glob(n) Tcl Built-In Commands glob(n)_________________________________________________________________NAME
glob - Return names of files that match patterns
SYNOPSIS
glob ?switches? pattern ?pattern ...?
_________________________________________________________________DESCRIPTION
This command performs file name ``globbing'' in a fashion
similar to the csh shell. It returns a list of the files
whose names match any of the pattern arguments.
If the initial arguments to glob start with - then they
are treated as switches. The following switches are cur-
rently supported:
-nocomplain Allows an empty list to be returned without
error; without this switch an error is
returned if the result list would be empty.
-- Marks the end of switches. The argument
following this one will be treated as a
pattern even if it starts with a -.
The pattern arguments may contain any of the following
special characters:
? 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.
\x Matches the character x.
{a,b,...} Matches any of the strings a, b, etc.
As with csh, a ``.'' at the beginning of a file's name or
just after a ``/'' must be matched explicitly or with a {}
construct. 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 fol-
lows the ``~''. If the ``~'' is followed immediately by
``/'' then the value of the HOME environment variable is
used.
Tcl 7.5 1
glob(n) Tcl Built-In Commands glob(n)
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.
PORTABILITY ISSUES
Unlike other Tcl commands that will accept both network
and native style names (see the filename manual entry for
details on how native and network names are specified),
the glob command only accepts native names. Also, for
Windows UNC names, the servername and sharename components
of the path may not contain ?, *, or [] constructs.
KEYWORDS
exist, file, glob, pattern
Tcl 7.5 2