What does asterisk "*" mean in a unix PATH environment variable?

Question

Example:

# echo $PATH
/home/admin*:*/bin

I assume it's a wildcard of some sort, but is it one level deep, or many?

For example, will */bin match only items in usr/bin or will it also match deeper items in usr/local/bin and /home/admin/bin? And will /home/admin* match /home/administrator and everything under it, also at multiple levels?

Answer 1

What does asterisk (*) mean in a unix $PATH?

# echo $PATH
/home/admin*:*/bin

It means you have an invalid $PATH.

$PATH does not support wildcards.