Wildcard patterns are an easy way to specify a number of different items all at the same time. With wildcard patterns, a number of strings can all match your pattern at the same time, saving you the trouble of having to enter each possible string that you want to match.
When you give a wildcard pattern, you create a string that has special characters in it. They define a particular pattern that the string must match - through them, you specify important parts of a string, and specify how a string must match the less important parts. They are very similar to wildcards under UNIX and MS-DOS.

The special characters you can use are:

Additionally, if you want to use a special character, but without the special meaning, you can precede it with a backslash (\).