--- title: "Wildcard Masking in Inedo Products" order: 6 hidden: true ---

Wildcard masks in BuildMaster and Otter are used to include and/or exclude file/directory paths in the context of an operation. Typically, masks are used for file-based operations. The values for the masks are similar to ant-style masks.

### Rules

- A single asterisk (*) represents a matching file name within a specific directory
- A double asterisk (**) represents a matching file name within a specific directory and all subdirectories

### Masking Examples

For the following examples, consider the working directory for a `CopyFilesOperation` contains the following files:

    BigDoc.pdf
    Documentation.pdf
    WordDoc.docx
    WordDoc2.docx
    TextFile1.txt
    TextFile2.txt
    Subdir\SubBigDoc.pdf
    Subdir\SubWordDoc.docx
    Subdir\SubText.txt
    Subdir\SubSubDir\SubSubPdf.pdf

Include Mask | Exclude Mask | Files Copied | Description
--- | --- | --- | ---
**.docx | - | WordDoc.docx WordDoc2.docx Subdir\SubWordDoc.docx | All .docx files recursively.
@(*.docx, *.pdf) | - | BigDoc.pdf Documentation.pdf WordDoc.docx WordDoc2.docx | Only .docx and .pdf files in the root are transferred.
** | *.txt | BigDoc.pdf Documentation.pdf WordDoc.docx WordDoc2.docx Subdir\SubBigDoc.pdf Subdir\SubWordDoc.docx Subdir\SubText.txt Subdir\SubSubDir\SubSubPdf.pdf | All files except .txt files in the root directory.
** | **.txt | BigDoc.pdf Documentation.pdf WordDoc.docx WordDoc2.docx Subdir\SubBigDoc.pdf Subdir\SubWordDoc.docx Subdir\SubSubDir\SubSubPdf.pdf | All files except any .txt file.
Subdir\* | - | Subdir\SubBigDoc.pdf Subdir\SubWordDoc.docx Subdir\SubText.txt | Only files in Subdir, but not Subdir/SubSubDir.
Subdir\** | - | Subdir\SubBigDoc.pdf Subdir\SubWordDoc.docx Subdir\SubText.txt Subdir\SubSubDir\SubSubPdf.pdf | All files within Subdir recursively.
** | @(**1**, **2**) | BigDoc.pdf Documentation.pdf WordDoc.docx Subdir\SubBigDoc.pdf Subdir\SubWordDoc.docx Subdir\SubText.txt Subdir\SubSubDir\SubSubPdf.pdf | All files except files with the numbers 1 or 2 in any part of the path.