GLOB
Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (3)
Updated: April 13, 1993
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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.
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>
as
typedef struct
{
int gl_pathc; /* Count of paths matched so far */
char **gl_pathv; /* List of matched pathnames. */
int gl_offs; /* Slots to be reserved in `gl_pathv'. */
int gl_flags; /* Flags for globbing */
} glob_t;
Results are stored in dynamically allocated storage.
The parameter
flags
is made up of bitwise OR of zero or more the following 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_DOOFS
-
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 backspaces, and
- GLOB_PERIOD
-
which means that a leading period can be matched by meta characters.
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(), readdir(), 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 pathnames. 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 invocations.
RETURN VALUES
On successful completion,
glob()
returns zero.
Other possible returns are:
- GLOB_NOSPACE
-
for running out of memory,
- GLOB_ABEND
-
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_DOOFS, NULL, &globbuf);
glob("../*.c", GLOB_DOOFS | GLOB_APPEND, NULL, &globbuf);
globbuf.gl_pathv[0] = "ls";
globbuf.gl_pathv[1] = "-l";
execvp("ls", &globbuf.gl_pathv[0]);
CONFORMS TO
proposed 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.
POSIX.2 is not yet an approved standard; the information in this
manpage is subject to change.
SEE ALSO
ls(1), sh(1), exec(2), stat(2), malloc(3),
opendir(3), readdir(3), wordexp(3), glob(7)
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- RETURN VALUES
-
- EXAMPLES
-
- CONFORMS TO
-
- BUGS
-
- SEE ALSO
-
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