Wildcards and Mint (noob problems)
 

I am trying to use wildcards with the ls command in mint, but it doesn't like them...

When I try 'ls f??g' I get the error
'ls: cannot access f??G: No such file or directory'

I can use the * wildcard, it seems to work fine. The ? wildcard doesn't work at all.

Is there something I should know about mint and its use of wildcards?

I know, I know, total noob question!

Hallo neveser
I am afraid your problem does not relate to mint. It relates to how reg expression works.
What you will match is a file name that must start with f and must be four characters long and must end with G.
You can easily test this by creating three files with the touch command,
ex :
touch fraG
touch fsgG
touch fjkkG

the 2 first files should match ls -l f??G
but not the last

OK.
I created a file called frag.
Now, if I want to list all files that are 4 letters that begin with f and end with g, what is the exact syntax for that?
I'm trying 'ls f??g' and it returns an error.

EDIT:
It seems as though neither of the wildcards work. I don't understand this at all.
I have a few png files on my system and when I type 'ls *.png' I get the error 'ls: cannot access *.png: No such file or directory'

For me it works. Witch shell do you have?
I have bash!
bash-3.2$ bash --versionbash --version
GNU bash, version 3.2.17(1)-release
Here is a link of reg exp
http://www.regular-expressions.info/

good luck

Hello,

In my version of Bash (GNU bash, version 4.1.5(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)) it also works. Can you run the following command and post output here?
to check if globbing options are activated in your shell. Also confirm if you're using bash or not.

Kind regards,

Eric

Sure!
Here is my output: