I question Microsoft's documentation

[PIEBALDconsult]

Microsoft wrote:

You can use wildcard characters (* or ?), to represent one or more characters of a file name and to display a subset of files or subdirectories. The asterisk wildcard always uses short file name mapping, so you might get unexpected results. You can use the question mark (?) as a substitute for a single character in a name.

-- dir | Microsoft Learn[^] The question mark does not actually substitute for a dot/period/full stop (.) in a file name.

C:\Users\PIEBALD\AppData\Roaming>copy con foo_bar.txt
^Z
1 file(s) copied.

C:\Users\PIEBALD\AppData\Roaming>copy con foo.bar.txt
^Z
1 file(s) copied.

C:\Users\PIEBALD\AppData\Roaming>dir foo*bar.txt
Volume in drive C is Windows8_OS
Volume Serial Number is 528E-277C

Directory of C:\Users\PIEBALD\AppData\Roaming

2023-03-31 08:06 0 foo.bar.txt
2023-03-31 08:06 0 foo_bar.txt
2 File(s) 0 bytes
0 Dir(s) 28,516,610,048 bytes free

C:\Users\PIEBALD\AppData\Roaming>dir foo?bar.txt
Volume in drive C is Windows8_OS
Volume Serial Number is 528E-277C

Directory of C:\Users\PIEBALD\AppData\Roaming

2023-03-31 08:06 0 foo_bar.txt
1 File(s) 0 bytes
0 Dir(s) 28,516,675,584 bytes free

C:\Users\PIEBALD\AppData\Roaming>del foo*bar.txt

C:\Users\PIEBALD\AppData\Roaming>

As a further note, I have 8dot3 naming turned off on my personal system and I'll have to try this there. Tested on Win10 as well as this old Win8 junker.

[RainHat]

To be fair, they do warn you that the * uses the 8.3 filename. I guess the ? does as well. Use dir /X to get the 8.3 filenames.

[PIEBALDconsult]

Yet the 8dot3 names don't seem to make a difference -- it behaves the same whether 8dot3 names are enabled on the volume or not. Or maybe it generates 8dot3 names on-the-fly as needed but doesn't store them?

[Gary R Wheeler]

The documentation you cite was proofread poorly. They refer to "dir t97\*" several times rather than "dir t97.*".

Software Zen: delete this;