How is * interpreted on bash command lines?

Question

What would be output if we type something like this in our terminal

/home/user/some character with *

e.g.

/home/renga/i*

I pass a variable (home/renga/i*) like this in my script, in run time the value was passed along with a file name instead of /home/renga/i*.

It looks like you've answered your own question – Chris Davies Oct 08 '20 at 06:25 — Chris Davies, Oct 08 '20 at 06:25
see also: https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide/Patterns – ilkkachu Oct 09 '20 at 11:16 — ilkkachu, Oct 09 '20 at 11:16

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 09 '20 at 11:03

Yes, * is called a "wildcard" and it's mostly used as a symbol to represent one or more characters.

Consider your example (with added command from me):

ls /home/renga/i*

where the /home/renga directory is like this

internal
inspiration
auth
unknown
liar
i*

Thus your command will give an output like this:

/home/renga/internal
/home/renga/inspiration
/home/renga/i*

If you want to access the i* directory or file, you need to add a backslash, \, in your command, so the command is something like this ls /home/renga/i\*, and the output will list the i* file or the content of the i* directory.

You can also use a quote to avoid matching filenames. So it is would be something like this:

ls /home/renga/"i*"

You can read more about wildcards here

thx all..i just tried escaping the * as well as "*" ,both worked fine and thx for the explanation.. — Renga, Oct 08 '20 at 07:01

How is * interpreted on bash command lines?

1 Answers1