The computer will display the B drive diskette’s directory, then remain logged to the B drive.

Wildcards

Quite often, when dealing with disk files, you may find yourself looking through directories for a particular file or group of files. MS-DOS has a way to help you sort out those files you want without having to read through the entire directory listing. This is through the use of “wildcard” characters. Wildcard characters are used to make a single command cover a number of similarly named files.

While MS-DOS provides several wildcard characters, the most one you will be using most often is the asterisk ( * ). The asterisk matches any number of sequential characters in a filename or extension.

For instance, to look at a listing of all the .EXE program files on your main system diskette, enter the command:

This will produce a directory that looks like this:

Using MS-DOS With Your Computer 4-27