Unlike the Unix shells (Bourne, bash, etc.) which expand command lines containing wildcards into command lines listing all of the matching files before executing the command program, A-Shell leaves wildcard processing to the commands themselves. The main commands that support wildcards are those that potentially operate on multiple files (eg. DIR, COPY, ERASE, RENAME, etc.). They are identified with an asterisk in the "Class" column of the System Commands List. Commands which support wildcards will also accept a comma-delimited list of filespecs, each of which may contain wildcards. Supported wildcards are:
Wildcard |
Meaning |
|---|---|
* |
Matches any full or partial token in the specified position. For example, *.RUN matches any filename with a RUN extension. Or AB*.DAT[1,*] would match any filename beginning with AB that has a DAT extension and is in the Project 1. When a portion of a filespec is omitted, it may act like the * wildcard. For example, DIR ABC is equivalent to DIR ABC.* (rather than DIR ABC*.*). |
? |
Matches one character. If multiple ?? are used together, then the combination will match between 1 and the specified number of question mark characters. For example, A?BC.?? Would match any file any file starting with A, followed by any character, followed by BC, and with any one or two character extension. May also be used with the [P,PN], e.g. *.BAS[150,27?] |
ALL: |
Special wildcard that matches all devices. For example, ALL:*.BAS[7,6] would match all files with extension BAS in [7,6] on any device. |
[] |
Matches any PPN. For example, ALL:[]. You may also omit one of the two parts of the PPN, such as [,0] (equivalent to [*,0]). |
Examples
Entered |
Result |
|---|---|
DIR DSK0:*.RUN[] |
look for all programs in DSK0: with a RUN extension, in any PPN |
.DIR ALL:*.1?[100,*] |
look in all devices, for all programs with an extension of 1, or 1 plus any character, in the PPNs made up of 100 with any programmer number |
COPY ARC:*.SAV = CUST*.DAT |
Copy all .DAT files from current directory with names matching CUST* to the ARC: device, preserving the original filename but changing the extension to .SAV |
