fnmatch(5)						Standards, Environments, and Macros						fnmatch(5)

NAME

       fnmatch - file name pattern matching

DESCRIPTION

       The  pattern matching notation described below  is used to specify patterns for matching strings in the shell. Historically, pattern match-
       ing notation is related to, but slightly different from, the regular expression notation. For this reason, the description of the rules for
       this pattern matching notation is based on the description of regular expression notation described on the  regex(5) manual page.

   Patterns Matching a Single Character
       The  following  patterns  matching a single character match a single character: ordinary characters, special pattern characters and pattern
       bracket expressions. The pattern bracket expression will also match a single collating element.

       An ordinary character is a pattern that matches itself. It can be any character in the supported character set except for NUL,  those  spe-
       cial  shell  characters that require quoting, and the following three special pattern characters. Matching is based on the bit pattern used
       for encoding the character, not on the graphic representation of the character. If any character (ordinary, shell special, or pattern  spe-
       cial) is quoted, that pattern will match the character itself. The shell special characters always require quoting.

       When unquoted and outside a bracket expression, the following three characters will have special meaning in the specification of patterns:

       ?     A question-mark is a pattern that will match any character.

       *     An asterisk is a pattern that will match multiple characters, as described in Patterns Matching Multiple Characters, below.

       [     The open bracket will introduce a pattern bracket expression.

       The description of basic regular expression bracket expressions on the regex(5) manual page also applies to the pattern bracket expression,
       except that the exclamation-mark character ( ! ) replaces the circumflex character (^) in its role in a non-matching list  in  the  regular
       expression notation. A bracket expression starting with an unquoted circumflex character produces unspecified results.

       The  restriction  on a circumflex in a bracket expression is to allow implementations that support pattern matching using the circumflex as
       the negation character in addition to the exclamation-mark. A portable application must use something like [^!] to match either character.

       When pattern matching is used where shell quote removal is not performed (such as in the argument to the find -name primary  when  find	is
       being called using one of the  exec functions, or in the pattern argument to the fnmatch(3C) function, special characters can be escaped to
       remove their special meaning by preceding them with a backslash character. This escaping backslash will be discarded. The sequence \  rep-
       resents	one  literal  backslash.  All of the requirements and effects of quoting on ordinary, shell special and special pattern characters
       will apply to escaping in this context.

       Both quoting and escaping are described here because pattern matching must work in three separate circumstances:

	   o	  Calling directly upon the shell, such as in pathname expansion or in a case statement. All  of  the  following  will	match  the
		  string or file abc:

		  abc	       "abc"	      a"b"c	    ac	  a[b]c
		  a["b"]c      a[]c	      a[""]c	    a?c 	  a*c

		  The following will not:

		  "a?c" 	       a*c		     a[b]c

	   o	  Calling a utility or function without going through a shell, as described for find(1) and the function fnmatch(3C)

	   o	  Calling  utilities such as find, cpio, tar or pax through the shell command line. In this case, shell quote removal is performed
		  before the utility sees the argument.  For example, in:

		  find /bin -name ec[h]o -print

		  after quote removal, the backslashes are presented to find and it treats them as escape characters. Both precede ordinary  char-
		  acters, so the c and h represent themselves and echo would be found on many historical systems (that have it in /bin). To find a
		  file name that contained shell special characters or pattern characters, both quoting and escaping are required, such as:

		  pax -r ... "*a(?"

		  to extract a filename ending with a(?.

       Conforming applications are required to quote or escape the shell special characters (sometimes called  metacharacters).  If  used  without
       this  protection,  syntax  errors can result or implementation extensions can be triggered. For example, the KornShell supports a series of
       extensions based on parentheses in patterns; see  ksh(1)

   Patterns Matching Multiple Characters
       The following rules are used to construct patterns matching multiple characters from patterns matching a single character:

	   o	  The asterisk (*) is a pattern that will match any string, including the null string.

	   o	  The concatenation of patterns matching a single character is a valid pattern that will match the  concatenation  of  the  single
		  characters or collating elements matched by each of the concatenated patterns.

	   o	  The  concatenation  of  one  or more patterns matching a single character with one or more asterisks is a valid pattern. In such
		  patterns, each asterisk will match a string of zero or more characters, matching the greatest possible number of characters that
		  still allows the remainder of the pattern to match the string.

       Since each asterisk matches zero or more occurrences, the patterns a*b and  a**b have identical functionality.

       Examples:

       a[bc]	 matches the strings ab and ac.

       a*d	 matches the strings ad, abd and abcd, but not the string abc.

       a*d*	 matches the strings ad, abcd, abcdef, aaaad and adddd.

       *a*d	 matches the strings ad, abcd, efabcd, aaaad and adddd.

   Patterns Used for Filename Expansion
       The rules described so far in Patterns Matching Multiple Characters and Patterns Matching a Single Character are qualified by the following
       rules that apply when pattern matching notation is used for filename expansion.

	   1.	  The slash character in a pathname must be explicitly matched by using one  or more slashes in the pattern; it cannot be  matched
		  by  the  asterisk  or  question-mark special characters or by a bracket expression. Slashes in the pattern are identified before
		  bracket expressions; thus, a slash cannot be included in a pattern bracket expression used for filename expansion. For  example,
		  the pattern a[b/c]d will not match such pathnames as abd or a/d. It will only match a pathname of literally a[b/c]d.

	   2.	  If  a  filename  begins with a period (.), the period must be explicitly matched by using a period as the first character of the
		  pattern or immediately following a slash character. The leading period will not be matched by:

		  o the asterisk or question-mark special characters

		  o a bracket expression containing a non-matching list, such as:

		  [!a]

		  a range expression, such as:

		  [%-0]

		  or a character class expression, such as:

		  [[:punct:]]

		  It is unspecified whether an explicit period in a bracket expression matching list, such as:

		  [.abc]

		  can match a leading period in a filename.

	   3.	  Specified patterns are matched against existing filenames and pathnames,  as appropriate.  Each component that contains  a  pat-
		  tern	character  requires  read permission in the directory containing that component. Any component, except the last, that does
		  not contain a pattern character requires search permission. For example, given the pattern:

		  /foo/bar/x*/bam

		  search permission is needed for directories / and foo, search and read permissions are needed for directory bar, and search per-
		  mission is needed for each x* directory.

		  If  the  pattern  matches  any existing filenames or pathnames, the pattern will be replaced with those filenames and pathnames,
		  sorted according to the collating sequence in effect in the current locale. If the pattern contains an invalid  bracket  expres-
		  sion or does not match any existing filenames or pathnames, the pattern string is left unchanged.

SEE ALSO

       find(1), ksh(1), fnmatch(3C), regex(5)

SunOS 5.11							    28 Mar 1995 							fnmatch(5)