[fpc-pascal] findfirst wildcards...

[Ralf Quint]

On 12/3/2014 12:27 PM, Bart wrote:
> On 12/3/14, Ralf Quint <freedos.la at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On any DOS based OS (that includes OS/2 and Windows), the "?" wildcard
>> character will find any character, including no character at all in that
>> position. So in your example, t?.txt will find t.txt and tx.txt but not
>> txy.txt. It will not return any filename longer than your search mask,
>> but return shorter filenames. This is (should be) a functionality of the
>> underlying system calls.
> Windows.FindFirstFile however treats ? as exactly 1 character AFAIK.
> And is I'm not mistake this was also the case with TP in the old days.
>
I do not have a working DOS on my Windows 8.1 laptop here right now, but 
as long as I can remember, the "?" as always a match for "one or none", 
allowing for a shorter filename as the filemask to be returned. The only 
exception that comes to my mind though is a the combination of "??*.txt" 
for example, which would return all filenames at least two characters long,
A quick test in a Windows 8.1 command prompt:

  Directory of C:\Users\Ralf\x

12/03/2014  12:50 PM    <DIR>          .
12/03/2014  12:50 PM    <DIR>          ..
12/03/2014  12:49 PM                 3 a.txt
12/03/2014  12:49 PM                 3 aa.txt
12/03/2014  12:49 PM                 3 aaa.txt
12/03/2014  12:50 PM                 3 b.txt
12/03/2014  12:50 PM                 3 bb.txt
12/03/2014  12:50 PM                 3 bbb.txt
12/03/2014  12:50 PM                 3 c.txt
12/03/2014  12:50 PM                 3 cc.txt
12/03/2014  12:50 PM                 3 ccc.txt
                9 File(s)             27 bytes
                2 Dir(s)  324,408,578,048 bytes free

C:\Users\Ralf\x>dir ?.txt
  Volume in drive C is TI10673200G
  Volume Serial Number is 5E9D-3D3F

  Directory of C:\Users\Ralf\x

12/03/2014  12:49 PM                 3 a.txt
12/03/2014  12:50 PM                 3 b.txt
12/03/2014  12:50 PM                 3 c.txt
                3 File(s)              9 bytes
                0 Dir(s)  324,408,578,048 bytes free

C:\Users\Ralf\x>dir ??.txt
  Volume in drive C is TI10673200G
  Volume Serial Number is 5E9D-3D3F

  Directory of C:\Users\Ralf\x

12/03/2014  12:49 PM                 3 a.txt
12/03/2014  12:49 PM                 3 aa.txt
12/03/2014  12:50 PM                 3 b.txt
12/03/2014  12:50 PM                 3 bb.txt
12/03/2014  12:50 PM                 3 c.txt
12/03/2014  12:50 PM                 3 cc.txt
                6 File(s)             18 bytes
                0 Dir(s)  324,408,573,952 bytes free

C:\Users\Ralf\x>


























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