NAME

       File::FnMatch - simple filename and pathname matching

SYNOPSIS

         use File::FnMatch qw(:fnmatch);    # import everything

         # shell-style: match "/a/bc", but not "/a/.bc" nor "/a/b/c"
         fnmatch("/a/*", $fn, FNM_PATHNAME|FNM_PERIOD);

         # find our A- executables only
         grep { fnmatch("A-*.exe", $_) } readdir SOMEDIR;

DESCRIPTION

       File::FnMatch::fnmatch() provides simple, shell-like pattern matching.

       Though considerably less powerful than regular expressions, shell patterns are nonetheless
       useful and familiar to a large audience of end-users.

   Functions
       fnmatch ( PATTERN, STRING [, FLAGS] )
           Returns true if PATTERN matches STRING, undef otherwise.  FLAGS may be the bitwise
           OR'ing of any supported FNM_* constants (see below).

   Constants
       FNM_NOESCAPE
           Do not treat a backslash ('\') in PATTERN specially.  Otherwise, a backslash escapes
           the following character.

       FNM_PATHNAME
           Prohibit wildcards from matching a slash ('/').

       FNM_PERIOD
           Prohibit wildcards from matching a period ('.') at the start of a string and, if
           FNM_PATHNAME is also given, immediately after a slash.

       Other possibilities include at least FNM_CASEFOLD (compare "qr//i"), FNM_LEADING_DIR to
       restrict matching to everything before the first '/', FNM_FILE_NAME as a synonym for
       FNM_PATHNAME, and the rather more exotic FNM_EXTMATCH.  Consult your system documentation
       for details.

   EXPORT
       None by default.  The export tag ":fnmatch" exports the fnmatch function and all available
       FNM_* constants.

PATTERN SYNTAX

       Wildcards are the question mark ('?') to match any single character and the asterisk ('*')
       to match zero or more characters.  FNM_PATHNAME and FNM_PERIOD restrict the scope of the
       wildcards, notably supporting the UNIX convention of concealing "dotfiles":

       Bracket expressions, enclosed by '[' and ']', match any of a set of characters specified
       explicitly ("[abcdef]"), as a range ("[a-f0-9]"), or as the combination these
       ("[a-f0-9XYZ]").  Additionally, many implementations support named character classes such
       as "[[:xdigit:]]".  Character sets may be negated with an initial '!' ("[![:space:]]").

       Locale influences the meaning of fnmatch() patterns.

CAVEATS

       Most UNIX-like systems provide an fnmatch implementation.  This module will not work on
       platforms lacking an implementation, most notably Win32.

SEE ALSO

       File::Glob, POSIX::setlocale, fnmatch(3)

AUTHOR

       Michael J. Pomraning

       Please report bugs to <mjp-perl AT pilcrow.madison.wi.us>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

       Copyright 2005 by Michael J. Pomraning

       This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
       terms as Perl itself.