WILDMAT(3)						     Library Functions Manual							WILDMAT(3)

NAME

       wildmat - perform shell-style wildcard matching

SYNOPSIS

       int
       wildmat(text, pattern)
	   char       *text;
	   char       *pattern;

DESCRIPTION

       Wildmat	is  part  of  libinn(3).  Wildmat compares the text against the pattern and returns non-zero if the pattern matches the text.  The
       pattern is interpreted according to rules similar to shell filename wildcards, and not as a full regular expression such as  those  handled
       by the grep(1) family of programs or the regex(3) or regexp(3) set of routines.

       The pattern is interpreted as follows:

       x     Turns  off the special meaning of x and matches it directly; this is used mostly before a question mark or asterisk, and is not spe-
	      cial inside square brackets.

       ?      Matches any single character.

       *      Matches any sequence of zero or more characters.

       [x...y]
	      Matches any single character specified by the set x...y.	A minus sign may be used to indicate a	range  of  characters.	 That  is,
	      [0-5abc] is a shorthand for [012345abc].	More than one range may appear inside a character set; [0-9a-zA-Z._] matches almost all of
	      the legal characters for a host name.  The close bracket, ], may be used if it is the first character in the set.  The  minus  sign,
	      -, may be used if it is either the first or last character in the set.

       [^x...y]
	      This  matches any character not in the set x...y, which is interpreted as described above.  For example, [^]-] matches any character
	      other than a close bracket or minus sign.

HISTORY

       Written by Rich $alz <rsalz@uunet.uu.net> in 1986, and posted to Usenet several times since then,  most	notably  in  comp.sources.misc	in
       March, 1991.

       Lars Mathiesen <thorinn@diku.dk> enhanced the multi-asterisk failure mode in early 1991.

       Rich and Lars increased the efficiency of star patterns and reposted it to comp.sources.misc in April, 1991.

       Robert Elz <kre@munnari.oz.au> added minus sign and close bracket handling in June, 1991.

       This is revision 1.2.6.1, dated 2000/08/17.

SEE ALSO

       grep(1), regex(3), regexp(3).

																	WILDMAT(3)