1GLOB(3) Linux Programmer's Manual GLOB(3)
2
6 glob, globfree - find pathnames matching a pattern, free memory from
7 glob()
8
10 #include <glob.h>
11 int glob(const char *restrict pattern, int flags,
13 int (*errfunc)(const char *epath, int eerrno),
14 glob_t *restrict pglob);
15 void globfree(glob_t *pglob);
16
18 The glob() function searches for all the pathnames matching pattern ac‐
19 cording to the rules used by the shell (see glob(7)). No tilde expan‐
20 sion or parameter substitution is done; if you want these, use word‐
21 exp(3).
22 The globfree() function frees the dynamically allocated storage from an
24 earlier call to glob().
25 The results of a glob() call are stored in the structure pointed to by
27 pglob. This structure is of type glob_t (declared in <glob.h>) and in‐
28 cludes the following elements defined by POSIX.2 (more may be present
29 as an extension):
30 typedef struct {
32 size_t gl_pathc; /* Count of paths matched so far */
33 char **gl_pathv; /* List of matched pathnames. */
34 size_t gl_offs; /* Slots to reserve in gl_pathv. */
35 } glob_t;
36 Results are stored in dynamically allocated storage.
38 The argument flags is made up of the bitwise OR of zero or more the
40 following symbolic constants, which modify the behavior of glob():
41 GLOB_ERR
43 Return upon a read error (because a directory does not have read
44 permission, for example). By default, glob() attempts carry on
45 despite errors, reading all of the directories that it can.
46 GLOB_MARK
48 Append a slash to each path which corresponds to a directory.
49 GLOB_NOSORT
51 Don't sort the returned pathnames. The only reason to do this
52 is to save processing time. By default, the returned pathnames
53 are sorted.
54 GLOB_DOOFFS
56 Reserve pglob->gl_offs slots at the beginning of the list of
57 strings in pglob->pathv. The reserved slots contain null point‐
58 ers.
59 GLOB_NOCHECK
61 If no pattern matches, return the original pattern. By default,
62 glob() returns GLOB_NOMATCH if there are no matches.
63 GLOB_APPEND
65 Append the results of this call to the vector of results re‐
66 turned by a previous call to glob(). Do not set this flag on
67 the first invocation of glob().
68 GLOB_NOESCAPE
70 Don't allow backslash ('\') to be used as an escape character.
71 Normally, a backslash can be used to quote the following charac‐
72 ter, providing a mechanism to turn off the special meaning
73 metacharacters.
74 flags may also include any of the following, which are GNU extensions
76 and not defined by POSIX.2:
77 GLOB_PERIOD
79 Allow a leading period to be matched by metacharacters. By de‐
80 fault, metacharacters can't match a leading period.
81 GLOB_ALTDIRFUNC
83 Use alternative functions pglob->gl_closedir, pglob->gl_readdir,
84 pglob->gl_opendir, pglob->gl_lstat, and pglob->gl_stat for
85 filesystem access instead of the normal library functions.
86 GLOB_BRACE
88 Expand csh(1) style brace expressions of the form {a,b}. Brace
89 expressions can be nested. Thus, for example, specifying the
90 pattern "{foo/{,cat,dog},bar}" would return the same results as
91 four separate glob() calls using the strings: "foo/", "foo/cat",
92 "foo/dog", and "bar".
93 GLOB_NOMAGIC
95 If the pattern contains no metacharacters, then it should be re‐
96 turned as the sole matching word, even if there is no file with
97 that name.
98 GLOB_TILDE
100 Carry out tilde expansion. If a tilde ('~') is the only charac‐
101 ter in the pattern, or an initial tilde is followed immediately
102 by a slash ('/'), then the home directory of the caller is sub‐
103 stituted for the tilde. If an initial tilde is followed by a
104 username (e.g., "~andrea/bin"), then the tilde and username are
105 substituted by the home directory of that user. If the username
106 is invalid, or the home directory cannot be determined, then no
107 substitution is performed.
108 GLOB_TILDE_CHECK
110 This provides behavior similar to that of GLOB_TILDE. The dif‐
111 ference is that if the username is invalid, or the home direc‐
112 tory cannot be determined, then instead of using the pattern it‐
113 self as the name, glob() returns GLOB_NOMATCH to indicate an er‐
114 ror.
115 GLOB_ONLYDIR
117 This is a hint to glob() that the caller is interested only in
118 directories that match the pattern. If the implementation can
119 easily determine file-type information, then nondirectory files
120 are not returned to the caller. However, the caller must still
121 check that returned files are directories. (The purpose of this
122 flag is merely to optimize performance when the caller is inter‐
123 ested only in directories.)
124 If errfunc is not NULL, it will be called in case of an error with the
126 arguments epath, a pointer to the path which failed, and eerrno, the
127 value of errno as returned from one of the calls to opendir(3), read‐
128 dir(3), or stat(2). If errfunc returns nonzero, or if GLOB_ERR is set,
129 glob() will terminate after the call to errfunc.
130 Upon successful return, pglob->gl_pathc contains the number of matched
132 pathnames and pglob->gl_pathv contains a pointer to the list of point‐
133 ers to matched pathnames. The list of pointers is terminated by a null
134 pointer.
135 It is possible to call glob() several times. In that case, the
137 GLOB_APPEND flag has to be set in flags on the second and later invoca‐
138 tions.
139 As a GNU extension, pglob->gl_flags is set to the flags specified, ored
141 with GLOB_MAGCHAR if any metacharacters were found.
142
144 On successful completion, glob() returns zero. Other possible returns
145 are:
146 GLOB_NOSPACE
148 for running out of memory,
149 GLOB_ABORTED
151 for a read error, and
152 GLOB_NOMATCH
154 for no found matches.
155
157 For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see at‐
158 tributes(7).
159 ┌───────────┬───────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────┐
161 │Interface │ Attribute │ Value │
162 ├───────────┼───────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┤
163 │glob() │ Thread safety │ MT-Unsafe race:utent env sig:ALRM timer │
164 │ │ │ locale │
165 ├───────────┼───────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────┤
166 │globfree() │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │
167 └───────────┴───────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────┘
168 In the above table, utent in race:utent signifies that if any of the
169 functions setutent(3), getutent(3), or endutent(3) are used in parallel
170 in different threads of a program, then data races could occur. glob()
171 calls those functions, so we use race:utent to remind users.
172
174 POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, POSIX.2.
175
177 The structure elements gl_pathc and gl_offs are declared as size_t in
178 glibc 2.1, as they should be according to POSIX.2, but are declared as
179 int in glibc 2.0.
180
182 The glob() function may fail due to failure of underlying function
183 calls, such as malloc(3) or opendir(3). These will store their error
184 code in errno.
185
187 One example of use is the following code, which simulates typing
188 ls -l *.c ../*.c
190 in the shell:
192 glob_t globbuf;
194 globbuf.gl_offs = 2;
196 glob("*.c", GLOB_DOOFFS, NULL, &globbuf);
197 glob("../*.c", GLOB_DOOFFS | GLOB_APPEND, NULL, &globbuf);
198 globbuf.gl_pathv[0] = "ls";
199 globbuf.gl_pathv[1] = "-l";
200 execvp("ls", &globbuf.gl_pathv[0]);
201
203 ls(1), sh(1), stat(2), exec(3), fnmatch(3), malloc(3), opendir(3),
204 readdir(3), wordexp(3), glob(7)
205
207 This page is part of release 5.12 of the Linux man-pages project. A
208 description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
209 latest version of this page, can be found at
210 https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
211GNU 2021-03-22 GLOB(3)