Metacharacters have specific meanings and tell computers how to proceed with the characters following them. They can be created from various symbols, including punctuation marks, and some are wildcards that match any character. To search for a metacharacter, it must be quoted or preceded by a backslash.
A metacharacter is one of many characters that, when used, does not represent any of the various letters or numbers we commonly use to communicate. A metacharacter has a specific meaning, such as indicating that several words should be separated on a line of code.
The metacharacter tells your computer how to proceed, essentially explaining what to do with the characters following the metacharacter. In other words, a computer’s operating system will read a metacharacter, interpret its meaning, and then take an action based on that interpretation. This action may include instructing the system to separate statements or searching for different spellings of a word.
A metacharacter can be created from a variety of symbols, including punctuation marks. When a metacharacter is not needed and punctuation marks are being used for their original purpose, they must be separated from the rest of the string. This can be done by enclosing them in quotes or using a backslash. Another term to distinguish such a symbol is “run away”.
Another example of a wildcard is using one of the other standard symbols in a different way, such as using the dollar sign to indicate the end of a line. A question mark is a metacharacter that is very useful when doing searches. You may not know exactly how a certain word is spelled in a file, a common example is “honour” or “honour”.
To tell the system to look for both spellings, type “hono(u)?r.” The metcharacter, in this case the question mark, then tells your computer to find the word honor regardless of how it is written, with or without the “u”. On the other hand, if you are looking for a metacharacter, you have to quote it or precede it with backlash to look for it in its common usage. Suppose you want to search for the question mark only. Since it’s a wildcard, you should use the backslash in front of it or quotes around it to make the system follow your command.
While some metacharacters have specific purposes or only match certain characters, there are also those that match any character. The point, or point, is one of them. A metacharacter that matches any character is known as a “wildcard”.
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