Combining Wildcards

The real power of wildcards comes when you combine them together. You can mix *, ? and [] in a single pattern to create very precise file matching.

Given this filesystem:

photo_1.jpg
photo_2.jpg
photo_10.jpg
photo_1.png
photo_2.png
report_1.txt
report_2.txt
notes.txt

Combining * and []:

List all image files (both .jpg and .png):

ls *.{jpg,png}    # using brace expansion
ls *.[jp]*        # matches .jpg, .png, .jpeg etc.

Combining ? and []:

List only single-digit photo files:

ls photo_[0-9].jpg   # matches photo_1.jpg and photo_2.jpg only

Combining all three:

Match any report file with a single digit:

ls *_[0-9].txt     # matches report_1.txt and report_2.txt

Match files that start with any letter followed by specific characters:

ls [pr]*_?.txt    # starts with p or r, then anything, then underscore, one char, .txt

Using wildcards with other commands:

Move all single-digit jpg photos into a folder:

mv photo_[0-9].jpg archive/

Delete all .log files from any subfolder:

rm */*.log