Q. Explain about wildcard character in DOS?
Sometimes you may like to list files having similar names. Let as suppose that these files are present in a root directory of drive C. now if you use the command - DIR C: CHAPTER.*, it will list all files from drive C that have the name UNIT. In the same way, to list all '.DOC' files from the default drive, you can use the command - DIR *.DOC. the character '*' used in these commands is known as the wildcard character. This character selects any name (where * is used) in the command. In the 1st DIR command (DIR C: UNIT.*) it will choose any extension name. in the 2nd command (DIR *.DOC), '*' choose any file name having .DOC extension name. the '*' wildcard character can also be used in another way. Assume the command - DIR WCHAP*. This command list all file names that start with WCHAP from the current drive. For example, it will list filenames, such as WUNIT1, UNIT 10.DOC, WUNIT_A.RAP, etc.
You can also use a different wildcard character - '?'.
C:\> DIR sale?rep
This command will list filenames such as SALE1REP, SALESREP, SALE_REP.rap, etc. that is, it will accept any character at the position of '?' in the DIR command.