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File matching patterns reference

Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server | Azure DevOps Server 2022 | Azure DevOps Server 2020

Pattern syntax

A pattern is a string or list of newline-delimited strings. File and directory names are compared to patterns to include (or sometimes exclude) them in a task. You can build up complex behavior by stacking multiple patterns. See fnmatch for a full syntax guide.

Match characters

Most characters are used as exact matches. What counts as an "exact" match is platform-dependent: the Windows filesystem is case-insensitive, so the pattern "ABC" would match a file called "abc". On case-sensitive filesystems, that pattern and name wouldn't match.

The following characters have special behavior.

  • * matches zero or more characters within a file or directory name. See examples.
  • ? matches any single character within a file or directory name. See examples.
  • [] matches a set or range of characters within a file or directory name. See examples.
  • ** recursive wildcard. For example, /hello/**/* matches all descendants of /hello.

Extended globbing

  • ?(hello|world) - matches hello or world zero times or one time
  • *(hello|world) - zero or more occurrences
  • +(hello|world) - one or more occurrences
  • @(hello|world) - exactly once
  • !(hello|world) - not hello or world

Note

Extended globs can't span directory separators. For example, +(hello/world|other) isn't valid.

Comments

Patterns that begin with # are treated as comments.

Exclude patterns

Leading ! changes the meaning of an include pattern to exclude. You can include a pattern, exclude a subset of it, and then re-include a subset of that: this is known as an "interleaved" pattern.

Multiple ! flips the meaning. See examples.

You must define an include pattern before an exclude pattern. See examples.

Escaping

Wrapping special characters in [] can be used to escape literal glob characters in a file name. For example the literal file name hello[a-z] can be escaped as hello[[]a-z].

Slash

/ is used as the path separator on Linux and macOS. Most of the time, Windows agents accept /. Occasions where the Windows separator (\) must be used are documented.

Examples

Basic pattern examples

Asterisk examples

Example 1: Given the pattern *Website.sln, and the following files:

ConsoleHost.sln
ContosoWebsite.sln
FabrikamWebsite.sln
Website.sln

The pattern would match:

ContosoWebsite.sln
FabrikamWebsite.sln
Website.sln

Example 2: Given the pattern *Website/*.proj and paths:

ContosoWebsite/index.html
ContosoWebsite/ContosoWebsite.proj
FabrikamWebsite/index.html
FabrikamWebsite/FabrikamWebsite.proj

The pattern would match:

ContosoWebsite/ContosoWebsite.proj
FabrikamWebsite/FabrikamWebsite.proj

Question mark examples

Example 1: Given the pattern log?.log, and the following files:

log1.log
log2.log
log3.log
script.sh

The pattern would match:

log1.log
log2.log
log3.log

Example 2: Given the pattern image.???, and the following files:

image.tiff
image.png
image.ico

The pattern would match:

image.png
image.ico

Character set examples

Example 1: Given the pattern Sample[AC].dat, and the following files:

SampleA.dat
SampleB.dat
SampleC.dat
SampleD.dat

The pattern would match:

SampleA.dat
SampleC.dat

Example 2: Given the pattern Sample[A-C].dat, and the following files:

SampleA.dat
SampleB.dat
SampleC.dat
SampleD.dat

The pattern would match:

SampleA.dat
SampleB.dat
SampleC.dat

Example 3: Given the pattern Sample[A-CEG].dat, and the following files:

SampleA.dat
SampleB.dat
SampleC.dat
SampleD.dat
SampleE.dat
SampleF.dat
SampleG.dat
SampleH.dat

The pattern would match:

SampleA.dat
SampleB.dat
SampleC.dat
SampleE.dat
SampleG.dat

Recursive wildcard examples

Given the pattern **/*.ext, and the following files:

sample1/A.ext
sample1/B.ext
sample2/C.ext
sample2/D.not

The pattern would match:

sample1/A.ext
sample1/B.ext
sample2/C.ext

The following example was generated by Copilot. Copilot is powered by AI, so surprises and mistakes are possible. For more information, see Copilot general use FAQs.

The **/*.ext glob pattern is a powerful recursive pattern used in many file systems and tools (like bash, zsh, Python glob, etc.) to match all files ending in .ext in the current directory and all subdirectories, no matter how deeply nested.

Here are some example paths that would match **/*.ext:

  • sample1/A.ext
  • sample1/B.ext
  • sample2/C.ext
  • sample2/subdir1/D.ext
  • sample2/subdir1/subdir2/E.ext
  • sample3/F.ext
  • sample3/subdir3/G.ext
  • sample3/subdir3/subdir4/H.ext

The ** part means any number of directories (including zero), and *.ext means any file ending in .ext.

Exclude pattern examples

Given the following pattern, and the following files:

*
!*.xml

ConsoleHost.exe
ConsoleHost.pdb
ConsoleHost.xml
Fabrikam.dll
Fabrikam.pdb
Fabrikam.xml

The pattern would match:

ConsoleHost.exe
ConsoleHost.pdb
Fabrikam.dll
Fabrikam.pdb

Double exclude examples

Given the following pattern, and the following files:

*
!*.xml
!!Fabrikam.xml

ConsoleHost.exe
ConsoleHost.pdb
ConsoleHost.xml
Fabrikam.dll
Fabrikam.pdb
Fabrikam.xml

The pattern would match:

ConsoleHost.exe
ConsoleHost.pdb
Fabrikam.dll
Fabrikam.pdb
Fabrikam.xml

Folder exclude examples

Given the following pattern, and the following files:

**
!sample/**

ConsoleHost.exe
ConsoleHost.pdb
ConsoleHost.xml
sample/Fabrikam.dll
sample/Fabrikam.pdb
sample/Fabrikam.xml

The pattern would match:

ConsoleHost.exe
ConsoleHost.pdb
ConsoleHost.xml