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Shell Globbing ​

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Asterisk * ​

A wildcard that can represent 0 or more characters.

sh
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls
file1  file2  file3  File4  File55  FileA  fileab  Fileab  FileAB  fileabc File
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls File*
File4  File55  FileA  Fileab  FileAB  File
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls file*
file1  file2  file3  fileab  fileabc
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls *ile55
File55
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls F*ile55
File55
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls F*55
File55

Question Mark ? ​

A wildcard that represents only 1 character.

sh
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls
file1  file2  file3  File4  File55  FileA  fileab  Fileab  FileAB  fileabc
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls File?
File4  FileA
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls Fil?4
File4
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls Fil??
File4  FileA
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls File??
File55  Fileab  FileAB

Square Brackets [] ​

Match any one character listed within []. Square brackets can be used successively to match any combination of candidates.

sh
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls
file1  file2  file3  File4  File55  FileA  fileab  Fileab  FileAB  fileabc
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls File[5A]
FileA
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls File[A5]
FileA
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls File[A5][5b]
File55
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls File[a5][5b]
File55  Fileab
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls File[a5][5b][abcdefghijklm]
ls: File[a5][5b][abcdefghijklm]: No such file or directory
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls file[a5][5b][abcdefghijklm]
fileabc

You can exclude candidates by prefixing with !

sh
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls
file1  file2  file3  File4  File55  FileA  fileab  Fileab  FileAB  fileabc
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls file[a5][!Z]
fileab
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls file[!5]*
file1  file2  file3  fileab  fileabc
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls file[!5]?
fileab

Ranges are understood as well

sh
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls
file1  file3  File55  fileab  FileAB   fileabc
file2  File4  FileA   Fileab  fileab2
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls file[a-z]*
fileab  fileab2  fileabc
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls file[0-9]
file1  file2  file3
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls file[a-z][a-z][0-9]*
fileab2