Linux wildcards and patterns

Wildcards and patterns are used in any of the file manipulation commands (cp, mv and so on)

Windcards

* - matches zero or more characters an file names

? - matches exactly one character in file names

Patterns

[pattern] - Matches exactly one character in the pattern.

Examples

ca[ls]

Any of those file names will match:

cal

cas

ca[ls]*

Any of those file names will match:

cal

cas

calls.txt

casts

Ranges

[g-f] - matches any files that starts with g,e,f

[2-5] - matches any files that starts with 2,3,4,5

Named classes

[[:alpha:]] - matches alphabetic letters in any case

[[:alphanum:]] - matches alphanumeric characters

[[:digit:]] - matches any digits from 0 to 9

[[:lower::]] - lowercase

[:upper:]] - uppercase

[[:space:]] - spaces, tabs and new line characters