Using Wildcard Characters To Access More Than One File; Reserved Characters - Commodore 128D User Manual

i 1
If you want to return to the normal A> prompt, you simply enter the
USER command, like this: ~—
The screen prompts you to: p-f
ENTER USER #: ^
If you then enter a 0, the screen prompt returns to the A> format.
Most commands can access only those files that have the current
user number. However, if a file resides in user 0 and is marked with a
system file attribute, the file can be accessed from any user number.
Using Wildcard Characters to Access More Than One File
Certain CP/M 3.0 built-in and transient commands can select and
process several files when special wildcard characters are included
in the filename or f iletype. A wildcard is a character that can be used
in place of some other characters. CP/M 3.0 uses the asterisk (*) and
the question mark (?) as wildcards. For instance, if you use a ? as the
third character in a filename, you are telling CP/M to let the ? stand
for any character that may be encountered in that position. Similarly,
an * tells CP/M to fill the filename with ? question marks as indicated.
A file specification containing wildcards is called an ambiguous files-
pec and can refer to more than one file, because it gives CP/M 3.0 a
pattern to match. CP/M 3.0 searches the disk directory and selects
any file whose filename or filetype matches the pattern. For exam
ple, if you type:
A> ?????TAX.LIB
then CP/M 3.0 selects all files whose filename end in TAX and whose
filetype is .LIB.
Reserved Characters
The characters in Table 12-1 have special meaning in CP/M 3.0, so
do not use these characters in file specifications except as indi
cated.
196 USING CP/M MODE—Files, Disks and Disk Drives in CP/M 3.0