In matlab 2010a I am running into a problem with the use of wildcards ( ?)  in the dir command on linux operating systems (but not on windows). I run the following commands and get the listed output:

>> dir('*.m')
a11a.m  a12a.m  a21a.m  b11a.m  
a11b.m  a12b.m  a22a.m  b21a.m  

>> dir('a*.m')
a11a.m  a11b.m  a12a.m  a12b.m  a21a.m  a22a.m  

>> dir('a?1*.m')
a?1*.m not found.

I expect: a11a.m  a11b.m  a21a.m

On windows it works as expected.

Can anyone confirm is this is a bug or user error?

In article <hs25ts$hcb$1@fred.mathworks.com>,
 "ri " <rirad@hotmail.com.removethis> wrote:

> In matlab 2010a I am running into a problem with the use of wildcards ( ?)  
> in the dir command on linux operating systems (but not on windows). I run the 
> following commands and get the listed output:
> 
> >> dir('*.m')
> a11a.m  a12a.m  a21a.m  b11a.m  
> a11b.m  a12b.m  a22a.m  b21a.m  
> 
> >> dir('a*.m')
> a11a.m  a11b.m  a12a.m  a12b.m  a21a.m  a22a.m  
> 
> >> dir('a?1*.m')
> a?1*.m not found.
> 
> I expect: a11a.m  a11b.m  a21a.m
> 
> On windows it works as expected.
> 
> Can anyone confirm is this is a bug or user error?


There is nothing in the documentation for dir to indicate that you can 
use ? as a wildcard character.  The bug is that it works on Windows.  :-)

-- 
Doug Schwarz
dmschwarz&ieee,org
Make obvious changes to get real email address.

"ri " <rirad@hotmail.com.removethis> wrote in message <hs25ts$hcb$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> In matlab 2010a I am running into a problem with the use of wildcards ( ?)  in the dir command on linux operating systems (but not on windows). I run the following commands and get the listed output:
> 
> >> dir('*.m')
> a11a.m  a12a.m  a21a.m  b11a.m  
> a11b.m  a12b.m  a22a.m  b21a.m  
> 
> >> dir('a*.m')
> a11a.m  a11b.m  a12a.m  a12b.m  a21a.m  a22a.m  
> 
> >> dir('a?1*.m')
> a?1*.m not found.
> 
> I expect: a11a.m  a11b.m  a21a.m
> 
> On windows it works as expected.
> 
> Can anyone confirm is this is a bug or user error?

Hi, I agree with the post by Doug. Are you sure that: 

dir('a?1*.m') 

works on a Windows machine? That does not work for me in R2010a in Windows.

Wayne

This is what I get on 2009b (on windows XP)

>> dir('*.m')
 
a11a.m  a12a.m  a21a.m  b21a.m 
a11b.m  a12b.m  b11a.m 
 
>> dir('a*.m')
 
a11a.m  a11b.m  a12a.m  a12b.m  a21a.m 
 
>> dir('a?1*.m')
 
a11a.m  a11b.m  a21a.m  

If thus indeed is an unsupported feature on the windows version, the consequence is that m scripts do not run similarly on different platforms (the ? wildcard also did not work in the linux 2009b version). I can not test the 2010a version on windows, but according to your test they must have removed this possibility in the latest windows version.

Thanks for the replies.

> Hi, I agree with the post by Doug. Are you sure that: 
> 
> dir('a?1*.m') 
> 
> works on a Windows machine? That does not work for me in R2010a in Windows.
> 
> Wayne

ri wrote:

>>> dir('a?1*.m')
> 
> a11a.m  a11b.m  a21a.m 
> If thus indeed is an unsupported feature on the windows version, the 
> consequence is that m scripts do not run similarly on different 
> platforms (the ? wildcard also did not work in the linux 2009b version). 

There are a fair number of aspects of Matlab that work differently on 
different operating systems

- behaviour of cd when a name followed by a colon is specified
On Windows, changes drives into the last active directory on that drive, if 
the name is a drive name; fails if the name is the name of any other kind of 
device; changes drives and directories to somewhere unknown if the name has 
been mapped to a drive and directory; could do something else if the name 
refers to an object that has an active fork (e.g., it might be a virtual 
device, perhaps a reference into a zip file or across a network or just about 
anything else);

On other systems, changes into a relative sub-directory of the current 
directory, if a relative subdirectory exists whose name is exactly as given 
including the colon; gives random odd results if an object exists in the 
current directory whose name is exactly as given including the colon, if the 
object refers to a socket or character device (e.g., tape drive); could end up 
nearly anywhere accessible if the object is a symbolic link (symbolic links on 
Windows cannot include ':' in their name.)

- / is required as the path separator on systems other than Windows; on 
Windows, either / or \ may be used

- dos() command is supported only on Windows

- system() command strings will be interpreted differently on different 
systems, including possibly for different systems with the same operating 
system: on Linux systems, different system shells can be configured by the 
system administrator

- system_dependent() call exists and is used to (e.g.) set calculation 
precision on Windows

- ActiveX is meaningful only on Windows

- xlswrite() talks via DCOM interface to Excel executable to produce a binary 
Excel file, with support for cell files containing values of different kinds 
-- Windows only, all other systems support only numeric or character arrays 
and produce a plain text file

- movie and sound file support is OS dependent, with some media players only 
supported on Windows, and with different file kinds supported for Windows vs 
Linux vs MacOS

- the BLAS libraries are optimized by CPU (and possibly by operating system), 
and thus heavy mathematics can produce different results on different systems

- not all toolboxes are supported on all platforms

- the compilers supported by the Compiler or Real Time or Embedded toolboxes 
differ with platform

- the OpenGL renderer can act differently on different systems, including 
possibly according to graphics card and operating system

And probably more that I have forgotten at the moment.