NAME
       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:

       -directory directory
              Search for files which match the given patterns starting in  the
              given  directory.   This  allows  searching of directories whose
              name contains glob-sensitive  characters  without  the  need  to
              quote  such  characters explicitly.  This option may not be used
              in conjunction with -path, which is used to allow searching  for
              complete file paths whose names may contain glob-sensitive char-
              acters.

       -join  The remaining pattern arguments are treated as a single  pattern
              obtained by joining the arguments with directory separators.

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

       -path pathPrefix
              Search for files with the given pathPrefix where the rest of the
              name  matches  the  given  patterns.   This allows searching for
              files with names similar to a given file (as opposed to a direc-
              tory)  even  when  the  names contain glob-sensitive characters.
              This option may not be used in conjunction with -directory.  For
              example, to find all files with the same root name as $path, but
              differing extensions, you should use glob -path  [file  rootname
              $path]  .* which will work even if $path contains numerous glob-
              sensitive characters.

       -tails Only return the part of each file found which follows  the  last
              directory  named  in any -directory or -path path specification.
              Thus glob -tails -directory $dir *  is  equivalent  to  set  pwd
              [pwd]  ;  cd  $dir ; glob *; cd $pwd.  For -path specifications,
              the returned names will include the last path segment,  so  glob
              -tails  -path  [file  rootname  ~/foo.tex] .*  will return paths
              like foo.aux foo.bib foo.tex etc.

       -types typeList
              Only list files or directories which match typeList,  where  the
              items  in  the  list have two forms.  The first form is like the
              -type option of the Unix find command: b (block special file), c
              (character special file), d (directory), f (plain file), l (sym-
              bolic link), p (named pipe), or s (socket), where multiple types
              may  be specified in the list.  Glob will return all files which
              match at least one of the types given.  Note that symbolic links
              will  be returned both if -types l is given, or if the target of
              a link matches the requested type.  So, a link  to  a  directory
              will be returned if -types d was specified.

              The  second  form specifies types where all the types given must
              match.  These are r, w, x as  file  permissions,  and  readonly,
              hidden  as  special  permission  cases.  On the Macintosh, MacOS
              types and creators are also supported, where any item  which  is
              four  characters long is assumed to be a MacOS type (e.g. TEXT).
              Items which are of the form {macintosh type XXXX} or  {macintosh
              creator XXXX} will match types or creators respectively.  Unrec-
              ognized types, or specifications of  multiple  MacOS  types/cre-
              ators will signal an error.

              The  two  forms  may be mixed, so -types {d f r w} will find all
              regular files OR directories that have both read AND write  per-
              missions.  The following are equivalent:
                            glob -type d *
                            glob */
              except that the first case doesn't return the trailing ``/'' and
              is more platform independent.

       --     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 charac-
       ters:

       ?         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.

       On Unix, as with csh, a ``.'' at the beginning of a file's name or just
       after a ``/'' must be matched explicitly or with a {} construct, unless
       the ``-types hidden'' flag is given (since ``.'' at the beginning of  a
       file's  name  indicates  that it is hidden).  On other platforms, files
       beginning with a ``.'' are handled no differently to any others, except
       the  special directories ``.'' and ``..'' which must be matched explic-
       itly (this is to avoid a recursive pattern like ``glob -join * * *  *''
       from  recursing  up the directory hierarchy as well as down).  In addi-
       tion, 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.

       When the glob command returns relative paths whose filenames start with
       a tilde ``~'' (for example through glob * or glob -tails, the  returned
       list  will  not  quote  the tilde with ``./''.  This means care must be
       taken if those names are later to be used with file join, to avoid them
       being  interpreted  as  absolute  paths pointing to a given user's home
       directory.

PORTABILITY ISSUES
       Unlike other Tcl commands that will  accept  both  network  and  native
       style  names  (see  the filename manual entry for details on how native
       and network names are specified), the glob command only accepts  native
       names.

       Windows
              For  Windows  UNC names, the servername and sharename components
              of the path may not contain ?, *, or [] constructs.  On  Windows
              NT,  if pattern is of the form ``~username@domain'' it refers to
              the home directory of the user whose account information resides
              on  the  specified  NT  domain  server.  Otherwise, user account
              information is obtained from the local computer.  On Windows  95
              and  98,  glob  accepts patterns like ``.../'' and ``..../'' for
              successively higher up parent directories.

              Since the backslash character has a special meaning to the  glob
              command,  glob patterns containing Windows style path separators
              need special care. The  pattern  C:\\foo\\*  is  interpreted  as
              C:\foo\*  where \f will match the single character f and \* will
              match the single character * and will not be  interpreted  as  a
              wildcard  character.  One solution to this problem is to use the
              Unix style forward slash as  a  path  separator.  Windows  style
              paths can be converted to Unix style paths with the command file
              join $path (or file normalize $path in Tcl 8.4).

       Macintosh
              When using the options, -directory, -join or -path, glob assumes
              the  directory  separator for the entire pattern is the standard
              ``:''.  When not using these options, glob examines each pattern
              argument and uses ``/'' unless the pattern contains a ``:''.

EXAMPLES
       Find all the Tcl files in the current directory:
              glob *.tcl

       Find  all  the  Tcl files in the user's home directory, irrespective of
       what the current directory is:
              glob -directory ~ *.tcl

       Find all subdirectories of the current directory:
              glob -type d *

       Find all files whose name contains an "a", a "b" or the sequence "cde":
              glob -type f *{a,b,cde}*


SEE ALSO
       file(n)


KEYWORDS
