File::DosGlob(3pm)

1File::DosGlob(3pm)     Perl Programmers Reference Guide     File::DosGlob(3pm)
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NAME

6       File::DosGlob - DOS like globbing and then some
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SYNOPSIS

9           require 5.004;
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11           # override CORE::glob in current package
12           use File::DosGlob 'glob';
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14           # override CORE::glob in ALL packages (use with extreme caution!)
15           use File::DosGlob 'GLOBAL_glob';
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17           @perlfiles = glob  "..\\pe?l/*.p?";
18           print <..\\pe?l/*.p?>;
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20           # from the command line (overrides only in main::)
21           > perl -MFile::DosGlob=glob -e "print <../pe*/*p?>"
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DESCRIPTION

24       A module that implements DOS-like globbing with a few enhancements.  It
25       is largely compatible with perlglob.exe (the M$ setargv.obj version) in
26       all but one respect--it understands wildcards in directory components.
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28       For example, "<..\\l*b\\file/*glob.p?"> will work as expected (in that
29       it will find something like '..\lib\File/DosGlob.pm' alright).  Note
30       that all path components are case-insensitive, and that backslashes and
31       forward slashes are both accepted, and preserved.  You may have to dou‐
32       ble the backslashes if you are putting them in literally, due to dou‐
33       ble-quotish parsing of the pattern by perl.
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35       Spaces in the argument delimit distinct patterns, so "glob('*.exe
36       *.dll')" globs all filenames that end in ".exe" or ".dll".  If you want
37       to put in literal spaces in the glob pattern, you can escape them with
38       either double quotes, or backslashes.  e.g. "glob('c:/"Program
39       Files"/*/*.dll')", or "glob('c:/Program\ Files/*/*.dll')".  The argu‐
40       ment is tokenized using "Text::ParseWords::parse_line()", so see
41       Text::ParseWords for details of the quoting rules used.
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43       Extending it to csh patterns is left as an exercise to the reader.
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NOTES

46       ·   Mac OS (Classic) users should note a few differences. The specifi‐
47           cation of pathnames in glob patterns adheres to the usual Mac OS
48           conventions: The path separator is a colon ':', not a slash '/' or
49           backslash '\'. A full path always begins with a volume name. A rel‐
50           ative pathname on Mac OS must always begin with a ':', except when
51           specifying a file or directory name in the current working direc‐
52           tory, where the leading colon is optional. If specifying a volume
53           name only, a trailing ':' is required. Due to these rules, a glob
54           like <*:> will find all mounted volumes, while a glob like <*> or
55           <:*> will find all files and directories in the current directory.
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57           Note that updirs in the glob pattern are resolved before the match‐
58           ing begins, i.e. a pattern like "*HD:t?p::a*" will be matched as
59           "*HD:a*". Note also, that a single trailing ':' in the pattern is
60           ignored (unless it's a volume name pattern like "*HD:"), i.e. a
61           glob like <:*:> will find both directories and files (and not, as
62           one might expect, only directories).
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64           The metachars '*', '?' and the escape char '\' are valid characters
65           in volume, directory and file names on Mac OS. Hence, if you want
66           to match a '*', '?' or '\' literally, you have to escape these
67           characters. Due to perl's quoting rules, things may get a bit com‐
68           plicated, when you want to match a string like '\*' literally, or
69           when you want to match '\' literally, but treat the immediately
70           following character '*' as metachar. So, here's a rule of thumb
71           (applies to both single- and double-quoted strings): escape each
72           '*' or '?' or '\' with a backslash, if you want to treat them lit‐
73           erally, and then double each backslash and your are done. E.g.
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75           - Match '\*' literally
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77              escape both '\' and '*'  : '\\\*'
78              double the backslashes   : '\\\\\\*'
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80           (Internally, the glob routine sees a '\\\*', which means that both
81           '\' and '*' are escaped.)
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83           - Match '\' literally, treat '*' as metachar
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85              escape '\' but not '*'   : '\\*'
86              double the backslashes   : '\\\\*'
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88           (Internally, the glob routine sees a '\\*', which means that '\' is
89           escaped and '*' is not.)
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91           Note that you also have to quote literal spaces in the glob pat‐
92           tern, as described above.
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EXPORTS (by request only)

95       glob()
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BUGS

98       Should probably be built into the core, and needs to stop pandering to
99       DOS habits.  Needs a dose of optimizium too.
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AUTHOR

102       Gurusamy Sarathy <gsar@activestate.com>
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HISTORY

105       ·   Support for globally overriding glob() (GSAR 3-JUN-98)
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107       ·   Scalar context, independent iterator context fixes (GSAR 15-SEP-97)
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109       ·   A few dir-vs-file optimizations result in glob importation being 10
110           times faster than using perlglob.exe, and using perlglob.bat is
111           only twice as slow as perlglob.exe (GSAR 28-MAY-97)
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113       ·   Several cleanups prompted by lack of compatible perlglob.exe under
114           Borland (GSAR 27-MAY-97)
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116       ·   Initial version (GSAR 20-FEB-97)
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