1glob(n) Tcl Built-In Commands glob(n)
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8 glob - Return names of files that match patterns
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11 glob ?switches? ?pattern ...?
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15 This command performs file name “globbing” in a fashion similar to the
16 csh shell or bash shell. It returns a list of the files whose names
17 match any of the pattern arguments. No particular order is guaranteed
18 in the list, so if a sorted list is required the caller should use
19 lsort.
20 OPTIONS
22 If the initial arguments to glob start with - then they are treated as
23 switches. The following switches are currently supported:
24 -directory directory
26 Search for files which match the given patterns starting in the
27 given directory. This allows searching of directories whose name
28 contains glob-sensitive characters without the need to quote
29 such characters explicitly. This option may not be used in con‐
30 junction with -path, which is used to allow searching for com‐
31 plete file paths whose names may contain glob-sensitive charac‐
32 ters.
33 -join The remaining pattern arguments, after option processing, are
35 treated as a single pattern obtained by joining the arguments
36 with directory separators.
37 -nocomplain
39 Allows an empty list to be returned without error; without this
40 switch an error is returned if the result list would be empty.
41 -path pathPrefix
43 Search for files with the given pathPrefix where the rest of the
44 name matches the given patterns. This allows searching for files
45 with names similar to a given file (as opposed to a directory)
46 even when the names contain glob-sensitive characters. This
47 option may not be used in conjunction with -directory. For exam‐
48 ple, to find all files with the same root name as $path, but
49 differing extensions, you should use “glob -path [file rootname
50 $path] .*” which will work even if $path contains numerous
51 glob-sensitive characters.
52 -tails Only return the part of each file found which follows the last
54 directory named in any -directory or -path path specification.
55 Thus “glob -tails -directory $dir *” is equivalent to “set pwd
56 [pwd]; cd $dir; glob *; cd $pwd”. For -path specifications, the
57 returned names will include the last path segment, so “glob
58 -tails -path [file rootname ~/foo.tex] .*” will return paths
59 like foo.aux foo.bib foo.tex etc.
60 -types typeList
62 Only list files or directories which match typeList, where the
63 items in the list have two forms. The first form is like the
64 -type option of the Unix find command: b (block special file), c
65 (character special file), d (directory), f (plain file), l (sym‐
66 bolic link), p (named pipe), or s (socket), where multiple types
67 may be specified in the list. Glob will return all files which
68 match at least one of the types given. Note that symbolic links
69 will be returned both if -types l is given, or if the target of
70 a link matches the requested type. So, a link to a directory
71 will be returned if -types d was specified.
72 The second form specifies types where all the types given must
74 match. These are r, w, x as file permissions, and readonly,
75 hidden as special permission cases. On the Macintosh, MacOS
76 types and creators are also supported, where any item which is
77 four characters long is assumed to be a MacOS type (e.g. TEXT).
78 Items which are of the form {macintosh type XXXX} or {macintosh
79 creator XXXX} will match types or creators respectively. Unrec‐
80 ognized types, or specifications of multiple MacOS types/cre‐
81 ators will signal an error.
82 The two forms may be mixed, so -types {d f r w} will find all
84 regular files OR directories that have both read AND write per‐
85 missions. The following are equivalent:
86 glob -type d *
88 glob */
89 except that the first case doesn't return the trailing “/” and
91 is more platform independent.
92 -- Marks the end of switches. The argument following this one will
94 be treated as a pattern even if it starts with a -.
95 GLOBBING PATTERNS
97 The pattern arguments may contain any of the following special charac‐
98 ters, which are a superset of those supported by string match:
99 ? Matches any single character.
101 * Matches any sequence of zero or more characters.
103 [chars] Matches any single character in chars. If chars contains a
105 sequence of the form a-b then any character between a and b
106 (inclusive) will match.
107 \x Matches the character x.
109 {a,b,...} Matches any of the sub-patterns a, b, etc.
111 On Unix, as with csh, a “.” at the beginning of a file's name or just
113 after a “/” must be matched explicitly or with a {} construct, unless
114 the -types hidden flag is given (since “.” at the beginning of a file's
115 name indicates that it is hidden). On other platforms, files beginning
116 with a “.” are handled no differently to any others, except the special
117 directories “.” and “..” which must be matched explicitly (this is to
118 avoid a recursive pattern like “glob -join * * * *” from recursing up
119 the directory hierarchy as well as down). In addition, all “/” charac‐
120 ters must be matched explicitly.
121 If the first character in a pattern is “~” then it refers to the home
123 directory for the user whose name follows the “~”. If the “~” is fol‐
124 lowed immediately by “/” then the value of the HOME environment vari‐
125 able is used.
126 The glob command differs from csh globbing in two ways. First, it does
128 not sort its result list (use the lsort command if you want the list
129 sorted). Second, glob only returns the names of files that actually
130 exist; in csh no check for existence is made unless a pattern contains
131 a ?, *, or [] construct.
132 When the glob command returns relative paths whose filenames start with
134 a tilde “~” (for example through glob * or glob -tails, the returned
135 list will not quote the tilde with “./”. This means care must be taken
136 if those names are later to be used with file join, to avoid them being
137 interpreted as absolute paths pointing to a given user's home direc‐
138 tory.
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141 For Windows UNC names, the servername and sharename components of the
142 path may not contain ?, *, or [] constructs. On Windows NT, if pattern
143 is of the form “~username@domain”, it refers to the home directory of
144 the user whose account information resides on the specified NT domain
145 server. Otherwise, user account information is obtained from the local
146 computer.
147 Since the backslash character has a special meaning to the glob com‐
149 mand, glob patterns containing Windows style path separators need spe‐
150 cial care. The pattern “C:\\foo\\*” is interpreted as “C:\foo\*” where
151 “\f” will match the single character “f” and “\*” will match the single
152 character “*” and will not be interpreted as a wildcard character. One
153 solution to this problem is to use the Unix style forward slash as a
154 path separator. Windows style paths can be converted to Unix style
155 paths with the command “file join $path” or “file normalize $path”.
156
158 Find all the Tcl files in the current directory:
159 glob *.tcl
161 Find all the Tcl files in the user's home directory, irrespective of
163 what the current directory is:
164 glob -directory ~ *.tcl
166 Find all subdirectories of the current directory:
168 glob -type d *
170 Find all files whose name contains an “a”, a “b” or the sequence “cde”:
172 glob -type f *{a,b,cde}*
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176 file(n)
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179 exist, file, glob, pattern
180Tcl 8.3 glob(n)