Wildcards usage in d7x/KillEmAll

Wildcards are not supported in all areas of d7x or KillEmAll functionality.  Currently supported areas include:

• KillEmAll v5+ (stand-alone and d7x integrated) – Allowed Program Rules

Description:

A ‘wildcard’ refers to the same thing you might remember from a game of cards like a deuce, joker, or one-eye’d jack.  For our purposes specifically we use two standard MS-DOS compatible wildcard characters that are interpreted by the software and evaluated to match multiple file and/or directory names.

Unlike variables, when a wildcard is evaluated, the software doesn’t make determinations based on any variable criteria, none at all in fact.  Instead, the file being examined is ‘matched’ to the ‘file mask‘ you specified, which typically defaults to “.” in most any situation to mean ‘all files and folders.’

The Wildcard:  *  evaluates to zero or any number of characters

• Example:  “Some Program*.exe”
  • A program file named similar to “Some Program 2015 Suite.exe” can be matched by a rule like “Some Program*.exe” by removing the text that may change and replacing it with the * wildcard.
  • Likewise, the same rule “Some Program*.exe” would match “Some Program 2015 Pro.exe” “Some Program 2015 Expert.exe” “Some Program 2016 Hyper Edition.exe” and so on, or even simply “Some Program.exe” where the absence of a character is matched by the * wildcard.

The Wildcard:  ?  evaluates to any single character

• Example:  “Some Th?ng.exe”
  • This wildcard is more specific, and will only match files with a single character replacement, such as “Some Thing.exe” and “Some Thang.exe“

Wildcards can be placed at the beginning, middle, or end of the filename

• Example:  “*Program.exe”
  • Matches all exe files ending with the name “Program.exe” such as “My Program.exe” or “The Ultimate Program.exe“
• Example:  “Some Company*File.exe”
  • Matches “Some Company’s Old Program File.exe” as well as “Some Company’s Newer and Improved Program File.exe“

Wildcards can occupy the ‘file extension’ area to match multiple file types

• Example:  “Program.*”
  • Matches all file types with the name “Program“