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Masks
To use the following features of WinSCP you need to specify a mask (wildcard) to select files (or other things):
- Text file mask for text mode transfers.
- Exclude/include mask for transfers and synchronization.
- Selecting/unselecting files by file mask.
- Defining autoselection rule for transfer settings preset.
- Defining autoselection mask for editors.
- Various script commands.
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Filename Mask
When specifying the mask you can use following patterns:
| Pattern | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
* |
Matches any number (including zero) of arbitrary characters. | *.doc; about*.html |
? |
Matches exactly one arbitrary character. | photo????.jpg |
[abc] |
Matches one character from the set. | index_[abc].html |
[a-z] |
Matches one character from the range. | index_[a-z].html |
>size |
Matches files (never directory) larger than size (K, M and G units can be used). This rule must be used after the file name mask (if any). |
*.bin>1M |
<size |
Matches files smaller than size. |
<1G |
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All other characters are treated literally.
To escape character with special meaning (*?[) enclose it into set pattern, e.g. filewithstar[*].
Directory Mask
In the Next Release
To use the mask for directories, append a slash to the end, e.g. images/. The mask */ matches any directory.
To make operation non-recursive use exclude mask */.
Directory masks are recursive. E.g. mask images/ matches directories /home/martin/images/ as well as /home/martin/images/avatars/.
In Previous Releases
Particularly when specifying an include mask for transfers, bear in mind that it is applied to directories as well, so that *.bak will only match backup files located in the current directory (unless you happen to have a subdirectory whose own name ends in “.bak”, in which case it will be applied to all backup files in there too).
A mask ending with slash matches only directories. The mask */ matches any directory.
For example to transfer only HTML files located in any directory, use the include mask */; *.html (see below for combining masks).
To make operation non-recursive use exclude mask */.
Path Mask
When the mask selects files and it makes sense to select them based on directory, you can extend the mask with a path mask. You should separate the path mask from the filename mask by a slash. For example mask /home/martinp/*.txt matches all text files within the directory, but not in subdirectories. To match all text files within subtree, use mask /home/martinp/*.txt; /home/martinp/*/*.txt1.
For a relative path mask it makes no difference whether you use back (\) or forward slashes (/); the mask will always work for both local and remote paths. For example, the mask */public_html/*.bak will match backup files both in D:\Documents\public_html and /home/martinp/public_html. If you want to match directories only, add a slash at the end of the mask.
You can also specify full path to specific file or directory, both local and remote. For example if you want to match only specific .csv directory, not all, use /home/martinp/data/.csv/ instead of .csv/.
Exceptions
For convenience, a masks *.* and *. are exceptions matching any file and any file without an extension, respectively, even if its name does not include any dot.
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Combining masks and exclude mask
In most contexts (basically everywhere except for script commands), you can combine several masks using semicolon (;) or comma (,).
You can add exclude mask by separating it by pipe (|) from the include mask. To use exclude mask only, start with pipe straight away.
- Simpler, but less precise, form would be
/home/martinp*/*.txtBack