Dear Experts,
I ran into something I don’t understand when experimenting with * and \.
On my Desktop I created a folder called "First Level First". Inside it there are files and subfolders, and those subfolders may also contain files and further subfolders.
Now, when I search with these two queries:
the results are very different.
However, when I change Fir* to First:
the results are almost the same.
My understanding is that * should match any number of characters but not cross a backslash. So I would expect the results to be similar with or without the trailing backslash, but in practice they are not.
For reference:
I’m using Everything v1.5.
Both Match Path and Match whole filename when using wildcards are turned off in my settings.
Could someone explain why this happens?
Thanks in advance!
I ran into something I don’t understand when experimenting with * and \.
On my Desktop I created a folder called "First Level First". Inside it there are files and subfolders, and those subfolders may also contain files and further subfolders.
Now, when I search with these two queries:
\Desktop\*Level" "Fir*\
\Desktop\*Level" "Fir*
the results are very different.
However, when I change Fir* to First:
\Desktop\*Level" "First\
\Desktop\*Level" "First
the results are almost the same.
My understanding is that * should match any number of characters but not cross a backslash. So I would expect the results to be similar with or without the trailing backslash, but in practice they are not.
For reference:
I’m using Everything v1.5.
Both Match Path and Match whole filename when using wildcards are turned off in my settings.
Could someone explain why this happens?
Thanks in advance!
Statistics: Posted by leihu — Tue Sep 16, 2025 5:13 pm
