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wildcard in bash shell script

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# 1  
Old 09-07-2010
wildcard in bash shell script
I tried to use the wildcard '*' in my bash script, but I can not get it work. Here is a simple example (list file names in current directory):
ls ./*
does not work in my bash script. But it works if I use
ls ./

So is there any special syntax to use '*' wildcard in bash script (I tested the same thing, but it worked at c shell).

thanks
# 2  
Old 09-07-2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by aerosols
I tried to use the wildcard '*' in my bash script, but I can not get it work. Here is a simple example (list file names in current directory):
ls ./*
does not work in my bash script. But it works if I use
ls ./
There's no special syntax for * in a BASH script. Unless there's too many arguments, it should match like you expect. In what way did it "not work"?

Note that it will print the contents of directories matched, not just the names of directories, as that's what ls does...

"ls *" is redundant anyway, but that's beside the point.
Last edited by Corona688; 09-07-2010 at 10:57 PM..
# 3  
Old 09-08-2010
When I run the script, it gives the following message:
"ls: ./*: No such file or directory"

I can not understand why (I directly type "ls ./*" at command line, it works).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Corona688
There's no special syntax for * in a BASH script. Unless there's too many arguments, it should match like you expect. In what way did it "not work"?

Note that it will print the contents of directories matched, not just the names of directories, as that's what ls does...

"ls *" is redundant anyway, but that's beside the point.
# 4  
Old 09-08-2010
Please post the script.
# 5  
Old 09-08-2010
If you've put them in quotes, asterisks won't expand.
# 6  
Old 09-08-2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by frank_rizzo
Please post the script.
See my script below(I did not quote it at all):

Quote:
#! /bin/bash -f

ls ./*

exit
it gave the error message in my last post. But if replace 'ls ./*' with 'ls ./', it works. thanks a lot!
# 7  
Old 09-08-2010
If the only files in the directory have names starting with "." (like ".profile) they will not match "*".

To see them:

Code:
ls ./.??*
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