How to search for files using wildcards * and ?.

Question

Hi All,
I've been searching the forum for a couple of hours now and have been unable to find a good example of how to search a directory (Windows OS) for a file using wildcards * and/or ?. Does anyone out there have a good example that they can share with me?
Thanks

Answer 1

Hi All,
First of all I want to thank everyone for taking the time to respond to my question. All of your responses where greatly appreciated.
I took the example code that was posted by rkconner, thanks rkconner, and modified it to allow me to search for files in a directory that contain * and/or ?. Yes, I said and/or! Meaning that you can use them both in the same file name, example: r??d*.t* would find readme.txt.
I've posed my complete and thoroughly document code below. I hope it is very helpful to other as I have searched many forums and spent many hours today trying to resolve this problem.
Enjoy
* File Name: WildcardSearch.java
* Date: Jan 9, 2004
* This class will search all files in a directory using the
* asterisk (*) and/or question mark (?) as wildcards which may be
* used together in the same file name.  A File [] is returned containing
* an array of all files found that match the wildcard specifications.
* Command line example:
* c:\>java WildcardSearch c:\windows s??t*.ini
* New sWild: s.{1}.{1}t.*.ini
* system.ini
* Command line break down: Java Program = java WildcardSearch
*                          Search Directory (arg[0]) = C:\Windows
*                          Files To Search (arg[1]) = s??t*.ini
* Note:  Some commands will not work from the command line for arg[1]
*        such as *.*, however, this will work if you if it is passed
*        within Java (hard coded)
* @author kmportner
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FilenameFilter;
public class WildcardSearch
     private static String sWild = "";
      * @param args - arg[0] = directory to search, arg[1] = wildcard name
     public static void main(String[] args)
          String sExtDir = args[0]; // directory to search
          sWild = args[1];   // wild card to use - example: s??t*.ini
          sWild = replaceWildcards(sWild);
          System.out.println("New sWild: " + sWild);
          File fileDir = new File(sExtDir);
          File[] arrFile = fileDir.listFiles(new FilenameFilter()
               public boolean accept(File dir, String name)
                    return (name.toLowerCase().matches(sWild));
          for (int i = 0; i < arrFile.length; ++i)
               System.out.println(arrFile.getName());
     }     // end main
     * Checks for * and ? in the wildcard variable and replaces them correct
     * pattern characters.
     * @param wild - Wildcard name containing * and ?
     * @return - String containing modified wildcard name
     private static String replaceWildcards(String wild)
          StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer();
          char [] chars = wild.toCharArray();
          for (int i = 0; i < chars.length; ++i)
               if (chars[i] == '*')
                    buffer.append(".*");
               else if (chars[i] == '?')
                    buffer.append(".{1}");
               else
                    buffer.append(chars[i]);
          return buffer.toString();
     }     // end replaceWildcards method
}     // end class