glob

GLOB(3)                    Linux Programmer's Manual                   GLOB(3)



NAME
       glob,  globfree  -  find pathnames matching a pattern, free memory from
       glob()

SYNOPSIS
       #include <glob.h>

       int glob(const char *pattern, int flags,
                int errfunc(const char *epath, int eerrno),
                glob_t *pglob);
       void globfree(glob_t *pglob);

DESCRIPTION
       The glob() function searches for all  the  pathnames  matching  pattern
       according  to  the  rules  used  by  the shell (see glob(7)).  No tilde
       expansion or parameter substitution is done; if  you  want  these,  use
       wordexp(3).

       The globfree() function frees the dynamically allocated storage from an
       earlier call to glob().

       The results of a glob() call are stored in the structure pointed to  by
       pglob, which is a glob_t which is declared in <glob.h> and includes the
       following elements defined by POSIX.2 (more may be present as an exten-
       sion):

          typedef struct
          {
                  size_t gl_pathc;    /* Count of paths matched so far  */
                  char **gl_pathv;    /* List of matched pathnames.  */
                  size_t gl_offs;     /* Slots to reserve in `gl_pathv'.  */
          } glob_t;

       Results are stored in dynamically allocated storage.

       The  parameter  flags is made up of bitwise OR of zero or more the fol-
       lowing symbolic constants, which modify the of behaviour of glob():

       GLOB_ERR
              which means to return upon read error (because a directory  does
              not have read permission, for example),

       GLOB_MARK
              which  means to append a slash to each path which corresponds to
              a directory,

       GLOB_NOSORT
              which means don't sort  the  returned  pathnames  (they  are  by
              default),

       GLOB_DOOFFS
              which  means  that  pglob->gl_offs slots will be reserved at the
              beginning of the list of strings in pglob->pathv,

       GLOB_NOCHECK
              which means that, if no pattern matches, to return the  original
              pattern,

       GLOB_APPEND
              which means to append to the results of a previous call.  Do not
              set this flag on the first invocation of glob().

       GLOB_NOESCAPE
              which means that meta  characters  cannot  be  quoted  by  back-
              slashes.

       The  flags may also include some of the following, which are GNU exten-
       sions and not defined by POSIX.2:

       GLOB_PERIOD
              which means that a leading period can be matched by meta charac-
              ters,

       GLOB_ALTDIRFUNC
              which   means  that  alternative  functions  pglob->gl_closedir,
              pglob->gl_readdir,   pglob->gl_opendir,   pglob->gl_lstat,   and
              pglob->gl_stat  are  used  for file system access instead of the
              normal library functions,

       GLOB_BRACE
              which  means  that  csh(1)  style  brace  expresions  {a,b}  are
              expanded,

       GLOB_NOMAGIC
              which  means  that  the  pattern  is  returned if it contains no
              metacharacters,

       GLOB_TILDE
              which means that tilde expansion is carried out, and

       GLOB_ONLYDIR
              which means that only directories are matched.

       If errfunc is not NULL, it will be called in case of an error with  the
       arguments  epath,  a  pointer to the path which failed, and eerrno, the
       value of errno as returned from one of the calls  to  opendir(),  read-
       dir(),  or stat().  If errfunc returns non-zero, or if GLOB_ERR is set,
       glob() will terminate after the call to errfunc.

       Upon successful return, pglob->gl_pathc contains the number of  matched
       pathnames  and  pglob->gl_pathv  a pointer to the list of matched path-
       names.  The first pointer after the last pathname is NULL.

       It is possible to  call  glob()  several  times.   In  that  case,  the
       GLOB_APPEND flag has to be set in flags on the second and later invoca-
       tions.

       As a GNU extension, pglob->gl_flags is set to the flags specified, ored
       with GLOB_MAGCHAR if any metacharacters were found.

RETURN VALUE
       On  successful completion, glob() returns zero.  Other possible returns
       are:

       GLOB_NOSPACE
              for running out of memory,

       GLOB_ABORTED
              for a read error, and

       GLOB_NOMATCH
              for no found matches.

EXAMPLES
       One example of use is the following code, which simulates typing ls  -l
       *.c ../*.c in the shell.

          glob_t globbuf;

          globbuf.gl_offs = 2;
          glob("*.c", GLOB_DOOFFS, NULL, &globbuf);
          glob("../*.c", GLOB_DOOFFS | GLOB_APPEND, NULL, &globbuf);
          globbuf.gl_pathv[0] = "ls";
          globbuf.gl_pathv[1] = "-l";
          execvp("ls", &globbuf.gl_pathv[0]);

CONFORMING TO
       POSIX.2

BUGS
       The  glob()  function  may  fail  due to failure of underlying function
       calls, such as malloc() or opendir().  These  will  store  their  error
       code in errno.

NOTES
       The  structure  elements gl_pathc and gl_offs are declared as size_t in
       glibc 2.1, as they should according to POSIX.2, but are declared as int
       in libc4, libc5 and glibc 2.0.

SEE ALSO
       ls(1),  sh(1),  stat(2),  exec(3),  malloc(3),  opendir(3), readdir(3),
       wordexp(3), glob(7)



GNU                               1999-09-12                           GLOB(3)