path: root/doc/glob.n

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'\" RCS: @(#) $Id: glob.n,v 1.19 2007/10/24 14:29:38 dkf Exp $
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.so man.macros
.TH glob n 8.3 Tcl "Tcl Built-In Commands"
.BS
'\" Note:  do not modify the .SH NAME line immediately below!
.SH NAME
glob \- Return names of files that match patterns
.SH SYNOPSIS
\fBglob \fR?\fIswitches\fR? \fIpattern \fR?\fIpattern ...\fR?
.BE

.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
This command performs file name
.QW globbing
in a fashion similar to
the csh shell.  It returns a list of the files whose names match any
of the \fIpattern\fR arguments.  No particular order is guaranteed
in the list, so if a sorted list is required the caller should use 
\fBlsort\fR.
.LP
If the initial arguments to \fBglob\fR start with \fB\-\fR then
they are treated as switches.  The following switches are
currently supported:
.TP
\fB\-directory\fR \fIdirectory\fR
Search for files which match the given patterns starting in the given
\fIdirectory\fR.  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
\fB\-path\fR, which is used to allow searching for complete file paths
whose names may contain glob-sensitive characters.
.TP
\fB\-join\fR
The remaining pattern arguments are treated as a single pattern
obtained by joining the arguments with directory separators.
.TP
\fB\-nocomplain\fR
Allows an empty list to be returned without error;  without this
switch an error is returned if the result list would be empty.
.TP
\fB\-path\fR \fIpathPrefix\fR
Search for files with the given \fIpathPrefix\fR 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
\fB\-directory\fR.  For example, to find all files with the same root name
as $path, but differing extensions, you should use \fBglob 
-path [file rootname $path] .*\fR which will work even if $path contains
numerous glob-sensitive characters.
.TP
\fB\-tails\fR
Only return the part of each file found which follows the last directory
named in any \fB\-directory\fR or \fB\-path\fR path specification.  
Thus \fBglob -tails -directory $dir *\fR is equivalent to 
\fBset pwd [pwd] ; cd $dir ; glob *; cd $pwd\fR.  For 
\fB\-path\fR specifications, the returned names will include the last
path segment, so \fBglob -tails -path [file rootname ~/foo.tex] .*\fR 
will return paths like \fBfoo.aux foo.bib foo.tex\fR etc.
.TP
\fB\-types\fR \fItypeList\fR
Only list files or directories which match \fItypeList\fR, where the items
in the list have two forms.  The first form is like the \-type option of
the Unix find command:
\fIb\fR (block special file),
\fIc\fR (character special file),
\fId\fR (directory),
\fIf\fR (plain file),
\fIl\fR (symbolic link),
\fIp\fR (named pipe),
or \fIs\fR (socket), where multiple types may be specified in the list.
\fBGlob\fR will return all files which match at least one of the types given.
Note that symbolic links will be returned both if \fB\-types l\fR is given, 
or if the target of a link matches the requested type.  So, a link to
a directory will be returned if \fB\-types d\fR was specified.
.RS
.PP
The second form specifies types where all the types given must match.
These are \fIr\fR, \fIw\fR, \fIx\fR as file permissions, and
\fIreadonly\fR, \fIhidden\fR 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. \fBTEXT\fR).  Items which are of the form \fI{macintosh type XXXX}\fR
or \fI{macintosh creator XXXX}\fR will match types or creators
respectively.  Unrecognized types, or specifications of multiple MacOS
types/creators will signal an error.
.PP
The two forms may be mixed, so \fB\-types {d f r w}\fR will find all
regular files OR directories that have both read AND write permissions.
The following are equivalent:
.RS
.CS
\fBglob \-type d *\fR
\fBglob */\fR
.CE
.RE
except that the first case doesn't return the trailing
.QW /
and is more platform independent.
.RE
.TP
\fB\-\|\-\fR
Marks the end of switches.  The argument following this one will
be treated as a \fIpattern\fR even if it starts with a \fB\-\fR.
.PP
The \fIpattern\fR arguments may contain any of the following
special characters:
.TP 10
\fB?\fR
Matches any single character.
.TP 10
\fB*\fR
Matches any sequence of zero or more characters.
.TP 10
\fB[\fIchars\fB]\fR
Matches any single character in \fIchars\fR.  If \fIchars\fR
contains a sequence of the form \fIa\fB\-\fIb\fR then any
character between \fIa\fR and \fIb\fR (inclusive) will match.
.TP 10
\fB\e\fIx\fR
Matches the character \fIx\fR.
.TP 10
\fB{\fIa\fB,\fIb\fB,\fI...\fR}
Matches any of the strings \fIa\fR, \fIb\fR, etc.
.LP
On Unix, as with csh, a
.QW .
at the beginning of a file's name or just after a
.QW /
must be matched explicitly or with a {} construct, unless the
.QW "-types hidden"
flag is given (since
.QW .
at the beginning 
of a file's name indicates that it is hidden).  On other platforms,
files beginning with a
.QW .
are handled no differently to any others,
except the special directories
.QW .
and
.QW ..
which must be matched explicitly (this is to avoid a recursive pattern like
.QW "glob -join * * * *"
from recursing up the directory hierarchy as well as down). In addition, all
.QW /
characters must be matched explicitly.
.LP
If the first character in a \fIpattern\fR is
.QW ~
then it refers to the home directory for the user whose name follows the
.QW ~ .
If the
.QW ~
is followed immediately by
.QW /
then the value of the HOME environment variable is used.
.LP
The \fBglob\fR command differs from csh globbing in two ways.
First, it does not sort its result list (use the \fBlsort\fR
command if you want the list sorted).
Second, \fBglob\fR only returns the names of files that actually
exist;  in csh no check for existence is made unless a pattern
contains a ?, *, or [] construct.
.LP
When the \fBglob\fR command returns relative paths whose filenames
start with a tilde
.QW ~
(for example through \fBglob *\fR or 
\fBglob -tails\fR, the returned list will not quote the tilde with
.QW ./ .
This means care must be taken if those names are later to
be used with \fBfile join\fR, to avoid them being interpreted as
absolute paths pointing to a given user's home directory.
.SH "PORTABILITY ISSUES"
.TP
\fBWindows\fR
.
For Windows UNC names, the servername and sharename components of the path
may not contain ?, *, or [] constructs.  On Windows NT, if \fIpattern\fR is
of the form
.QW \fB~\fIusername\fB@\fIdomain\fR
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, \fBglob\fR accepts patterns
like
.QW .../
and
.QW ..../
for successively higher up parent directories.
.RS
.PP
Since the backslash character has a special meaning to the glob 
command, glob patterns containing Windows style path separators need 
special care. The pattern \fIC:\e\efoo\e\e*\fR is interpreted as 
\fIC:\efoo\e*\fR where \fI\ef\fR will match the single character \fIf\fR 
and \fI\e*\fR will match the single character \fI*\fR 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 \fBfile
join $path\fR (or \fBfile normalize $path\fR in Tcl 8.4). 
.SH EXAMPLES
Find all the Tcl files in the current directory:
.CS
\fBglob\fR *.tcl
.CE
.PP
Find all the Tcl files in the user's home directory, irrespective of
what the current directory is:
.CS
\fBglob\fR \-directory ~ *.tcl
.CE
.PP
Find all subdirectories of the current directory:
.CS
\fBglob\fR \-type d *
.CE
.PP
Find all files whose name contains an
.QW a ,
a
.QW b
or the sequence
.QW cde :
.CS
\fBglob\fR \-type f *{a,b,cde}*
.CE

.SH "SEE ALSO"
file(n)

.SH KEYWORDS
exist, file, glob, pattern