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glob(3tcl) Tcl Built-In Commands glob(3tcl) 





NAME


glob - Return names of files that match patterns






SYNOPSIS


glob ?switches? ?pattern ...?








DESCRIPTION


This command performs file name “globbing” in a
    fashion similar to the csh shell or bash 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.




OPTIONS


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



  

  
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.

  

  
The remaining pattern arguments, after option processing, are treated as a
      single pattern obtained by joining the arguments with directory
      separators.

  

  
Allows an empty list to be returned without error; without this switch an
      error is returned if the result list would be empty.

  

  
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.

  

  
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.

  

  
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 -.








GLOBBING PATTERNS


The pattern arguments may contain any of the following
    special characters, which are a superset of those supported by string
    match:



  
?

  
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.

  

  
Matches the character x.

  
{a,b,...}

  
Matches any of the sub-patterns 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.








WINDOWS PORTABILITY ISSUES


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.


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”.






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







  

    8.3
    Tcl