Open Firmware wildcard characters

[James Cameron]

On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 12:02:54AM +0000, Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn wrote:
> I use: fs-update u:\*.zd and works!

Thanks, I had forgotten about this.  I've tested and checked the code.

It works with the FAT filesystem.  It does not work with an ext2,
ext3, or ext4 filesystem, except with the dir command.

This u:\*.zd is called a wildcard file specification.

There are two wildcard characters, the asterisk (*) and the question
mark (?).  The asterisk matches any number of characters, and the
question mark matches a single character.

The wildcard match algorithm for the asterisk works with a suffix
only, so 2*.zd will work, but *2.zd will not.

A wildcard can be used with the fs-update, flash, copy-nand, del,
emacs, and more commands.  Only the first matching file will be
processed.

However, there is a risk with these commands.  If there is more than
one file that matches, then the one that is opened will depend on the
position of the file in the filesystem, and not on alphabetic order.

If there is only one matching file on your USB drive, then the
wildcard is a useful shorthand.

When used with the dir command, all matching files will be shown.  The
first file displayed by the dir command will be the file chosen for
other commands.

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/