Copyright Sams Teach Yourself Shell Programming in 24 Hours

Using the * Wildcard
The simplest form of filename substitution is the * character. The * tells the shell to match zero or more
occurrences of any character. If given by itself, it matches all filenames. For example, the command
$ ls *
lists every file and the contents of every directory in the current directory. If there are any invisible files or
directories, they are not listed. You need to specify the -a option to ls, as described in Chapter 3, "Working
with Files."
Using the * character by itself is required in many cases, but its strength lies in the fact that you can use it to
match file suffixes, prefixes, or both.
Matching a File Prefix
To match a file prefix, use the * character as follows:
command prefix*
Here, command is the name of a command, such as ls, and prefix is the filename prefix you want to
match. For example, the command
$ ls ch1*
matches all the files and directories in the current directory that start with the letters ch1. The output is
similar to the following:
ch10-01 ch10-02 ch10-03 ch11-01 ch11-02 ch11-03
By varying the prefix slightly, you can change lists of files that are matched. For example, the command
$ ls ch10*
generates the following list of files on your system:
ch10-01 ch10-02 ch10-03
You can vary the suffix until it matches the list of files that you want to manipulate.
Matching a File Suffix
To match a file suffix, you use the * character as follows:
command *suffix