Metacharacters

Linux also supports wildcards (metacharacters)

• • for multiple characters (including ".").

• ? for single characters.

• [ ] for groups of characters or a range of characters or numbers. This is a complicated and_ve__ry_powerful subject, and_will_require further reading… Refer to “regular expressions” in your favorite Linux text, along with “globbing” or “shell expansion”. There are important differences that can confuse a beginner, so don’t get discouraged by confusion over what “*” means in different situations.