EXPAND
Section: C Library Functions (3)
Updated: 5/8/85
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NAME
expand - expand filename specification
SYNOPSIS
int expand (spec,buffer,bufsize);
char *spec,**buffer;
int bufsize;
DESCRIPTION
Expand
takes a file specification, and expands it into a set of
filenames by resolving the characters '*', '?', '[', '{', and '~'
in the same way as the shell does.
You must provide
buffer,
an array of string pointers (char *), and you tell how
big this array is in
bufsize.
Expand
will compute the corresponding filenames, and fill up
the entries of
buffer,
putting ponters to
malloc'd
strings into the slots.
The value returned by
expand
is the number of filenames found.
If any error occurs,
the value returned will be -1.
In such a case, not all
of the files were discoverable.
If too many files are
found, then the value returned will be
bufsize
+ 1; you should try again with a bigger buffer.
SEE ALSO
sh(1),
getwd(3),
malloc(3),
path(3)
DIAGNOSTICS
Returns -1 on error;
bufsize
+ 1 if too many files are found.
BUGS
Error recovery is too drastic; it should continue to find
all the names that can be found.
Also, if an error
occurs, the strings
malloc'd
so far will never be garbage-collected.
Within braces {...}, the substrings may contain other meta-characters
but may not contain slashes / or additional braces {}.
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- DIAGNOSTICS
-
- BUGS
-
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