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 expressions {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.
EXAMPLE
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, POSIX.1-2001.
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 ALSOls(1), sh(1), stat(2), exec(3), fnmatch(3), malloc(3), opendir(3),
readdir(3), wordexp(3), glob(7)GNU 1999-09-12 GLOB(3)
