Two stars in the file path

Question

What does the following file path mean?

$(Services_Jobs_Drop_Path)\**\*.config 

The variable just contains some path, nothing interesting. I care a lot more about what the hell ** means. Any ideas?

PS The following path is used in msbuild scripts if this helps.

Answer 1

\**\ This pattern is often used in the Copy task to traverse a recursive folder tree. This basically means that all files with the config extension will be processed from all subdirectories of the $(Services_Jobs_Drop_Path) path.

MSDN, Using Wildcards to Specify Elements :

Can you use **, * and? wildcards to specify a group of files as inputs for the assembly instead of listing each file separately.

• What? The wildcard character matches one character.
• The wildcard character matches zero or more characters.
• The character sequence ** matches the partial path.

MSDN, Specifying Wildcard Inputs

To include all .jpg files in the Images directory and subdirectories Use the following Include attribute:

Include = "Images \ ** \ *. JPG"