glob(n) Tcl Built-In Commands glob(n)
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NAME
glob - Return names of files that match patterns
SYNOPSIS
glob ?switches? pattern ?pattern ...?
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DESCRIPTION
This command performs file name ``globbing'' in a fashion similar to the csh shell. It returns a
list of the files whose names match any of the pattern arguments.
If the initial arguments to glob start with - then they are treated as switches. The following
switches are currently supported: |
-directory direc- |
tory | |
Search for files which match the given patterns starting in the given directory. This allows |
searching of directories whose name contains glob-sensitive characters without the need to |
quote such characters explicitly. This option may not be used in conjunction with -path, |
which is used to allow searching for complete file paths whose names may contain glob-sensi- |
tive characters. |
-join ||
The remaining pattern arguments are treated as a single pattern obtained by joining the argu- |
ments with directory separators.
-nocomplain
Allows an empty list to be returned without error; without this switch an error is returned
if the result list would be empty. |
-path pathPre- |
fix | |
Search for files with the given pathPrefix where the rest of the name matches the given pat- |
terns. This allows searching for files with names similar to a given file (as opposed to a |
directory) even when the names contain glob-sensitive characters. This option may not be used |
in conjunction with -directory. For example, to find all files with the same root name as |
$path, but differing extensions, you should use glob -path [file rootname $path] .* which will |
work even if $path contains numerous glob-sensitive characters. |
-tails ||
Only return the part of each file found which follows the last directory named in any -direc- |
tory or -path path specification. Thus glob -tails -directory $dir * is equivalent to set pwd |
[pwd] ; cd $dir ; glob *; cd $pwd. For -path specifications, the returned names will include |
the last path segment, so glob -tails -path [file rootname ~/foo.tex] .* will return paths |
like foo.aux foo.bib foo.tex etc. |
-types type- |
List | |
Only list files or directories which match typeList, where the items in the list have two |
forms. The first form is like the -type option of the Unix find command: b (block special |
file), c (character special file), d (directory), f (plain file), l (symbolic link), p (named |
pipe), or s (socket), where multiple types may be specified in the list. Glob will return all |
files which match at least one of the types given. |
The second form specifies types where all the types given must match. These are r, w, x as |
file permissions, and readonly, hidden as special permission cases. On the Macintosh, MacOS |
types and creators are also supported, where any item which is four characters long is assumed |
to be a MacOS type (e.g. TEXT). Items which are of the form {macintosh type XXXX} or {macin- |
tosh creator XXXX} will match types or creators respectively. Unrecognized types, or specifi- |
cations of multiple MacOS types/creators will signal an error. |
The two forms may be mixed, so -types {d f r w} will find all regular files OR directories |
that have both read AND write permissions. The following are equivalent: |
glob -type d * |
glob */ |
except that the first case doesn't return the trailing ``/'' and is more platform independent. |
-- Marks the end of switches. The argument following this one will be treated as a pattern even
if it starts with a -.
The pattern arguments may contain any of the following special characters:
? Matches any single character.
* Matches any sequence of zero or more characters.
[chars] Matches any single character in chars. If chars contains a sequence of the form a-b then
any character between a and b (inclusive) will match.
\x Matches the character x.
{a,b,...} Matches any of the strings a, b, etc.
On Unix, as with csh, a ``.'' at the beginning of a file's name or just after a ``/'' must be matched
explicitly or with a {} construct, unless the ``-types hidden'' flag is given (since ``.'' at the
beginning of a file's name indicates that it is hidden). On other platforms, files beginning with a
``.'' are handled no differently to any others, except the special directories ``.'' and ``..'' which
must be matched explicitly (this is to avoid a recursive pattern like ``glob -join * * * *'' from
recursing up the directory hierarchy as well as down). In addition, all ``/'' characters must be
matched explicitly.
If the first character in a pattern is ``~'' then it refers to the home directory for the user whose
name follows the ``~''. If the ``~'' is followed immediately by ``/'' then the value of the HOME
environment variable is used.
The glob command differs from csh globbing in two ways. First, it does not sort its result list (use
the lsort command if you want the list sorted). Second, glob only returns the names of files that
actually exist; in csh no check for existence is made unless a pattern contains a ?, *, or [] con-struct. construct.
struct.
PORTABILITY ISSUES
Unlike other Tcl commands that will accept both network and native style names (see the filename man-ual manual
ual entry for details on how native and network names are specified), the glob command only accepts
native names.
Windows
For Windows UNC names, the servername and sharename components of the path may not contain ?,
*, or [] constructs. On Windows NT, if pattern is of the form ``~username@domain'' it refers
to the home directory of the user whose account information resides on the specified NT domain
server. Otherwise, user account information is obtained from the local computer. On Windows
95 and 98, glob accepts patterns like ``.../'' and ``..../'' for successively higher up parent
directories.
Since the backslash character has a special meaning to the glob command, glob patterns con-taining containing
taining Windows style path separators need special care. The pattern C:\\foo\\* is interpreted
as C:\foo\* where \f will match the single character f and \* will match the single character
* and will not be interpreted as a wildcard character. One solution to this problem is to use
the Unix style forward slash as a path separator. Windows style paths can be converted to Unix
style paths with the command file join $path (or file normalize $path in Tcl 8.4).
Macintosh
When using the options, -directory, -join or -path, glob assumes the directory separator for
the entire pattern is the standard ``:''. When not using these options, glob examines each
pattern argument and uses ``/'' unless the pattern contains a ``:''.
SEE ALSO
file(n)
KEYWORDS
exist, file, glob, pattern
Tcl 8.3 glob(n)
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