Provided by: tcl8.5-doc_8.5.19-4_all bug

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.  No particular
       order  is  guaranteed  in  the list, so if a sorted list is required the caller should use
       lsort.

       If the initial arguments to glob start with - then they  are  treated  as  switches.   The
       following switches are currently supported:

       -directory directory
              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-sensitive characters.

       -join  The  remaining  pattern arguments, after option processing, are treated as a single
              pattern obtained by joining the arguments 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 pathPrefix
              Search  for  files with the given pathPrefix where the rest of the name matches the
              given patterns.  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 -directory 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 typeList
              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.  Note that symbolic links will be returned both if -types l is  given,
              or  if  the target of a link matches the requested type.  So, a link to a directory
              will be returned if -types d was specified.

              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 {macintosh creator  XXXX}  will  match  types  or
              creators  respectively.   Unrecognized  types,  or specifications 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 [] construct.

       When the glob command returns relative paths whose filenames start with a tilde  “~”  (for
       example  through  glob  *  or glob -tails, the returned list will not quote the tilde with
       “./”.  This means care must be taken if those names are later to be used with  file  join,
       to  avoid  them  being  interpreted  as  absolute  paths  pointing  to a given user's home
       directory.

PORTABILITY ISSUES

       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
       containing 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).

EXAMPLES

       Find all the Tcl files in the current directory:
              glob *.tcl

       Find  all  the  Tcl  files  in the user's home directory, irrespective of what the current
       directory is:
              glob -directory ~ *.tcl

       Find all subdirectories of the current directory:
              glob -type d *

       Find all files whose name contains an “a”, a “b” or the sequence “cde”:
              glob -type f *{a,b,cde}*

SEE ALSO

       file(3tcl)

KEYWORDS

       exist, file, glob, pattern