# glob - Return names of files that match patterns

## SYNOPSIS

glob ?switches? pattern ?pattern ...?

## 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.

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

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

--
  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 (inclusive) will match.

\x
  Matches the character x.

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

As with csh, a ``.'' at the beginning of a file's name or just after a ``/'' must be matched explicitly or with a {} construct. 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.

## KEYWORDS

exist, file, glob, pattern