The question mark "?" and the asterisk "*" have special meaning to Windows. They are called wildcards and are used in commands like DIR and the HTBasic CAT command in order to select more than one file. A filename with wildcard characters in it will be compared with existing filenames using special rules and all filenames that "match" will be selected.
These are the rules used to match an actual filename with wildcards:
The "?" character will match any one character in the same position of an actual filename. For example, the string "?AT" will match the strings "CAT", "BAT", "MAT", or any other string three letters long that has an "A" as the second letter, and "T" as the third letter.
The "*" character will match zero or more characters starting at that position. For example, "*" will match all filenames. "*.BAS" will match all filenames that have the ".BAS" extension.
