Mac OS X Commands and Wildcard Characters

EDIT: This post have been getting very many views lately so ‘fess up in the comments if you want a part 2 with more advanced and new ways to use Mac OS X commands and wildcard characters.

          This tip/post is going to be about several common Mac OS X commands and wildcard characters I have discovered, at work, that is useful to understand and know how to use. First off, wildcard characters are special characters such as * and ? that help you to find groups of filenames that have something in common.

           For example, say I have a couple of files that I want to find in my home directory. My home directory is cluttered with junk files that I never take the time to organize. But somewhere within that junk pile of files there lay 8 files I would like. Their filenames are ssw_idl.a285, ssw_idl.r391, ssw_idl.z988, ssw_idl.c293, and the other 4 files are named similarly (“ssw_idl.” followed by a letter, then 3 numbers).