What does the * mean following a filename in Mac terminal [closed] - macos

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Does anyone know what the * following a filename in macOS terminal means?
All the file names in the folder:
/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/Current/Commands
have a * trailing them and I'm not sure why.
For example:
jd#Mypc % ls -laF
total 1200
drwxr-xr-x 52 root wheel 1664 21 Sep 11:17 ./
drwxr-xr-x 8 root wheel 256 21 Sep 11:17 ../
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38896 11 Aug 08:50 appletviewer*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 apt*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:49 extcheck*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 idlj*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jar*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jarsigner*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 java*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 48512 11 Aug 08:50 java_home*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 javac*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 javadoc*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 javah*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 javap*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38896 11 Aug 08:50 javapackager*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 37952 11 Aug 08:49 javaws*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jcmd*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jconsole*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jcontrol*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jdb*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jdeps*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jhat*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jhsdb*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jimage*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jinfo*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jjs*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jmap*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:49 jmc*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jps*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jrunscript*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jsadebugd*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:49 jshell*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jstack*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jstat*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jstatd*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 jvisualvm*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 keytool*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38896 11 Aug 08:50 native2ascii*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 orbd*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 pack200*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 policytool*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:49 rmic*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 rmid*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38896 11 Aug 08:50 rmiregistry*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 schemagen*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 serialver*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 servertool*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 tnameserv*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 unpack200*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 wsgen*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 wsimport*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 38880 11 Aug 08:50 xjc*
jd#Mypc %
I'd love to know.
Thanks,
John

Answer 1

They have the trailing asterisk because (a) they're executable; and (b) you supplied the -F option to ls.
See the documentation for the -F option in the man page for ls:
-F Display a slash (`/') immediately after each pathname that is a
directory, an asterisk (`*') after each that is executable, an at
sign (`#') after each symbolic link, an equals sign (`=') after
each socket, a percent sign (`%') after each whiteout, and a ver-
tical bar (`|') after each that is a FIFO.
Those files have their executable bit set, e.g.
$ touch foo
$ ls -laF foo
-rw-r--r-- 1 user staff 0 Sep 27 18:33 foo
$ chmod a+x foo
$ ls -laF foo
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 0 Sep 27 18:33 foo*

Answer 2

As for the executable-looking emulator that you can't actually execute, this can happen when the dynamic loader requested by emulator doesn't exist. You can check what kind of file emulator is with the command file emulator, and check what dynamic loader and libraries it needs with ldd emulator (any line showing “not found” is something you need to install). Given the name of the directory and the size of the file, emulator is probably a Linux x86 binary. I suspect you have an amd64 system. If so, you need to install a runtime environment for 32-bit applications; on Ubuntu, you need the ia32-libs package (and perhaps also ia32-libs-gtk). You could also get this error message for a script whose interpreter as indicated in the #! line doesn't exist.
https://superuser.com/questions/178786/what-does-the-asterisk-mean-after-a-filename-when-you-type-ls-l
same question here.