DOS Expressions

Character

Description

Example

*

Matches zero or more characters

Tower*London - file/folder with Tower followed by London in their name.

?

Matches any single character

*.as?x - files with a four letter extensions that begin with AS and end X, e.g. Page.aspx or Home.ascx.

<

Start of file indicator

<New - file/folder must begin with New, eg. New York Trip.txt but not My New Recipes.

>

End of file indicator

LA> - file/folder must end in LA, eg. Parks in LA OR Details.SLA but not LAMP.

;

Expands search by adding another allowable name/group

*.pdf;*.txt;*.doc - files with PDF, TXT and DOC extension.

:

Restricts search to only those with a specified name/group

*.pdf;*.doc:London - PDF or DOC files that have London in their name.

NOT:

Excludes a name/group from the search

NOT:*.dll;*.exe;*.sys - all files except DLL, EXE, and SYS files

|

Concatenate multiple search expressions

*.pdf:London|*.txt:Tower - PDF files with London in their name OR TXT files with Tower in their name.

"

Used to either quote semi-colon ';' character or specify word boundary

"LA" - file/folder with the word LA in their name, eg. LA Flight details.txt but not LAMP.txt.

Searching For

DOS Expression

Files/folders without any extension

*.

Only files/folders with the specific name Area

<area>

PNG, JPG, or BMP files with the word France in them

*.png;*.jpg;*.bmp:France

MP3 files with the word Rolling AND Stone in them

*.mp3:Rolling:Stone

PDF files with either the word London OR Tower in them

*.pdf:London;Tower

All files that are not EXE or DLL files with the word Flower in the name

NOT:*.exe;*.dll:Flower

Any TXT file with a semi-colon in it

"*;*.txt"