The glob patterns, an abbreviation for global command patterns, specify sets of filenames with wildcard characters.
The syntax of glob patterns are listed as follows:
*: matches any number of any characters including none?: matches any single character[abc]: matches one character given in the bracket[a-z]: matches one character from the range given in the bracket
In all cases the file path separator (/ on unix) will never be matched.
On Linux and POSIX systems, there are two additional wildcards:
[!abc]: matches one character that is not given in the bracket[!a-z]: matches one character that is not from the range given in the bracket
Comparison with Regex
Globs do not include syntax for the Kleene star which allows multiple repetitions of the preceding part of the expression; thus they are not considered regular expressions, which can describe the full set of regular languages over any given finite alphabet.
| glob wildcard | equivalent regex |
|---|---|
? |
. |
* |
.* |
Globs attempt to match the entire string, whereas regular expressions match a substring unless the
expression is enclosed with ^ and $.
