glob(3C) glob(3C)
NAME
glob(), globfree() - file name generation function
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
is a path name generator. pattern is a pointer to a path name pattern to be expanded. If pattern contains any of the special characters
or pattern is matched against all accessible path names. In order to have access to a path name, requires:
o Search permission on every component of a path except the last.
o Read permission on each directory of any file name component of pattern that contains any of the above special characters.
stores the number of matched path names in pglob -> gl_pathc and a pointer to a sorted list of path names in pglob->gl_pathv. The first
pointer after the last path name is a NULL pointer.
It is the caller's responsibility to allocate space for the structure pointed to by pglob. allocates other space as needed, including the
memory pointed to by gl_pathv. frees any space associated with pglob from a previous call to
The flags argument is used to control the behavior of The value of flags is the bit-wise inclusive OR of the following constants defined in
Disable backslash escaping.
Causes to return when it first encounters a directory that it cannot open or read. Ordinarily, continues to find
matches.
Each path name that matches
pattern and is a directory, has a appended.
Ordinarily, sorts the matching path names according to the currently active collation sequence as defined by the category.
When this flag is used, the order of path names returned is unspecified.
If pattern does not match any path name, returns a list consisting of only pattern, and the number of matched path
names is 1.
Make use of pglob->gl_offs. If this flag is set, pglob->gl_offs is used to specify how many NULL pointers to add to the
beginning of pglob->gl_pathv. In other words, pglob->gl_pathv points to pglob->gl_offs NULL pointers, followed
by pglob->gl_pathc path name pointers, followed by a NULL pointer.
Append path names generated to the ones from a previous call to
The flag can be used to append a new set of path names to those found in a previous call to The following rules apply when two or
more calls to are made with the same value of pglob and without intervening calls to
o The first call must not set All subsequent calls must set it.
o All of the calls must set or all must not set it.
o After the second call, pglob->gl_pathv points to a list containing the following:
o Zero or more NULL pointers, as specified by and pglob->gl_offs.
o Pointers to the path names that were in the pglob->gl_pathv list before the call, in the same order as before.
o Pointers to the new path names generated by the second call, in the specified order.
o The count returned in pglob->gl_pathc will be the total number of path names from the two calls.
o The application can change any of the fields after a call to If it does, it must reset them to the original value before a
subsequent call, using the same pglob value, to or with the flag.
If, during the search, a directory is encountered that cannot be opened or read and errfunc is not NULL, calls (*errfunc)() with two argu-
ments:
o A pointer to the path that failed.
o The value of from the failure.
If errfunc is called and returns nonzero, or if the flag is set in flags, stops the scan and returns after setting and in pglob to reflect
the paths already scanned. If is not set and either errfunc is NULL or (*errfunc)() returns zero, the error is ignored.
Pattern Matching Notation
The form of the patterns is the Pattern Matching Notation as qualified for Filename Expansion (see regexp(5)) with the following excep-
tions:
o Tilde expansion is not performed.
o Variable expansion is not performed.
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
Locale
The category determines the collating sequence used in compiling and executing regular expressions, and also the order of the returned
paths if is not selected.
The category determines the interpretation of text as single byte and/or multibyte characters, and determines which characters are matched
by character class expressions in regular expressions.
International Code Set Support
Single byte and multibyte character code sets are supported.
RETURN VALUE
If terminates due to an error, it returns one of the following constants (defined in otherwise, it returns zero.
An attempt to allocate memory failed.
The scan was stopped because
was set or (*errfunc)() returned nonzero.
The pattern does not match any existing path name, and was not set in flags.
In any case, the argument pglob->gl_pathc returns the number of matched path names and the argument pglob->gl_pathv contains a pointer to a
null-terminated list of matched and sorted path names.
However, if pglob->gl_pathc is zero, the content of pglob->gl_pathv is undefined.
If the pattern argument passed to is badly constructed, returns zero and sets to zero unless was set, in which case pattern is returned and
is set to 1.
WARNINGS
must not be set in an initial call to
AUTHOR
and were developed by OSF and HP.
SEE ALSO
sh(1), fnmatch(3C), regexp(5), thread_safety(5).
STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
glob(3C)