Managing filenames with path expansion

In this section, we will see the meta-characters and expansion technique that can improve file management efficiency.

File globbing

The bash shell can match a pathname based on some meta-characters. This feature is known as file globbing. The pathname matching capability was historically called globbing (also known as pattern-matching or wildcard matching) for managing a large number of files. It expands the meta-characters used in filenames and pathnames.

When using file globbing for matching filenames or pathnames, the meta-characters are replaced by the list of matching pathnames prior to command execution. The following table lists the pattern and its corresponding result:

Pattern...