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Globbing

Globbing

Globbing definition

Globbing is using wildcard characters (asterisks and question marks) to request or evaluate sets of files with the same partial sets of characters. Globbing allows users to expand a search for non-specific file names. The two most common forms of globbing are using a question mark to represent a specific unnamed character in the file and using an asterisk to look for a continuous string of characters. Globbing can be used to search for file content or match filenames.

Wildcards explained

• Asterisk (*): matches any characters in a filename.
• Question mark (?): matches a single character in a filename.

Globbing examples

• A user may type an asterisk (*) to search for all files in the current directory.
• Typing “*.html” to search for all files ending in “.html.”
• Typing “*notes*” to search for all files containing “notes” in their name.
• Typing “../*” to find all files in the parent directory.
• Typing “some?file” to bring up all files, starting with “some” and ending with “file,” with one character in between the two words.
• Typing “*wise*” will find all files with the word “wise” in their name.

Globbing in hacking

Hackers may use globbing for denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. Because globbing can require many server resources to look for several different files, creating vague globbing commands can deplete server resources.,