Input File Specifications

An input file specification consists of a list of one or more filenames, and zero or more file selection options.

Example (Windows)

> d *.tmp *.xyz -before=yesterday

The entire string *.tmp *.xyz -before=yesterday is a file specification.

The d (directory), dele (delete), and pu (purge) commands all accept a list of files like that.

You can give a list of files to cop (copy) or rena (rename) too, but then the list of files has to be enclosed in parentheses.

Example (Windows)

> rena (*.tmp *.xyz) old\ -before=yesterday

Example (Linux)

> rena \('*.tmp' '*.xyz'\) old/ -before=yesterday

If we had left out the parentheses in this example, we would have gotten an error message saying that there were too many parameters. rena expects exactly two parameters, one input file specification and one output file specification, but when the input list of files is enclosed in parentheses, it only counts as a single parameter.

The parentheses must be preceded by a backslash escape character under Linux.

If we had wanted, we could have placed the -before option inside the parentheses without changing the meaning of the command.

File specifications can be made arbitrarily complex using -exclude options and nested file specifications within parentheses.

Sticky Defaults

Under Windows, the command

> d alice.txt .doc ***\bob .html

will look for alice.txt and alice.doc in the current directory, and bob.doc and bob.html in the current directory and all its subdirectories.

If the sticky defaults were written out, the command would be

> d alice.txt alice.doc ***\bob.doc ***\bob.html

The directory path is seen as a single item when it comes to "stickiness". On Windows this includes the device name, if the filename contained one.

For example, if the current device is disk C:,  the command

> d e:\glindra\data\alice.* bob \temp\

has the same meaning as

> d e:\glindra\data\alice.* e:\glindra\data\bob.* C:\temp\bob.*

File Specifications As Option Values

When a file specification is given as the value of an option, such as -exclude, it must be surrounded by parentheses if it consists of anything more than a single filename.

Example (Windows)

> d -exclude=(*.tmp *.xyz -before=yesterday)

Example (Linux)

> d -exclude=\('*.tmp' '*.xyz' -before=yesterday\)

Note that the -before option only applies to the exclusion, and not to the file selection as a whole. This is because it appears inside the parentheses. The command will list files that were created before yesterday, as long as the have another extension that .tmp or .xyz, and it will list those .tmp and .xyz files that were created yesterday or today.