wild crab

n : wild crab apple native to Europe; a chief ancestor of

cultivated apples [syn: {Malus sylvestris}]

wild card

(From card games in

which certain cards, often the joker, can act as any other

card) A special character or character sequence which matches

any character in a string comparison, like ellipsis ("...") in

ordinary written text.

In {Unix} filenames '?' matches any single character and '▫'

matches any zero or more characters. In {regular

expressions}, '.' matches any one character and "[...]"

matches any one of the enclosed characters.

See also {Backus-Naur Form}.

(1997-07-16)