Wild Card

generic character, character which symbolizes every possible character that could be in its place in identification of file names

The term wild card was originally used in card games, but the term has evolved to describe what the Merriam-Webster Dictionary calls "an unknown or unpredictable factor" in any number of domains.Wild card may refer to:Wild Card (card games) - a playing card that substitutes for any other card in card games wild card (sports) - a tournament or playoff berth awarded to an individual or team that has not qualified through normal playwild card (Foresight research) - low-probability, high-impact eventsWILD Card (South African national parks) - a smartcard-based annual season ticket to Southern African national parksWild Card 2, a game offered by the Multi-State Lottery Association played in the north-central United States; replaced a similar game called "Wild Card"Wild Card - a card placed on the wheel in the Wheel of Fortune game show since 2006. A player holding the card, who subsequently lands on a cash space and calls a consonant appearing in the puzzle, may turn it in for the chance to call a second consonant for the same cash value in the same turn.
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Noun
1. an unpredictable factor; "the weather was a wild card"
(hypernym) factor
2. a playing card whose value can be determined by the person who holds it
(hypernym) playing card

<operating system, programming, text> (From card games in which certain cards, often the joker, can act as any other card) A special character or character sequence which matches any character in a string comparison, like ellipsis ("...") in ordinary written text.
In Unix filenames '?' matches any single character and '*' matches any zero or more characters. In regular expressions, '.' matches any one character and "[...]" matches any one of the enclosed characters.
See also Backus-Naur Form.
(1997-07-16)

See wild card (poker). Compare to bug (poker).