Using Wildcard Characters in Processes

System Manager allows you to use wildcard characters to provide configuration information for some of the processes possible with a System Manager workflow. Using wildcard characters to provide configuration information for processes in a System Manager workflow can allow you to:

• Refer to folders or files that do not exist yet or do not have known names. For example, a file or folder can be created as part of the same System Manager workflow. If the full name of the file or folder is not known (for example, the file name itself might include creation time information) you can use wildcard characters to refer to the expected file or folder.
• Select multiple files for a single process, such as attaching multiple files to an email. For example, rather than listing a single file, you can use wild cards to select all .txt files in a folder.

System Manager processes that support wild cards as part of their configuration include:

• Sending an email (see Performing System Processes)
• Deleting files or folders (see Performing System Processes)
• Moving files (see Performing System Processes)
• Copying files (see Performing System Processes)
• Compressing files into a zip file (see Performing System Processes)

For the configurations of a System Manager process that can use wildcard characters, the following characters are supported:

• The * (asterisk) character: You can use * to represent one or more characters. Some examples of how you can use this wildcard character include:
• *.txt

  This syntax would search for and select all .txt files in a given folder.

• filename.*

  This syntax would search for and select all files, regardless of file extension, with the name filename.

• *.*

  This syntax would select all files in a given folder.

• *

  This syntax would search for and select all files and folders in a given folder.

• The ? (question mark) character: You can use ? to represent any single character. Some examples of how you can use this wildcard character include:
• filename?.ini

  This syntax would search for and select all .ini files with the name filename and a single character. For example, the syntax config?.ini would select files such as config1.ini, configA.ini, and so on.

• filename.??

  This syntax would search for and select all files with the name filename and any two character file extension.

You can also use a combination of both * and ? wildcard characters.