The FILE_SEARCH function returns a string array containing the names of all files matching the input path specification. Input path specifications may contain wildcard characters, enabling them to match multiple files. FILE_SEARCH's interpretation of wildcard characters in the path specification is described in Supported Wildcards and Expansions.
A relative path is a path specification that can only be unambiguously interpreted by basing it relative to some other known location. Usually, this location is the current working directory for the process. A fully qualified path is a complete and unambiguous path that can be interpreted directly. For example, bin/idl is a relative path, while /usr/local/rsi/idl/bin/idl is a fully qualified path. By default, FILE_SEARCH follows the format of the input to decide whether to return relative or fully-qualified paths.