*.* (Re: [Re: [SLUG] How to Use)

[Mary <mary-slug@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, May 24, 2003, Louis Selvon wrote:
> Hi Mathew et al:
> 
> Matthew Palmer <mjp16@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > You're just moving over from Windows, aren't you?  The reliance on
> > *.* kinda gives you away...
> 
> Louis> I am not sure what you mean. Both domains resides on a Linux
> Louis> OS.

*.* is a Windows/DOS wildcard matching every file name. Most UNIX users
use * as a wildcard - *.* will *only* match filenames with a . in them
and * not all filenames have a . in them. * will match everything.

Matthew was wondering if you'd recently switched from Windows, because
you're still using *.*

In any case, wildcards are expanded by the shell on UNIX. That is, if I
have a directory with files "a" "b" and "c" in them, and I type "program
*", the shell converts it to "program a b c" *before* program ever gets
run.

Something like: http://www.example.com/dir/* therefore doesn't work,
because the shell will not access the web server and figure out all the
files in http://www.example.com/dir/ *before* calling wget.

> Louis> I just tried "wget -r http://www.domain.com/dir/"; suggestion,
> and the following happened:
> 
> 1. Created a dir called "www.domain.com/dir"; 2. In
> "www.domain.com/dir", I only see the index.html file.

Is there anything in www.domain.com/dir that links to all the other
files? Does index.html link to all the other files?

There's no way to ask a web server to "please give me everything in the
directory" unless it is configured in a certain way, in which case it
will give you a bunch of links to everything in the directory. wget has
to have links to follow (as would any other program).

-Mary