The Question Mark Wildcard

The question mark wildcard ? matches exactly one character. Unlike * which matches any number of characters, ? is more precise — each ? represents a single character position.

For example, if you have these files:

file1.txt
file2.txt
file3.txt
file10.txt
notes.txt

Using ? to match files with exactly one character after file:

ls file?.txt

Output:

file1.txt
file2.txt
file3.txt

Notice that file10.txt is not matched because 10 is two characters, not one.

Using multiple question marks:

Each ? matches exactly one character, so you can chain them:

ls file??.txt   # matches file10.txt, file23.txt etc.

Mixing with other characters:

ls ???.txt      # matches any .txt file with exactly 3-character name
ls img_?.jpg    # matches img_1.jpg, img_2.jpg but NOT img_10.jpg

When to use ? vs *:

• Use ? when you know exactly how many characters vary
• Use * when the number of varying characters is unknown