/* Void Main's man pages */
{ phpMan } else { main(); }
GLOB(3P) POSIX Programmer's Manual GLOB(3P)
PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (con-
sult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on
Linux.
NAME
glob, globfree - generate pathnames matching a pattern
SYNOPSIS
#include <glob.h>
int glob(const char *restrict pattern, int flags,
int(*errfunc)(const char *epath, int eerrno),
glob_t *restrict pglob);
void globfree(glob_t *pglob);
DESCRIPTION
The glob() function is a pathname generator that shall implement the rules defined in the Shell and Utilities volume of
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 2.13, Pattern Matching Notation, with optional support for rule 3 in the Shell and Utili-
ties volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 2.13.3, Patterns Used for Filename Expansion.
The structure type glob_t is defined in <glob.h> and includes at least the following members:
Member Type Member Name Description
size_t gl_pathc Count of paths matched by pattern.
char ** gl_pathv Pointer to a list of matched pathnames.
size_t gl_offs Slots to reserve at the beginning of gl_pathv.
The argument pattern is a pointer to a pathname pattern to be expanded. The glob() function shall match all accessible
pathnames against this pattern and develop a list of all pathnames that match. In order to have access to a pathname,
glob() requires search permission on every component of a path except the last, and read permission on each directory of
any filename component of pattern that contains any of the following special characters: '*', '?', and '[' .
The glob() function shall store the number of matched pathnames into pglob->gl_pathc and a pointer to a list of pointers
to pathnames into pglob->gl_pathv. The pathnames shall be in sort order as defined by the current setting of the LC_COL-
LATE category; see the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 7.3.2, LC_COLLATE. The first pointer
after the last pathname shall be a null pointer. If the pattern does not match any pathnames, the returned number of
matched paths is set to 0, and the contents of pglob->gl_pathv are implementation-defined.
It is the caller's responsibility to create the structure pointed to by pglob. The glob() function shall allocate other
space as needed, including the memory pointed to by gl_pathv. The globfree() function shall free any space associated
with pglob from a previous call to glob().
The flags argument is used to control the behavior of glob(). The value of flags is a bitwise-inclusive OR of zero or
more of the following constants, which are defined in <glob.h>:
GLOB_APPEND
Append pathnames generated to the ones from a previous call to glob().
GLOB_DOOFFS
Make use of pglob->gl_offs. If this flag is set, pglob->gl_offs is used to specify how many null pointers to add
to the beginning of pglob->gl_pathv. In other words, pglob->gl_pathv shall point to pglob->gl_offs null pointers,
followed by pglob->gl_pathc pathname pointers, followed by a null pointer.
GLOB_ERR
Cause glob() to return when it encounters a directory that it cannot open or read. Ordinarily, glob() continues to
find matches.
GLOB_MARK
Each pathname that is a directory that matches pattern shall have a slash appended.
GLOB_NOCHECK
Supports rule 3 in the Shell and Utilities volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 2.13.3, Patterns Used for File-
name Expansion. If pattern does not match any pathname, then glob() shall return a list consisting of only pat-
tern, and the number of matched pathnames is 1.
GLOB_NOESCAPE
Disable backslash escaping.
GLOB_NOSORT
Ordinarily, glob() sorts the matching pathnames according to the current setting of the LC_COLLATE category; see
the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 7.3.2, LC_COLLATE. When this flag is used, the order
of pathnames returned is unspecified.
The GLOB_APPEND flag can be used to append a new set of pathnames to those found in a previous call to glob(). The fol-
lowing rules apply to applications when two or more calls to glob() are made with the same value of pglob and without
intervening calls to globfree():
1. The first such call shall not set GLOB_APPEND. All subsequent calls shall set it.
2. All the calls shall set GLOB_DOOFFS, or all shall not set it.
3. After the second call, pglob->gl_pathv points to a list containing the following:
a. Zero or more null pointers, as specified by GLOB_DOOFFS and pglob->gl_offs.
b. Pointers to the pathnames that were in the pglob->gl_pathv list before the call, in the same order as before.
c. Pointers to the new pathnames generated by the second call, in the specified order.
4. The count returned in pglob->gl_pathc shall be the total number of pathnames from the two calls.
5. The application can change any of the fields after a call to glob(). If it does, the application shall reset them to
the original value before a subsequent call, using the same pglob value, to globfree() or glob() with the GLOB_APPEND
flag.
If, during the search, a directory is encountered that cannot be opened or read and errfunc is not a null pointer, glob()
calls (*errfunc()) with two arguments:
1. The epath argument is a pointer to the path that failed.
2. The eerrno argument is the value of errno from the failure, as set by opendir(), readdir(), or stat(). (Other values
may be used to report other errors not explicitly documented for those functions.)
If (*errfunc()) is called and returns non-zero, or if the GLOB_ERR flag is set in flags, glob() shall stop the scan and
return GLOB_ABORTED after setting gl_pathc and gl_pathv in pglob to reflect the paths already scanned. If GLOB_ERR is not
set and either errfunc is a null pointer or (*errfunc()) returns 0, the error shall be ignored.
The glob() function shall not fail because of large files.
RETURN VALUE
Upon successful completion, glob() shall return 0. The argument pglob->gl_pathc shall return the number of matched path-
names and the argument pglob->gl_pathv shall contain a pointer to a null-terminated list of matched and sorted pathnames.
However, if pglob->gl_pathc is 0, the content of pglob->gl_pathv is undefined.
The globfree() function shall not return a value.
If glob() terminates due to an error, it shall return one of the non-zero constants defined in <glob.h>. The arguments
pglob->gl_pathc and pglob->gl_pathv are still set as defined above.
ERRORS
The glob() function shall fail and return the corresponding value if:
GLOB_ABORTED
The scan was stopped because GLOB_ERR was set or (*errfunc()) returned non-zero.
GLOB_NOMATCH
The pattern does not match any existing pathname, and GLOB_NOCHECK was not set in flags.
GLOB_NOSPACE
An attempt to allocate memory failed.
The following sections are informative.
EXAMPLES
One use of the GLOB_DOOFFS flag is by applications that build an argument list for use with execv(), execve(), or
execvp(). Suppose, for example, that an application wants to do the equivalent of:
ls -l *.c
but for some reason:
system("ls -l *.c")
is not acceptable. The application could obtain approximately the same result using the sequence:
globbuf.gl_offs = 2;
glob("*.c", GLOB_DOOFFS, NULL, &globbuf);
globbuf.gl_pathv[0] = "ls";
globbuf.gl_pathv[1] = "-l";
execvp("ls", &globbuf.gl_pathv[0]);
Using the same example:
ls -l *.c *.h
could be approximately simulated using GLOB_APPEND as follows:
globbuf.gl_offs = 2;
glob("*.c", GLOB_DOOFFS, NULL, &globbuf);
glob("*.h", GLOB_DOOFFS|GLOB_APPEND, NULL, &globbuf);
...
APPLICATION USAGE
This function is not provided for the purpose of enabling utilities to perform pathname expansion on their arguments, as
this operation is performed by the shell, and utilities are explicitly not expected to redo this. Instead, it is provided
for applications that need to do pathname expansion on strings obtained from other sources, such as a pattern typed by a
user or read from a file.
If a utility needs to see if a pathname matches a given pattern, it can use fnmatch().
Note that gl_pathc and gl_pathv have meaning even if glob() fails. This allows glob() to report partial results in the
event of an error. However, if gl_pathc is 0, gl_pathv is unspecified even if glob() did not return an error.
The GLOB_NOCHECK option could be used when an application wants to expand a pathname if wildcards are specified, but
wants to treat the pattern as just a string otherwise. The sh utility might use this for option-arguments, for example.
The new pathnames generated by a subsequent call with GLOB_APPEND are not sorted together with the previous pathnames.
This mirrors the way that the shell handles pathname expansion when multiple expansions are done on a command line.
Applications that need tilde and parameter expansion should use wordexp().
RATIONALE
It was claimed that the GLOB_DOOFFS flag is unnecessary because it could be simulated using:
new = (char **)malloc((n + pglob->gl_pathc + 1)
* sizeof(char *));
(void) memcpy(new+n, pglob->gl_pathv,
pglob->gl_pathc * sizeof(char *));
(void) memset(new, 0, n * sizeof(char *));
free(pglob->gl_pathv);
pglob->gl_pathv = new;
However, this assumes that the memory pointed to by gl_pathv is a block that was separately created using malloc(). This
is not necessarily the case. An application should make no assumptions about how the memory referenced by fields in pglob
was allocated. It might have been obtained from malloc() in a large chunk and then carved up within glob(), or it might
have been created using a different memory allocator. It is not the intent of the standard developers to specify or imply
how the memory used by glob() is managed.
The GLOB_APPEND flag would be used when an application wants to expand several different patterns into a single list.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
exec(), fnmatch(), opendir(), readdir(), stat(), wordexp(), the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,
<glob.h>, the Shell and Utilities volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for
Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copy-
right (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any
discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group
Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.open-
group.org/unix/online.html .
IEEE/The Open Group 2003 GLOB(3P)
