Glob (programming): Difference between revisions
remove old redundant bulky overly detailed syntax table |
m. s/"Wildcards"/"Metacharacters" (also called "Wildcards")/ |
||
(156 intermediate revisions by 89 users not shown) | |||
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
{{Short description|Patterns used in computer programming}} |
|||
{{lowercase}} |
{{lowercase}} |
||
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2019|cs1-dates=y}} |
|||
In [[computer programming]], in particular in a [[Unix]]-like environment, '''glob''' patterns specify sets of filenames with [[wildcard characters]]. For example, the Unix command <code>mv *.txt textfiles/</code> moves (<code>mv</code>) all files with names ending in <code>.txt</code> from the current directory to the directory <code>textfiles</code>. Here, <code>*</code> is a wildcard standing for "any [[String (computer science)|string]] of characters" and <code>*.txt</code> is a glob pattern. The other common wildcard is the question mark (<code>?</code>), which stands for one character. |
|||
[[File:Unix Glob Reference.png|thumb|A screenshot of the original 1971 Unix reference page for <code>glob</code> – the owner is <code>dmr</code>, short for [[Dennis Ritchie]].]] |
|||
'''glob()''' ({{IPAc-en|g|l|ɒ|b}}) is a [[C standard library|libc]] function for '''''globbing''''', which is the archetypal use of pattern matching against the [[File_system#DENTRY|names in a filesystem directory]] such that a name pattern is expanded into a list of names matching that pattern. Although ''globbing'' may now refer to glob()-style pattern matching of any string, not just expansion into a list of filesystem names, the original meaning of the term is still widespread. |
|||
The <code>glob()</code> function and the underlying <code>gmatch()</code><!-- NOT fnmatch(), which first appeared in 4.4BSD --> function originated at [[Bell Labs]] in the early 1970s alongside the original [[Research Unix|AT&T UNIX]] itself and had a formative influence on the syntax of UNIX command line utilities and therefore also on the present-day reimplementations thereof. |
|||
==Origin== |
|||
The command interpreters of the early versions of [[Unix]] (1st through 6th Editions, 1969–75) relied on a separate program to expand [[wildcard character]]s in unquoted arguments to a command: ''/etc/glob''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/man71.pdf |title=First Edition Unix manual 'Miscellaneous' section (PDF) |format=PDF |date= |accessdate=2011-05-11}}</ref> That program performed the expansion and supplied the expanded list of file paths to the command for execution. Its name is an abbreviation for "global command".<ref>{{Citation|url=http://unix-jun72.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/src/cmd/glob.c|title=1st Edition UNIX|at=src/cmd/glob.c|publisher =code.google.com}}</ref> Later, this functionality was provided as a library function, '''glob()''', used by programs such as the [[Bourne shell|shell]]. |
|||
In their original form, <code>glob()</code> and <code>gmatch()</code> derived from code used in [[Bell Labs]] in-house utilities that developed alongside the original Unix in the early 1970s. Among those utilities were also two command line tools called <code>glob</code> and <code>[[find (Unix)|find]]</code>; each could be used to pass a list of matching filenames to other command line tools, and they shared the backend code subsequently formalized as <code>glob()</code> and <code>gmatch()</code>. Shell-statement-level globbing by default became commonplace following the [[Shell builtin|"builtin"-integration]] of globbing-functionality into the [[Version 7 Unix|7th edition]] of the [[Unix shell]] in 1978. The Unix shell's -f option to disable globbing — i.e. revert to literal "file" mode — appeared in the same version. |
|||
==Technical== |
|||
Unix shell globbing operates by parameter ''expansion'' – the glob pattern (e.g., ''*.log'') is expanded and replaced by the list of all matches. For example, if a directory contains two files, <tt>a.log</tt> and <tt>b.log</tt> then the command <tt>cat *.log</tt> will be expanded by the shell to <tt>cat a.log b.log</tt> which is then evaluated (in this case, displaying the files). The order of arguments to a command often matters – for example, <tt>cat a.log b.log</tt> prints first <tt>a.log</tt> and then <tt>b.log,</tt> while <tt>cat b.log a.log</tt> prints first <tt>b.log</tt> and then <tt>a.log.</tt> Thus, while "filenames that match the pattern" is an (unordered) set, the actual expanded list of matching files is an ordered list, a sequence, and thus an order must be chosen, conventionally alphabetical order, however defined by the shell.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904875/utilities/xcu_chap02.html#tag_02_13_03 |title=The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, IEEE Std 1003.1, 2004 Edition, 2.13.3 'Patterns Used for Filename Expansion'}}</ref> |
|||
The glob ''pattern quantifiers'' now standardized by [[POSIX|POSIX.2]] (IEEE Std 1003.2) fall into two groups, and can be applied to any character sequence ("string"), not just to directory entries. |
|||
* "Metacharacters" (also called "Wildcards"): |
|||
** <code>?</code> (not in brackets) matches any character exactly once. |
|||
** <code>*</code> (not in brackets) matches a string of zero or more characters. |
|||
* "Ranges/sets": |
|||
** <code><nowiki>[...]</nowiki></code>, where the first character within the brackets is not '!', matches any single character among the characters specified in the brackets. If the first character within brackets is '!', then the <code><nowiki>[!...]</nowiki></code> matches any single character that is ''not'' among the characters specified in the brackets. |
|||
:: The characters in the brackets may be a list (<code><nowiki>[abc]</nowiki></code>) or a range (<code><nowiki>[a-c]</nowiki></code>) or denote a character class (like <code><nowiki>[[:space:]]</nowiki></code> where the inner brackets are part of the classname). POSIX does not mandate multi-range (<code><nowiki>[a-c0-3]</nowiki></code>) support, which derive originally from [[regular expressions]]. |
|||
As reimplementations of [[Bell Labs]]' UNIX proliferated, so did reimplementations of its Bell Labs' libc and shell, and with them <code>glob()</code> and ''globbing''. Today, <code>glob()</code> and ''globbing'' are standardized by the [[POSIX|POSIX.2]] specification and are integral part of every Unix-like libc ecosystem and shell, including AT&T Bourne shell-compatible [[Korn shell|Korn shell (ksh)]], [[Z shell|Z shell (zsh)]], [[Almquist shell|Almquist shell (ash)]] and its derivatives and reimplementations such as [[busybox]], [[toybox]], [[Bash (Unix shell)|GNU bash]], [[Debian|Debian dash]]. |
|||
==Origin== |
|||
The glob command, short for ''global'', originates in the earliest versions of Bell Labs' [[Unix]].<ref name="man7Unix1"/> The command interpreters of the early versions of Unix (1st through 6th Editions, 1969–1975) relied on a separate program to expand [[wildcard character]]s in unquoted arguments to a command: ''/etc/glob''. That program performed the expansion and supplied the expanded list of file paths to the command for execution. |
|||
Glob was originally written in the [[B (programming language)|B programming language]]. It was the first piece of mainline Unix software to be developed in a [[high-level programming language]].<ref name="reader">{{cite tech report |first1=M. D. |last1=McIlroy |author-link1=Doug McIlroy |year=1987 |url=http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/reader.pdf |title=A Research Unix reader: annotated excerpts from the Programmer's Manual, 1971–1986 |series=CSTR |number=139 |institution=Bell Labs}}</ref> Later, this functionality was provided as a C [[library function]], <code>glob()</code>, used by programs such as the [[Bourne shell|shell]]. It is usually defined based on a function named <code>fnmatch()</code>, which tests for whether a string matches a given pattern - the program using this function can then iterate through a series of strings (usually filenames) to determine which ones match. Both functions are a part of [[POSIX]]: the functions defined in POSIX.1 since 2001, and the syntax defined in POSIX.2.<ref name=fnmatch3>{{man|3|fnmatch|Linux}}</ref><ref>{{man|3|glob|Linux}}</ref> The idea of defining a separate match function started with [[wildmat]] (wildcard match), a simple library to match strings against Bourne Shell globs. |
|||
==Implementations== |
|||
[[Unix]] [[Shell (computing)|shells]] such as [[Bash (Unix_shell)|Bash]], [[tcsh]], and [[zsh]] provide globbing on [[filename]]s at the [[command line interface|command line]] and in [[shell script]]s.<ref>The [http://www.faqs.org/docs/abs/HTML/globbingref.html "Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide, Chapter 19.2: Globbing"] (Mendel Cooper, 2003) has a concise set of examples of filename globbing patterns.</ref> |
|||
The [[Windows]] command interpreter [[cmd.exe]] relies on a runtime function in applications to perform globbing.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/e1w828yy.aspx |title=Wildcard Expansion |publisher=Microsoft Developer Network |year=2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8bch7bkk.aspx |title=Expanding Wildcard Arguments |publisher=Microsoft Developer Network |year=2013}}</ref> [[Windows PowerShell]] [[Cmdlet#Cmdlets|Cmdlets]] support globbing.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa717088(v=vs.85).aspx |title=Supporting Wildcard Characters in Cmdlet Parameters |publisher=Microsoft Developer Network |year=2013}}</ref> |
|||
Traditionally, globs do not match hidden files in the form of Unix [[dotfiles]]; to match them the pattern must explicitly start with <code>.</code>. For example, <code>*</code> matches all visible files while <code>.*</code> matches all hidden files. |
|||
The term "glob" is also used to refer more generally to limited pattern-matching facilities of this kind, in other contexts: |
|||
* [[D (programming language)|D]] has a ''globMatch'' function in the ''std.path'' module.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://dlang.org/phobos/std_path.html#.globMatch |title=std.path - D Programming Language - Digital Mars |publisher=dlang.org |date= |accessdate=2014-09-08}}</ref> |
|||
* [[Go (programming language)|Go]] has a ''Glob'' function in the ''filepath'' package.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://golang.org/pkg/path/filepath/#Glob |title=Package filepath - The Go Programming Language |publisher=Golang.org |date= |accessdate=2011-05-11}}</ref> |
|||
* [[Java (programming language)|Java]] has a Files class containing methods that operate on glob patterns.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/io/fileOps.html#glob| title=File Operations|publisher=Oracle|date=|accessdate=2013-12-16}}</ref> |
|||
* [[Haskell (programming language)|Haskell]] has a Glob package with the main module System.FilePath.Glob. The pattern syntax is based on a subset of [[Zsh]]’s. It tries to optimize the given pattern and should be noticeably faster than a naïve character-by-character matcher.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://hackage.haskell.org/package/Glob-0.7.4/docs/System-FilePath-Glob.html|title= Glob-0.7.4: Globbing library|accessdate=2014-05-07}}</ref> |
|||
* [[Perl]] has both a ''glob'' function (as discussed in [[Larry Wall]]'s book ''[[Programming Perl]]'') and a ''Glob'' extension which mimics the BSD glob routine.<ref>{{cite web|author=Contact details |url=http://perldoc.perl.org/File/Glob.html |title=File::Glob - Perl extension for BSD glob routine |publisher=perldoc.perl.org |date= |accessdate=2011-05-11}}</ref> Perl's angle brackets can be used to glob as well: ''<*.log>''. |
|||
* [[PHP]] has a ''glob'' function.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.php.net/glob |title=glob - Manual |publisher=PHP |date=2011-05-06 |accessdate=2011-05-11}}</ref> |
|||
* [[Python (programming language)|Python]] has a ''glob'' module in the standard library which performs wildcard pattern matching on filenames,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://docs.python.org/library/glob.html |title=10.7. glob — Unix style pathname pattern expansion — Python v2.7.1 documentation |publisher=Docs.python.org |date= |accessdate=2011-05-11}}</ref> and an ''fnmatch'' module with functions for matching strings or filtering lists based on these same wildcard patterns <ref>{{cite web|url=https://docs.python.org/library/fnmatch.html |title=10.8 fnmatch Unix filename pattern matching -- Python v2.7.7 documentation |publisher=Docs.python.org |date= |accessdate=2014-06-28}}</ref> [[Guido van Rossum]], author of the Python programming language, wrote and contributed a glob() routine to [[Berkeley Software Distribution|BSD]] [[Unix]] in 1986.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.isc.org/sources/devel/func/glob.txt |title='Globbing' library routine |date= |accessdate=2011-05-11 |archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20071219090708/http://www.isc.org/sources/devel/func/glob.txt |archivedate= 2007-12-19}}</ref> There were previous implementations of glob, e.g., in the [[ex (text editor)|ex]] and [[File Transfer Protocol|ftp]] programs in previous releases of BSD. |
|||
* [[Ruby (programming language)|Ruby]] has a ''glob'' method for the ''Dir'' class which performs wildcard pattern matching on filenames.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Dir.html#M000629 |title=Class: Dir |publisher=Ruby-doc.org |date= |accessdate=2011-05-11}}</ref> Several libraries such as Rant and Rake provide a FileList class which has a glob method or use the method FileList.[] identically. |
|||
* [[SQLite]] has a ''GLOB'' function. |
|||
* [[Tcl]] contains both true regular expression matching facilities and a more limited kind of pattern matching often described as globbing.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.5/TclCmd/glob.htm|title=TCL glob manual page|accessdate=16 November 2011}}</ref> |
|||
==Syntax== |
==Syntax== |
||
The most common wildcards are {{code|*}}, {{code|?}}, and {{code|[ |
The most common wildcards are {{code|*}}, {{code|?}}, and {{code|[…]}}. |
||
{| class="wikitable" |
{| class="wikitable" |
||
Line 42: | Line 43: | ||
| {{code|Law*}} |
| {{code|Law*}} |
||
| {{code|Law}}, {{code|Laws}}, or {{code|Lawyer}} |
| {{code|Law}}, {{code|Laws}}, or {{code|Lawyer}} |
||
| {{code|GrokLaw}}, {{code|La}}, or {{code|aw}} |
|||
| |
|||
|- |
|- |
||
| {{code|*Law*}} |
| {{code|*Law*}} |
||
| {{code|Law}}, {{code|GrokLaw}}, or {{code|Lawyer}}. |
| {{code|Law}}, {{code|GrokLaw}}, or {{code|Lawyer}}. |
||
| {{code|La}}, or {{code|aw}} |
|||
| |
|||
|- |
|- |
||
| {{code|?}} |
| {{code|?}} |
||
Line 60: | Line 60: | ||
| {{code|[CB]at}} |
| {{code|[CB]at}} |
||
| {{code|Cat}} or {{code|Bat}} |
| {{code|Cat}} or {{code|Bat}} |
||
| {{code|cat}} or {{code| |
| {{code|cat}}, {{code|bat}} or {{code|CBat}} |
||
|- |
|- |
||
| {{code|[a-z]}} |
| {{code|[a-z]}} |
||
| matches one character from the range given in the bracket |
| matches one character from the (locale-dependent) range given in the bracket |
||
| {{code|Letter[0-9]}} |
| {{code|Letter[0-9]}} |
||
| {{code|Letter0}}, {{code|Letter1}} |
| {{code|Letter0}}, {{code|Letter1}}, {{code|Letter2}} up to {{code|Letter9}} |
||
| {{code|Letters}} or {{code| |
| {{code|Letters}}, {{code|Letter}} or {{code|Letter10}} |
||
|} |
|} |
||
Normally, the path separator character ({{code|/}} on Linux/Unix, MacOS, etc. or {{code|\}} on Windows) will never be matched. Some shells, such as [[Bourne shell|Unix shell]] have functionality allowing users to circumvent this.<ref>https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html#Pattern-Matching {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180315115230/http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html#Pattern-Matching |date=2018-03-15 }} Bash Reference Manual</ref> |
|||
In all cases the path separator character ({{code|/}} on unix or {{code|\}} on windows) will never be matched. |
|||
===Unix=== |
===Unix-like{{anchor|Unix}}=== |
||
On |
On [[Unix-like]] systems {{code|*}}, {{code|?}} is defined as above while {{code|[…]}} has two additional meanings:<ref name="posixglob"/><ref name="linuxglob7"/> |
||
IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, 2.13. Pattern Matching Notation|url=http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_18_13}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Linux Programmer's Manual, GLOB(7)|url=http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/glob.7.html}}</ref>: |
|||
{| class="wikitable" |
{| class="wikitable" |
||
Line 97: | Line 96: | ||
| matches one character that is not from the range given in the bracket |
| matches one character that is not from the range given in the bracket |
||
| {{code|Letter[!3-5]}} |
| {{code|Letter[!3-5]}} |
||
| {{code|Letter1}}, {{code|Letter2}} etc. |
| {{code|Letter1}}, {{code|Letter2}}, {{code|Letter6}} up to {{code|Letter9}} and {{code|Letterx}} etc. |
||
| {{code|Letter3}}, {{code|Letter4}} or {{code| |
| {{code|Letter3}}, {{code|Letter4}}, {{code|Letter5}} or {{code|Letterxx}} |
||
|} |
|} |
||
The ranges are also allowed to include pre-defined character classes, equivalence classes for accented characters, and collation symbols for hard-to-type characters. They are defined to match up with the brackets in POSIX regular expressions.<ref name="posixglob"/><ref name="linuxglob7"/> |
|||
Some shells (like the [[C shell]]) support additional syntax including [[alternation (string expansion)|alternation]] or [[brace expansion]], also known as extended globbing. |
|||
Unix globbing is handled by the [[Shell (computing)|shell]] per POSIX tradition. Globbing is provided on filenames at the [[command line interface|command line]] and in [[shell script]]s.<ref name="ABSGlob"/> The POSIX-mandated <code>case</code> statement in shells provides pattern-matching using glob patterns. |
|||
===Windows PowerShell=== |
|||
Some shells (such as the [[C shell]] and [[Bash_(Unix_shell)|Bash]]) support additional syntax known as [[alternation (string expansion)|alternation]] or [[brace expansion]]. Because it is not part of the glob syntax, it is not provided in <code>case</code>. It is only expanded on the command line before globbing. |
|||
[[Windows PowerShell]] has all the common syntax defined as stated above without any additions.<ref>{{cite web|title=Supporting Wildcard Characters in Cmdlet Parameters|url=https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa717088%28v=vs.85%29.aspx}}</ref> |
|||
The Bash shell also supports the following extensions:<ref>{{cite web |title=Bash globs |url=https://mywiki.wooledge.org/glob |website=greg's bash knowledgebase |access-date=25 November 2019 |archive-date=2019-11-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191118054712/http://mywiki.wooledge.org/glob |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
===DOS COMMAND.COM and Windows cmd.exe=== |
|||
* Extended globbing (extglob): allows other pattern matching operators to be used to match multiple occurrences of a pattern enclosed in parentheses, essentially providing the missing [[kleene star]] and alternation for describing regular languages. It can be enabled by setting the {{code|extglob}} shell option. This option came from ksh93.<ref name="bashpat"/> The GNU fnmatch and glob has an identical extension.<ref name=fnmatch3/> |
|||
* globstar: allows <code>**</code> on its own as a name component to recursively match any number of layers of non-hidden directories.<ref name="bashpat"/> Also supported by the [[JavaScript]] libraries and [[Python (programming language)|Python]]'s glob. |
|||
===Windows and DOS=== |
|||
[[COMMAND.COM]] and [[cmd.exe]] have most of the common syntax with some limitations: There is no {{code|[...]}} and the {{code|*}} may only appear at the end of the pattern, not at the beginning. |
|||
[[File:IBM PC DOS 1.0 screenshot.png|thumb|The [[dir (command)|{{code|dir}}]] command with a glob pattern in [[IBM PC DOS]] 1.0.]] |
|||
The original [[DOS]] was a clone of [[CP/M]] designed to work on Intel's [[Intel 8088|8088]] and [[Intel 8086|8086]] processors. Windows shells, following DOS, do not traditionally perform any glob expansion in arguments passed to external programs. Shells may use an expansion for their own builtin commands: |
|||
===SQL=== |
|||
* [[Windows PowerShell]] has all the common syntax defined as stated above without any additions.<ref name="pwshcmdlet"/> |
|||
The [[SQL]] LIKE operator has an equivalent of {{code|?}} and {{code|*}}. There is no equivalent of {{code|[...]}}. |
|||
* [[COMMAND.COM]] and [[cmd.exe]] have most of the common syntax with some limitations: There is no {{code|[…]}} and for COMMAND.COM the {{code|*}} may only appear at the end of the pattern. It can not appear in the middle of a pattern, except immediately preceding the [[filename extension]] separator dot. |
|||
Windows and DOS programs receive a long command-line string instead of argv-style parameters, and it is their responsibility to perform any splitting, quoting, or glob expansion. There is technically no fixed way of describing wildcards in programs since they are free to do what they wish. Two common glob expanders include:<ref name="winWildcard"/> |
|||
* The Microsoft C Runtime (msvcrt) command-line expander, which only supports {{code|?}} and {{code|*}}.<ref>{{cite web |title=Wildcard Expansion |url=https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/cpp/wildcard-expansion |website=docs.microsoft.com |date=8 February 2022 |language=en-us}}</ref> Both [[ReactOS]] (crt/misc/getargs.c) and [[Wine (software)|Wine]] (msvcrt/data.c) contain a compatible open-source implementation of {{code|__getmainargs}}, the function operating under-the-hood, in their core CRT. |
|||
* The [[Cygwin]] and MSYS {{code|dcrt0.cc}} command-line expander, which uses the unix-style {{code|glob()}} routine under-the-hood, after splitting the arguments. |
|||
Most other parts of Windows, including the Indexing Service, use the MS-DOS style of wildcards found in CMD. A relic of the 8.3 filename age, this syntax pays special attention to dots in the pattern and the text (filename). Internally this is done using three extra wildcard characters, {{code|<>"}}. On the Windows API end, the {{tt|glob()}} equivalent is {{tt|FindFirstFile}}, and {{tt|fnmatch()}} corresponds to its underlying {{tt|RtlIsNameInExpression}}.<ref>[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/jeremykuhne/2017/06/04/wildcards-in-windows/ Wildcards in Windows] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191224091832/https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/jeremykuhne/2017/06/04/wildcards-in-windows/ |date=2019-12-24 }}. MSDN Devblog.</ref> (Another fnmatch analogue is {{tt|PathMatchSpec}}.) Both open-source msvcrt expanders use {{tt|FindFirstFile}}, so 8.3 filename quirks will also apply in them. |
|||
===SQL=== |
|||
The [[SQL]] {{code|LIKE}} operator has an equivalent to {{code|?}} and {{code|*}} but not {{code|[…]}}. |
|||
{| class="wikitable" |
{| class="wikitable" |
||
Line 120: | Line 133: | ||
! Common wildcard |
! Common wildcard |
||
! SQL wildcard |
! SQL wildcard |
||
! Description |
|||
|- |
|- |
||
| {{code|?}} |
| {{code|?}} |
||
| {{code|_}} |
| {{code|_}} |
||
| matches any single character |
|||
|- |
|- |
||
| {{code|*}} |
| {{code|*}} |
||
| {{code|%}} |
| {{code|%}} |
||
| matches any number of any characters including none |
|||
|} |
|} |
||
Standard SQL uses a glob-like syntax for simple string matching in its <code>LIKE</code> operator |
Standard SQL uses a glob-like syntax for simple string matching in its <code>LIKE</code> operator, although the term "glob" is not generally used in the SQL community. The percent sign ({{code|%}}) matches zero or more characters and the underscore ({{code|_}}) matches exactly one. |
||
Many implementations of SQL have extended the <code>LIKE</code> operator to allow a richer pattern-matching language, incorporating character ranges ({{code|[…]}}), their negation, and elements of regular expressions.<ref name="transact-sql-like"/> |
|||
Some proprietary extensions such as [[Transact-SQL]] provide the {{code|[...]}} functionality, e.g., <code>[''characters'']</code> and <code>[^''characters'']</code>.<ref>{{cite web|title=LIKE (Transact-SQL)|url=https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms179859.aspx}}</ref> |
|||
==Compared to |
==Compared to regular expressions== |
||
Globs do not include syntax for the [[Kleene star]] which allows multiple repetitions of the preceding part of the expression; thus they are not considered [[regular expression]]s, which can describe the full set of [[regular language]]s over any given finite alphabet.<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Hopcroft | first1 = John E. | last2 = Motwani | first2 = Rajeev | last3 = Ullman | first3 = Jeffrey D. | title = Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation | publisher = Addison-Wesley | year = 2000 | edition = 2nd}}</ref> |
|||
{| class="wikitable" |
|||
Globs do not include syntax for the [[Kleene star]] which allows multiple repetitions of the preceding part of the expression; thus they are not considered [[regular expression]]s, which can describe the full set of [[regular language]]s over any given finite alphabet.{{Citation needed|date=July 2010}} |
|||
|- |
|||
! Common wildcard |
|||
! Equivalent regular expression |
|||
|- |
|||
| {{code|?}} |
|||
| {{code|.}} |
|||
|- |
|||
| {{code|*}} |
|||
| {{code|.*}} |
|||
|} |
|||
Globs attempt to match the entire string (for example, {{code|S*.DOC}} matches S.DOC and SA.DOC, but not POST.DOC or SURREY.DOCKS), whereas, depending on implementation details, regular expressions may match a substring. |
|||
=== Implementing as regular expressions === |
|||
The original Mozilla [[proxy auto-config]] implementation, which provides a glob-matching function on strings, uses a replace-as-RegExp implementation as above. The bracket syntax happens to be covered by regex in such an example. |
|||
Python's fnmatch uses a more elaborate procedure to transform the pattern into a regular expression.<ref name=py>{{cite web |title=Lib/fnmatch.py |url=https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/3.8/Lib/fnmatch.py |publisher=Python |access-date=10 November 2021 |date=20 January 2021 |archive-date=2021-11-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211110204645/https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/3.8/Lib/fnmatch.py |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
== Other implementations== |
|||
Beyond their uses in shells, globs patterns also find use in a variety of programming languages, mainly to process human input. A glob-style interface for returning files or an fnmatch-style interface for matching strings are found in the following programming languages: |
|||
* [[C Sharp (programming language)|C#]] has multiple libraries available through [[NuGet]] such as <code>Glob</code>.<ref name="dotnet-glob"/> or <code>DotNet.Glob</code>.<ref name="dotnet.glob"/> |
|||
* [[D (programming language)|D]] has a <code>globMatch</code> function in the <code>std.path</code> module.<ref name="dlang"/> |
|||
* [[JavaScript]] has a library called <code>minimatch</code> which is used internally by [[Npm (software)|npm]], and <code>micromatch</code>, a purportedly more optimized, accurate and safer globbing implementation used by [[Babel (compiler)|Babel]] and yarn.<ref name="minimatch"/><ref name="micromatch"/> |
|||
* [[Go (programming language)|Go]] has a <code>Glob</code> function in the <code>filepath</code> package.<ref name="golang"/> |
|||
* [[Java (programming language)|Java]] has a <code>Files</code> class containing methods that operate on glob patterns.<ref name="java"/> |
|||
* [[Haskell (programming language)|Haskell]] has a <code>Glob</code> package with the main module <code>System.FilePath.Glob</code>. The pattern syntax is based on a subset of [[Zsh]]'s. It tries to optimize the given pattern and should be noticeably faster than a naïve character-by-character matcher.<ref name="hs"/> |
|||
* [[Perl]] has both a <code>glob</code> function (as discussed in [[Larry Wall]]'s book ''[[Programming Perl]]'') and a ''Glob'' extension which mimics the BSD glob routine.<ref name="pl"/> Perl's angle brackets can be used to glob as well: <code><*.log></code>. |
|||
* [[PHP]] has a <code>glob</code> function.<ref name="php"/> |
|||
* [[Python (programming language)|Python]] has a <code>glob</code> module in the standard library which performs wildcard pattern matching on filenames,<ref name="pyglob"/> and an <code>fnmatch</code> module with functions for matching strings or filtering lists based on these same wildcard patterns.<ref name=py/> [[Guido van Rossum]], author of the Python programming language, wrote and contributed a <code>glob</code> routine to [[Berkeley Software Distribution|BSD]] [[Unix]] in 1986.<ref name="isc-glob"/> There were previous implementations of <code>glob</code>, e.g., in the [[ex (text editor)|ex]] and [[File Transfer Protocol|ftp]] programs in previous releases of BSD. |
|||
* [[Ruby (programming language)|Ruby]] has a <code>glob</code> method for the <code>Dir</code> class which performs wildcard pattern matching on filenames.<ref name="rbdir"/> Several libraries such as Rant and Rake provide a <code>FileList</code> class which has a glob method or use the method <code>FileList.[]</code> identically. |
|||
* [[Rust (programming language)|Rust]] has multiple libraries that can match glob patterns.<ref>{{cite web|title=#glob - Lib.rs|url=https://lib.rs/keywords/glob|access-date=12 November 2021|website=lib.rs|archive-date=2021-11-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211112115505/https://lib.rs/keywords/glob|url-status=live}}</ref> |
|||
* [[SQLite]] has a <code>GLOB</code> function. |
|||
* [[Tcl]] contains a globbing facility.<ref name="tcl"/> |
|||
==See also== |
==See also== |
||
* [[Regular expression]] |
* [[Regular expression]] |
||
* [[Wildcard character]] |
* [[Wildcard character]] |
||
* [[ |
* [[Matching wildcards]] |
||
==References== |
==References== |
||
{{Reflist |
{{Reflist|refs= |
||
<ref name="man7Unix1">{{cite web |url=http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/man71.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000829224359/http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/man71.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=2000-08-29 |title=First Edition Unix manual 'Miscellaneous' section (PDF) |access-date=2011-05-11}}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="posixglob">{{cite web |title=The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7 IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, 2.13. Pattern Matching Notation |url=http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_18_13 |access-date=2015-10-26 |archive-date=2014-04-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140427082439/http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_18_13 |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="linuxglob7">{{cite web |title=Linux Programmer's Manual, GLOB(7) |url=http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/glob.7.html |access-date=2015-10-26 |archive-date=2015-10-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151031215157/http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/glob.7.html |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="bashpat">{{cite web |website=Bash Reference Manual |title=Pattern Matching |url=https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Pattern-Matching.html |access-date=2016-01-11 |archive-date=2016-02-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160211205104/http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Pattern-Matching.html |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="pwshcmdlet">{{cite web |title=Supporting Wildcard Characters in Cmdlet Parameters |url=https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/developer/cmdlet/supporting-wildcard-characters-in-cmdlet-parameters|publisher=Microsoft Developer Network |website=[[Microsoft]]|date=18 December 2023 }}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="transact-sql-like">{{cite web |title=LIKE (Transact-SQL) |date=23 May 2023 |url=https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/language-elements/like-transact-sql |access-date=2017-08-01 |archive-date=2017-08-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170802044711/https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/language-elements/like-transact-sql |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="ABSGlob">The "Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide, Chapter 19.2: Globbing" (Mendel Cooper, 2003) has a concise set of examples of filename globbing patterns.</ref> |
|||
<ref name="winWildcard">{{cite web |url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/e1w828yy.aspx |title=Wildcard Expansion |publisher=Microsoft Developer Network |year=2013 |access-date=2013-10-16 |archive-date=2014-08-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140822042708/http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/e1w828yy.aspx |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
<!-- unused ref <ref name="winWcExp">{{cite web |url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8bch7bkk.aspx |title=Expanding Wildcard Arguments |publisher=Microsoft Developer Network |date=2013}}</ref> --> |
|||
<ref name="dlang">{{cite web |url=http://dlang.org/phobos/std_path.html#.globMatch |title=std.path - D Programming Language - Digital Mars |publisher=dlang.org |access-date=2014-09-08 |archive-date=2014-09-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140908203040/http://dlang.org/phobos/std_path.html#.globMatch |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="minimatch">{{Cite web |url=https://github.com/isaacs/minimatch |title=isaacs/minimatch |website=GitHub |access-date=2016-08-10 |archive-date=2016-07-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160728063829/https://github.com/isaacs/minimatch |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="micromatch">{{Cite web |url=https://github.com/jonschlinkert/micromatch |title=jonschlinkert/micromatch |website=GitHub |access-date=2017-04-04 |archive-date=2016-02-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160211020457/https://github.com/jonschlinkert/micromatch |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="golang">{{cite web |url=http://golang.org/pkg/path/filepath/#Glob |title=Package filepath - The Go Programming Language |publisher=Golang.org |access-date=2011-05-11 |archive-date=2011-05-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110525035625/http://golang.org/pkg/path/filepath/#Glob |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="java">{{cite web |url=http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/io/fileOps.html#glob |title=File Operations |publisher=Oracle |access-date=2013-12-16 |archive-date=2013-09-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130920172102/http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/io/fileOps.html#glob |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="hs">{{cite web |url=http://hackage.haskell.org/package/Glob-0.7.4/docs/System-FilePath-Glob.html |title=Glob-0.7.4: Globbing library |access-date=2014-05-07 |archive-date=2014-05-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140508025811/http://hackage.haskell.org/package/Glob-0.7.4/docs/System-FilePath-Glob.html |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="pl">{{cite web |url=http://perldoc.perl.org/File/Glob.html |title=File::Glob - Perl extension for BSD glob routine |publisher=perldoc.perl.org |access-date=2011-05-11}}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="php">{{cite web |url=http://www.php.net/glob |title=glob - Manual |publisher=PHP |date=2011-05-06 |access-date=2011-05-11 |archive-date=2017-11-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171113011131/http://php.net/glob |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="pyglob">{{cite web |url=https://docs.python.org/library/glob.html |title=10.7. glob — Unix style pathname pattern expansion — Python v2.7.1 documentation |publisher=Docs.python.org |access-date=2011-05-11 |archive-date=2011-05-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110516205728/http://docs.python.org/library/glob.html |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="isc-glob">{{cite web |url=http://www.isc.org/sources/devel/func/glob.txt |title='Globbing' library routine |access-date=2011-05-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071219090708/http://www.isc.org/sources/devel/func/glob.txt |archive-date=2007-12-19}}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="rbdir">{{cite web |url=http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Dir.html#M000629 |title=Class: Dir |publisher=Ruby-doc.org |access-date=2011-05-11 |archive-date=2011-05-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110515140813/http://ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Dir.html#M000629 |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="tcl">{{cite web |url=http://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.5/TclCmd/glob.htm |title=TCL glob manual page |access-date=2011-11-16 |archive-date=2011-12-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111208112250/http://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.5/TclCmd/glob.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="dotnet-glob">{{Cite web |url=https://github.com/kthompson/glob |title=kthompson/glob |website=GitHub |access-date=2020-11-06 |archive-date=2020-10-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201026174625/https://github.com/kthompson/glob |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
<ref name="dotnet.glob">{{Cite web |url=https://github.com/dazinator/DotNet.Glob |title=dazinator/dotnet.glob |website=GitHub |access-date=2022-06-22 |archive-date=2022-06-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220622181350/https://github.com/dazinator/DotNet.Glob |url-status=live }}</ref> |
|||
}} |
|||
[[Category:Pattern matching]] |
|||
[[Category:C POSIX library]] |
[[Category:C POSIX library]] |
||
[[Category:Pattern matching]] |
|||
[[Category:Unix programming tools]] |
[[Category:Unix programming tools]] |
Latest revision as of 17:52, 5 January 2025
glob() (/ɡlɒb/) is a libc function for globbing, which is the archetypal use of pattern matching against the names in a filesystem directory such that a name pattern is expanded into a list of names matching that pattern. Although globbing may now refer to glob()-style pattern matching of any string, not just expansion into a list of filesystem names, the original meaning of the term is still widespread.
The glob()
function and the underlying gmatch()
function originated at Bell Labs in the early 1970s alongside the original AT&T UNIX itself and had a formative influence on the syntax of UNIX command line utilities and therefore also on the present-day reimplementations thereof.
In their original form, glob()
and gmatch()
derived from code used in Bell Labs in-house utilities that developed alongside the original Unix in the early 1970s. Among those utilities were also two command line tools called glob
and find
; each could be used to pass a list of matching filenames to other command line tools, and they shared the backend code subsequently formalized as glob()
and gmatch()
. Shell-statement-level globbing by default became commonplace following the "builtin"-integration of globbing-functionality into the 7th edition of the Unix shell in 1978. The Unix shell's -f option to disable globbing — i.e. revert to literal "file" mode — appeared in the same version.
The glob pattern quantifiers now standardized by POSIX.2 (IEEE Std 1003.2) fall into two groups, and can be applied to any character sequence ("string"), not just to directory entries.
- "Metacharacters" (also called "Wildcards"):
?
(not in brackets) matches any character exactly once.*
(not in brackets) matches a string of zero or more characters.
- "Ranges/sets":
[...]
, where the first character within the brackets is not '!', matches any single character among the characters specified in the brackets. If the first character within brackets is '!', then the[!...]
matches any single character that is not among the characters specified in the brackets.
- The characters in the brackets may be a list (
[abc]
) or a range ([a-c]
) or denote a character class (like[[:space:]]
where the inner brackets are part of the classname). POSIX does not mandate multi-range ([a-c0-3]
) support, which derive originally from regular expressions.
- The characters in the brackets may be a list (
As reimplementations of Bell Labs' UNIX proliferated, so did reimplementations of its Bell Labs' libc and shell, and with them glob()
and globbing. Today, glob()
and globbing are standardized by the POSIX.2 specification and are integral part of every Unix-like libc ecosystem and shell, including AT&T Bourne shell-compatible Korn shell (ksh), Z shell (zsh), Almquist shell (ash) and its derivatives and reimplementations such as busybox, toybox, GNU bash, Debian dash.
Origin
[edit]The glob command, short for global, originates in the earliest versions of Bell Labs' Unix.[1] The command interpreters of the early versions of Unix (1st through 6th Editions, 1969–1975) relied on a separate program to expand wildcard characters in unquoted arguments to a command: /etc/glob. That program performed the expansion and supplied the expanded list of file paths to the command for execution.
Glob was originally written in the B programming language. It was the first piece of mainline Unix software to be developed in a high-level programming language.[2] Later, this functionality was provided as a C library function, glob()
, used by programs such as the shell. It is usually defined based on a function named fnmatch()
, which tests for whether a string matches a given pattern - the program using this function can then iterate through a series of strings (usually filenames) to determine which ones match. Both functions are a part of POSIX: the functions defined in POSIX.1 since 2001, and the syntax defined in POSIX.2.[3][4] The idea of defining a separate match function started with wildmat (wildcard match), a simple library to match strings against Bourne Shell globs.
Traditionally, globs do not match hidden files in the form of Unix dotfiles; to match them the pattern must explicitly start with .
. For example, *
matches all visible files while .*
matches all hidden files.
Syntax
[edit]The most common wildcards are *
, ?
, and […]
.
Wildcard | Description | Example | Matches | Does not match |
---|---|---|---|---|
*
|
matches any number of any characters including none | Law*
|
Law , Laws , or Lawyer
|
GrokLaw , La , or aw
|
*Law*
|
Law , GrokLaw , or Lawyer .
|
La , or aw
| ||
?
|
matches any single character | ?at
|
Cat , cat , Bat or bat
|
at
|
[abc]
|
matches one character given in the bracket | [CB]at
|
Cat or Bat
|
cat , bat or CBat
|
[a-z]
|
matches one character from the (locale-dependent) range given in the bracket | Letter[0-9]
|
Letter0 , Letter1 , Letter2 up to Letter9
|
Letters , Letter or Letter10
|
Normally, the path separator character (/
on Linux/Unix, MacOS, etc. or \
on Windows) will never be matched. Some shells, such as Unix shell have functionality allowing users to circumvent this.[5]
Unix-like
[edit]On Unix-like systems *
, ?
is defined as above while […]
has two additional meanings:[6][7]
Wildcard | Description | Example | Matches | Does not match |
---|---|---|---|---|
[!abc]
|
matches one character that is not given in the bracket | [!C]at
|
Bat , bat , or cat
|
Cat
|
[!a-z]
|
matches one character that is not from the range given in the bracket | Letter[!3-5]
|
Letter1 , Letter2 , Letter6 up to Letter9 and Letterx etc.
|
Letter3 , Letter4 , Letter5 or Letterxx
|
The ranges are also allowed to include pre-defined character classes, equivalence classes for accented characters, and collation symbols for hard-to-type characters. They are defined to match up with the brackets in POSIX regular expressions.[6][7]
Unix globbing is handled by the shell per POSIX tradition. Globbing is provided on filenames at the command line and in shell scripts.[8] The POSIX-mandated case
statement in shells provides pattern-matching using glob patterns.
Some shells (such as the C shell and Bash) support additional syntax known as alternation or brace expansion. Because it is not part of the glob syntax, it is not provided in case
. It is only expanded on the command line before globbing.
The Bash shell also supports the following extensions:[9]
- Extended globbing (extglob): allows other pattern matching operators to be used to match multiple occurrences of a pattern enclosed in parentheses, essentially providing the missing kleene star and alternation for describing regular languages. It can be enabled by setting the
extglob
shell option. This option came from ksh93.[10] The GNU fnmatch and glob has an identical extension.[3] - globstar: allows
**
on its own as a name component to recursively match any number of layers of non-hidden directories.[10] Also supported by the JavaScript libraries and Python's glob.
Windows and DOS
[edit]The original DOS was a clone of CP/M designed to work on Intel's 8088 and 8086 processors. Windows shells, following DOS, do not traditionally perform any glob expansion in arguments passed to external programs. Shells may use an expansion for their own builtin commands:
- Windows PowerShell has all the common syntax defined as stated above without any additions.[11]
- COMMAND.COM and cmd.exe have most of the common syntax with some limitations: There is no
[…]
and for COMMAND.COM the*
may only appear at the end of the pattern. It can not appear in the middle of a pattern, except immediately preceding the filename extension separator dot.
Windows and DOS programs receive a long command-line string instead of argv-style parameters, and it is their responsibility to perform any splitting, quoting, or glob expansion. There is technically no fixed way of describing wildcards in programs since they are free to do what they wish. Two common glob expanders include:[12]
- The Microsoft C Runtime (msvcrt) command-line expander, which only supports
?
and*
.[13] Both ReactOS (crt/misc/getargs.c) and Wine (msvcrt/data.c) contain a compatible open-source implementation of__getmainargs
, the function operating under-the-hood, in their core CRT. - The Cygwin and MSYS
dcrt0.cc
command-line expander, which uses the unix-styleglob()
routine under-the-hood, after splitting the arguments.
Most other parts of Windows, including the Indexing Service, use the MS-DOS style of wildcards found in CMD. A relic of the 8.3 filename age, this syntax pays special attention to dots in the pattern and the text (filename). Internally this is done using three extra wildcard characters, <>"
. On the Windows API end, the glob() equivalent is FindFirstFile, and fnmatch() corresponds to its underlying RtlIsNameInExpression.[14] (Another fnmatch analogue is PathMatchSpec.) Both open-source msvcrt expanders use FindFirstFile, so 8.3 filename quirks will also apply in them.
SQL
[edit]The SQL LIKE
operator has an equivalent to ?
and *
but not […]
.
Common wildcard | SQL wildcard | Description |
---|---|---|
?
|
_
|
matches any single character |
*
|
%
|
matches any number of any characters including none |
Standard SQL uses a glob-like syntax for simple string matching in its LIKE
operator, although the term "glob" is not generally used in the SQL community. The percent sign (%
) matches zero or more characters and the underscore (_
) matches exactly one.
Many implementations of SQL have extended the LIKE
operator to allow a richer pattern-matching language, incorporating character ranges ([…]
), their negation, and elements of regular expressions.[15]
Compared to regular expressions
[edit]Globs do not include syntax for the Kleene star which allows multiple repetitions of the preceding part of the expression; thus they are not considered regular expressions, which can describe the full set of regular languages over any given finite alphabet.[16]
Common wildcard | Equivalent regular expression |
---|---|
?
|
.
|
*
|
.*
|
Globs attempt to match the entire string (for example, S*.DOC
matches S.DOC and SA.DOC, but not POST.DOC or SURREY.DOCKS), whereas, depending on implementation details, regular expressions may match a substring.
Implementing as regular expressions
[edit]The original Mozilla proxy auto-config implementation, which provides a glob-matching function on strings, uses a replace-as-RegExp implementation as above. The bracket syntax happens to be covered by regex in such an example.
Python's fnmatch uses a more elaborate procedure to transform the pattern into a regular expression.[17]
Other implementations
[edit]Beyond their uses in shells, globs patterns also find use in a variety of programming languages, mainly to process human input. A glob-style interface for returning files or an fnmatch-style interface for matching strings are found in the following programming languages:
- C# has multiple libraries available through NuGet such as
Glob
.[18] orDotNet.Glob
.[19] - D has a
globMatch
function in thestd.path
module.[20] - JavaScript has a library called
minimatch
which is used internally by npm, andmicromatch
, a purportedly more optimized, accurate and safer globbing implementation used by Babel and yarn.[21][22] - Go has a
Glob
function in thefilepath
package.[23] - Java has a
Files
class containing methods that operate on glob patterns.[24] - Haskell has a
Glob
package with the main moduleSystem.FilePath.Glob
. The pattern syntax is based on a subset of Zsh's. It tries to optimize the given pattern and should be noticeably faster than a naïve character-by-character matcher.[25] - Perl has both a
glob
function (as discussed in Larry Wall's book Programming Perl) and a Glob extension which mimics the BSD glob routine.[26] Perl's angle brackets can be used to glob as well:<*.log>
. - PHP has a
glob
function.[27] - Python has a
glob
module in the standard library which performs wildcard pattern matching on filenames,[28] and anfnmatch
module with functions for matching strings or filtering lists based on these same wildcard patterns.[17] Guido van Rossum, author of the Python programming language, wrote and contributed aglob
routine to BSD Unix in 1986.[29] There were previous implementations ofglob
, e.g., in the ex and ftp programs in previous releases of BSD. - Ruby has a
glob
method for theDir
class which performs wildcard pattern matching on filenames.[30] Several libraries such as Rant and Rake provide aFileList
class which has a glob method or use the methodFileList.[]
identically. - Rust has multiple libraries that can match glob patterns.[31]
- SQLite has a
GLOB
function. - Tcl contains a globbing facility.[32]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "First Edition Unix manual 'Miscellaneous' section (PDF)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2000-08-29. Retrieved 2011-05-11.
- ^ McIlroy, M. D. (1987). A Research Unix reader: annotated excerpts from the Programmer's Manual, 1971–1986 (PDF) (Technical report). CSTR. Bell Labs. 139.
- ^ a b Linux Programmer's Manual – Library Functions –
- ^ Linux Programmer's Manual – Library Functions –
- ^ https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html#Pattern-Matching Archived 2018-03-15 at the Wayback Machine Bash Reference Manual
- ^ a b "The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7 IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, 2.13. Pattern Matching Notation". Archived from the original on 2014-04-27. Retrieved 2015-10-26.
- ^ a b "Linux Programmer's Manual, GLOB(7)". Archived from the original on 2015-10-31. Retrieved 2015-10-26.
- ^ The "Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide, Chapter 19.2: Globbing" (Mendel Cooper, 2003) has a concise set of examples of filename globbing patterns.
- ^ "Bash globs". greg's bash knowledgebase. Archived from the original on 2019-11-18. Retrieved 2019-11-25.
- ^ a b "Pattern Matching". Bash Reference Manual. Archived from the original on 2016-02-11. Retrieved 2016-01-11.
- ^ "Supporting Wildcard Characters in Cmdlet Parameters". Microsoft. Microsoft Developer Network. 2023-12-18.
- ^ "Wildcard Expansion". Microsoft Developer Network. 2013. Archived from the original on 2014-08-22. Retrieved 2013-10-16.
- ^ "Wildcard Expansion". docs.microsoft.com. 2022-02-08.
- ^ Wildcards in Windows Archived 2019-12-24 at the Wayback Machine. MSDN Devblog.
- ^ "LIKE (Transact-SQL)". 2023-05-23. Archived from the original on 2017-08-02. Retrieved 2017-08-01.
- ^ Hopcroft, John E.; Motwani, Rajeev; Ullman, Jeffrey D. (2000). Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation (2nd ed.). Addison-Wesley.
- ^ a b "Lib/fnmatch.py". Python. 2021-01-20. Archived from the original on 2021-11-10. Retrieved 2021-11-10.
- ^ "kthompson/glob". GitHub. Archived from the original on 2020-10-26. Retrieved 2020-11-06.
- ^ "dazinator/dotnet.glob". GitHub. Archived from the original on 2022-06-22. Retrieved 2022-06-22.
- ^ "std.path - D Programming Language - Digital Mars". dlang.org. Archived from the original on 2014-09-08. Retrieved 2014-09-08.
- ^ "isaacs/minimatch". GitHub. Archived from the original on 2016-07-28. Retrieved 2016-08-10.
- ^ "jonschlinkert/micromatch". GitHub. Archived from the original on 2016-02-11. Retrieved 2017-04-04.
- ^ "Package filepath - The Go Programming Language". Golang.org. Archived from the original on 2011-05-25. Retrieved 2011-05-11.
- ^ "File Operations". Oracle. Archived from the original on 2013-09-20. Retrieved 2013-12-16.
- ^ "Glob-0.7.4: Globbing library". Archived from the original on 2014-05-08. Retrieved 2014-05-07.
- ^ "File::Glob - Perl extension for BSD glob routine". perldoc.perl.org. Retrieved 2011-05-11.
- ^ "glob - Manual". PHP. 2011-05-06. Archived from the original on 2017-11-13. Retrieved 2011-05-11.
- ^ "10.7. glob — Unix style pathname pattern expansion — Python v2.7.1 documentation". Docs.python.org. Archived from the original on 2011-05-16. Retrieved 2011-05-11.
- ^ "'Globbing' library routine". Archived from the original on 2007-12-19. Retrieved 2011-05-11.
- ^ "Class: Dir". Ruby-doc.org. Archived from the original on 2011-05-15. Retrieved 2011-05-11.
- ^ "#glob - Lib.rs". lib.rs. Archived from the original on 2021-11-12. Retrieved 2021-11-12.
- ^ "TCL glob manual page". Archived from the original on 2011-12-08. Retrieved 2011-11-16.