Search notes:

PowerShell: wildcards

Wildcards are used to select strings (or «items») that meet a certain pattern.

The list of possible wildcards is

`*`	Zero, one or more characters
`?`	Exactly one character
`[fqR]`	Matches one character if is is either `f`, `q` or `R`.
`[a-f]`	Maches one character if is in the range of `a` through `f`.

Wildcards can be used, for example, in

the -filter argument of get-childItem
the -like and -notLike operators

Wildcards are way less powerfull than regular expressions which can be specified with the -match, -nomatch and -replace operators.

No default expansion in most commands

Note that PowerShell won't expand wildcards when invoking a command as one might be used from other shells. The following command wll print the literal string *.ps1, regardless if there are any PowerShell scripts in the current directory:

write-output *.ps1

There are, however, a few comannds that do expand wild cards.

These commands can be forced to not expand wildcards by using the -literalPath option, for example in the cmdlet remove-item.

PowerShell: wildcards

No default expansion in most commands

See also