.TH wildcards "" "" Definition
.PC
.PP
Wildcards are characters that, in some circumstances,
can represent a range of ASCII characters.
.II metacharacter
Another name for them is \*(QLmetacharacters\*(QR.
The wildcards available under \*(CO are as follows:
.IP \fB?\fR
Match any one character.
.IP \fB*\fR
Match any number of
characters, or no characters at all.
.IP "\fB[ ]\fR"
A set of characters enclosed between \*(Ql[\*(Qr and \*(Ql]\*(Qr 
match any one character of the set.
Sets of characters may include ranges, such as \fB[a\-z]\fR for all
lower-case letters or \fB[0\-9]\fR for all numerals.
.IP "\fB[! ]\fR"
A set of characters enclosed between \*(Ql[!\*(Qr and \*(Ql]\*(Qr 
match any one character \fIexcept\fR one of the set.
Sets of characters may include ranges, such as \fB[a\-z]\fR for all
lower-case letters or \fB[0\-9]\fR for all numerals.
For example, the command
.DM
	ls [!abc]*
.DE
.IP
prints the names of all files \fIexcept those that begin with
.BR a ,
.BR b ,
or
.BR c .
.IP \fB\e\fR
Ignore the special meaning of a wildcard.
.SH "See Also"
.Xr "egrep," egrep
.Xr "pattern," pattern
.Xr "pnmatch()," pnmatch
.Xr "Using COHERENT" using_coh
