Practical UNIX

Commands that Allow a List of Filenames and Filename Wildcards

An earlier section in this chapter showed how to interpret the man page for any UNIX command to see if the command allows:

• a list of filenames

• just two filenames

• just one filename

• no filenames

Filename generation wildcards, the main topic of this chapter, are usually only used with commands that allow a list of filename arguments on the command line.

An earlier section showed how to use a wildcard pattern as a short cut for a single long filename. This is useful, even if the command only accepts one or two filenames.

If the command does not accept any filenames on the command line, then you should not use any filename wildcards with this command.

The following example shows that several ...