glob(n) 						       Tcl Built-In Commands							   glob(n)

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NAME

       glob - Return names of files that match patterns

SYNOPSIS

       glob ?switches? pattern ?pattern ...?
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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.  No particular order is guaranteed in the list, so if a sorted list is required the caller should use lsort.

       If the initial arguments to glob start with - then they are treated as switches.  The following switches are currently supported:

       -directory directory
	      Search for files which match the given patterns starting in the given directory.	This allows searching of  directories  whose  name
	      contains glob-sensitive characters without the need to quote such characters explicitly.	This option may not be used in conjunction
	      with -path, which is used to allow searching for complete file paths whose names may contain glob-sensitive characters.

       -join  The remaining pattern arguments are treated as a single pattern obtained by joining the arguments with directory separators.

       -nocomplain
	      Allows an empty list to be returned without error;  without this switch an error is returned if the result list would be empty.

       -path pathPrefix
	      Search for files with the given pathPrefix where the rest of the name matches the given patterns.  This allows searching	for  files
	      with  names  similar to a given file (as opposed to a directory) even when the names contain glob-sensitive characters.  This option
	      may not be used in conjunction with -directory.  For example, to find all files with the same root  name	as  $path,  but  differing
	      extensions,  you should use glob -path [file rootname $path] .* which will work even if $path contains numerous glob-sensitive char-
	      acters.

       -tails Only return the part of each file found which follows the last directory named in any -directory or -path path specification.   Thus
	      glob  -tails  -directory	$dir * is equivalent to set pwd [pwd] ; cd $dir ; glob *; cd $pwd.  For -path specifications, the returned
	      names will include the last path segment, so glob -tails -path [file rootname ~/foo.tex] .*  will return paths like foo.aux  foo.bib
	      foo.tex etc.

       -types typeList
	      Only  list  files or directories which match typeList, where the items in the list have two forms.  The first form is like the -type
	      option of the Unix find command: b (block special file), c (character special file), d (directory),  f  (plain  file),  l  (symbolic
	      link),  p (named pipe), or s (socket), where multiple types may be specified in the list.  Glob will return all files which match at
	      least one of the types given.  Note that symbolic links will be returned both if -types l is given, or  if  the  target  of  a  link
	      matches the requested type.  So, a link to a directory will be returned if -types d was specified.

	      The  second  form specifies types where all the types given must match.  These are r, w, x as file permissions, and readonly, hidden
	      as special permission cases.  On the Macintosh, MacOS types and creators are also supported, where any item which is four characters
	      long  is assumed to be a MacOS type (e.g. TEXT).	Items which are of the form {macintosh type XXXX} or {macintosh creator XXXX} will
	      match types or creators respectively.  Unrecognized types, or specifications of multiple MacOS types/creators will signal an error.

	      The two forms may be mixed, so -types {d f r w} will find all regular files OR directories that have both  read  AND  write  permis-
	      sions.  The following are equivalent:
			    glob -type d *
			    glob */
	      except that the first case doesn't return the trailing "/" and is more platform independent.

       --     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 (inclu-
		 sive) will match.

       x	 Matches the character x.

       {a,b,...} Matches any of the strings a, b, etc.

       On Unix, as with csh, a "."  at the beginning of a file's name or just after a "/" must be matched  explicitly  or  with  a  {}	construct,
       unless  the  -types  hidden  flag is given (since "."  at the beginning of a file's name indicates that it is hidden).  On other platforms,
       files beginning with a "."  are handled no differently to any others, except the special directories "."  and ".."  which must  be  matched
       explicitly  (this  is to avoid a recursive pattern like "glob -join * * * *" from recursing up the directory hierarchy as well as down). 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 follows the "~".   If  the  "~"	is
       followed immediately by "/" then the value of the HOME environment variable is used.

       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.

       When  the  glob	command  returns  relative  paths  whose  filenames start with a tilde "~" (for example through glob * or glob -tails, the
       returned list will not quote the tilde with "./".  This means care must be taken if those names are later to be used  with  file  join,	to
       avoid them being interpreted as absolute paths pointing to a given user's home directory.

PORTABILITY ISSUES

       Windows	For Windows UNC names, the servername and sharename components of the path may not contain ?, *, or [] constructs.  On Windows NT,
       if pattern is of the form "~username@domain", it refers to the home directory of the user whose account information resides on  the  speci-
       fied  NT  domain server.  Otherwise, user account information is obtained from the local computer.  On Windows 95 and 98, glob accepts pat-
       terns like ".../" and "..../" for successively higher up parent directories.

       Since the backslash character has a special meaning to the glob command, glob patterns containing Windows style path separators	need  spe-
       cial  care. The pattern C:\foo\* is interpreted as C:foo* where f will match the single character f and * will match the single char-
       acter * and will not be interpreted as a wildcard character. One solution to this problem is to use the Unix style forward slash as a  path
       separator. Windows style paths can be converted to Unix style paths with the command file join $path (or file normalize $path in Tcl 8.4).

EXAMPLES

       Find all the Tcl files in the current directory:
	      glob *.tcl

       Find all the Tcl files in the user's home directory, irrespective of what the current directory is:
	      glob -directory ~ *.tcl

       Find all subdirectories of the current directory:
	      glob -type d *

       Find all files whose name contains an "a", a "b" or the sequence "cde":
	      glob -type f *{a,b,cde}*

SEE ALSO

       file(n)

KEYWORDS

       exist, file, glob, pattern

Tcl									8.3								   glob(n)