The asterisk is used at the end of a string of characters to indicate that the rest
of the name is insignificant. For example:
FIL* could refer to files named
FIL
or FILE1
or FILEDATA
or FILLER
or any other file name starting with the letters FIL.
The question mark may be used anywhere within the string of characters to
indicate that the character in that particular position should be disregarded. For
example:
?????.SRC could refer to files named
TSTER.SRC
or DIAGN.SRC
or PROGR.SRC
but not SRC.FILES
Both the characters and the position of the characters are significant.
The question mark and asterisk may be combined in many ways:
*J??????
does not make sense because the question marks are in an area which is
insignificant (because of the asterisk).
P???FIL* will access files with the names
PET FILE
or PRG FILE-32
or POKEFILES$$
or any other files starting with P and having FIL in positions 5-7.
SCRATCH with pattern matching should be used carefully, since multiple files
will be scratched. LOAD or DLOAD will load the first file which fits the pattern
matching. OPEN or DOPEN with pattern matching may be used to open an
existing file, in which case the first existing file encountered which fits the
description will be opened. However, OPEN or DOPEN should not be used
with pattern matching when creating a new file. Never use RENAME, SAVE,
DSAVE, or COPY for pattern matching since an error condition will result, if
attempted.
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