operating systemsMac OS X operating systemsNote: In batch mode, enclose values containing wildcards in quotation marks. Otherwise, UNIX shells expand unquoted wildcards, and it is easy to exceed the 20 operand limit. It is more efficient to let the client process wildcard file specifications because many fewer server interactions are needed to complete the task. For example:
   dsmc selective "/home/me/*.c"