Wildcard

The wildcard, for example the *, %, _, ~ characters, is a placeholder that matches anything.

Wildcards are used in various places:

• Glob patterns, to match any number of characters: *.php matches any PHP file

• Regex patterns, with .* or .*?

• mixed type is a wildcard type

• ~ in autoloading definition, which defines a minimum version

In autoloading, wildcards allow mapping entire namespaces at once.

<?php

// glob patterns with wildcard
foreach (glob('*.php') as $filename) {
    echo "$filename\n";
}

// Variadic arguments (spread operator)
function foo(...$args) {
    print_r($args);
}

foo(1, 2, 3);

// mixed type (PHP 8.0+)
function bar(mixed $value): mixed {
    return $value;
}

?>

Documentation

Related : glob(), Mixed, Variadic, Regular Expression

Related packages : okapi/wildcards