wild

wild

1. (of animals) living independently of man; not domesticated or tame

2. (of plants) growing in a natural state; not cultivated

3. living in a savage or uncivilized way

4. (of a card, such as a joker or deuce in some games) able to be given any value the holder pleases

5. a desolate, uncultivated, or uninhabited region

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

in the wild

Something still in use or available to the public. For example, "audio formats in the wild" means all the audio file formats that are still in current use. When a tweet, video or other post has been published, it may also be said it is in the wild.

Viruses in the Wild
The phrase often refers to viruses that have not been contained. Although tens of thousands of viruses have been unleashed, most of them have been eradicated and exist only in computer labs for research purposes. However, at any given time, there may be a couple hundred viruses that are still in the wild, contaminating computer systems of unsuspecting users. For more information, visit The WildList Organization International at www.wildlist.org.

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wild cards

Symbols used to represent any value when selecting specific files. In DOS, Windows and Unix, the asterisk (*) represents any collection of characters, and the question mark (?) represents a single character. In SQL, the percent sign (%) and underscore (_) are used for matching text. Note the following examples:

DOS and Windows (case insensitive)

 *.gif    .gif or .GIF extension

 a*.gif   beginning with "a" or "A"

 boot.*   all files named "BooT"
           any mix upper/lower case

 *.d*     extensions starting with
           "d" or "D"

 ?abc     1ABC, 2abc, etc.

 ??abc    10ABC, xxabc, etc.


 Windows only (case insensitive)

 *t.jpg   JPEG files ending with "T"


 Unix only (case sensitive)

 *.jpg    .jpg extension

 *.JPG    .JPG extension

 a*.jpg   beginning with "a"

 A*.jpg   beginning with "A"

 boot.*   all files named "boot"

 BOOT.*   all files named "BOOT"

 ?abc     1abc, xabc, etc.

 ??ABC    10ABC, XXABC, etc.


 SQL

 Good%    begining with "Good"

 _bcd     any name followed by "bcd"

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