Why does "dir .~" list files in a way different to what is expected?

Question

In my directory I have the files files

When I issue the command dir \*.*~ it should say 'File not found' as it does at my friend's laptop. But on my machine it lists the file x.plugin.

Actually after a while of trying I found out that it lists all files with extension longer than 3 characters.

Anybody heard about this behavior before?

yes it is. and it must be quite a new behavior, as it used to work correctly (means only files like x.bak~ being returned for the supplied wildcard) — rezna, Commented Oct 19, 2012 at 9:18
Windows 7 extends the way you can use wildcards (check this answer). But adding a tilde (~) at the end doesn't seem supported, so the result may be undefined, as you're getting. Adding it at the beginning of the query should tell Win 7 to use DOS style syntax for wildcards (but the tilde itself will be ignored). — vgru, Commented Oct 19, 2012 at 9:23
@Groo: AQS does not seem to be supported at all by the dir command though. — Marcks Thomas, Commented Oct 19, 2012 at 9:53
XP I just get file not found. Even when extension is over 3 char. And even when there are files starting with ~ , and even when there's a file with both features ~df.adfdfd it says File Not Found. What even caused you to do dir *.*~ ? — barlop, Commented Oct 19, 2012 at 9:56

phuclv · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-06 04:11:49Z

1

Seeing the command dir *.*~, I would assume it lists all files in the directory.

The * placeholder means 'any number of any character'.

If you want to find all files ending in xx~, I would use the command dir *.??~. The '?' means 'any one character'.

At least, this used to be so in the 'old' DOS days...

phuclv

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answered Oct 19, 2012 at 9:27

user80393

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this used to work - and still it works on my friend's machines *.*~ returns all files who's extension ends with '~' - this means, lists all backup files which for example jEdit creates
– rezna
Commented Oct 19, 2012 at 10:48
@rezna does your friend have a different cmd.exe ? like a different size? (as the dir command is within that file), so i'm wondering if he has a different dir command.
– barlop
Commented Oct 22, 2012 at 15:59

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