NAME

       glob - Return names of files that match patterns

SYNOPSIS

       glob ?switches? ?pattern ...?
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DESCRIPTION

       This  command  performs  file  name  “globbing”  in a fashion similar to the csh shell or bash 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.

   OPTIONS
       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, after option processing, are treated as a single pattern obtained
              by joining the arguments with directory separators.

       -nocomplain
              Allows  an  empty  list  to be returned without error; This is the default behavior in Tcl 9.0, so
              this switch has no effect any more.

       -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 characters.

       -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 /home/fred/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 permissions.  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 -.

   GLOBBING PATTERNS
       The pattern arguments may contain any of the following special characters, which are a superset of  those
       supported by string match:

       ?         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 (inclusive) will match.

       \x        Matches the character x.

       {a,b,...} Matches any of the sub-patterns 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.

       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.

WINDOWS PORTABILITY ISSUES

       For Windows UNC names, the servername and sharename components of the path may not contain ?,  *,  or  []
       constructs.

       Since the backslash character has a special meaning to the glob command, glob patterns containing Windows
       style path separators need special care. The pattern “C:\\foo\\*” is interpreted as “C:\foo\*” where “\f”
       will  match  the  single  character  “f”  and  “\*”  will  match the single character “*” 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”.

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 [file home] *.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(3tcl)

KEYWORDS

       exist, file, glob, pattern

Tcl                                                    8.3                                            glob(3tcl)