The question mark (?) is used to replace a single character in a string. For example the command ls d? would return any file that has two characters in the name and start with the letter d. The command ls ??d would return any files that end with a d and have three letters in the name. This metacharacter is also known as a wildcard character.

Examples

The following example will display all of the files that have a single character following the string chuck:

$ ls
Franklin Pig_Pen Snoopy Woodstock blankets blankets_6 chuck chuck_1 game genius marcy mud.puddles sally

$ ls chuck?

chuck1:
Cool_dog blankets baseball
dog_house feathers_6 bird

chuck2:
Flight Hero

chuck3:
Dirt mud
$

If no file name matches the wildcard character, you will
receive the following message:

$ ls z?
z?: No such file or directory
$