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Standards, Environments, and Macros fnmatch(5)
NAME
fnmatch - file name pattern matching
DESCRIPTION
The pattern matching notation described below is used to
specify patterns for matching strings in the shell. Histori-
cally, pattern matching notation is related to, but slightly
different from, the regular expression notation. For this
reason, the description of the rules for this pattern match-
ing notation is based on the description of regular expres-
sion notation described on the regex(5) manual page.
Patterns Matching a Single Character
The following patterns matching a single character match a
single character: ordinary characters, special pattern char-
acters and pattern bracket expressions. The pattern bracket
expression will also match a single collating element.
An ordinary character is a pattern that matches itself. It
can be any character in the supported character set except
for NUL, those special shell characters that require quot-
ing, and the following three special pattern characters.
Matching is based on the bit pattern used for encoding the
character, not on the graphic representation of the charac-
ter. If any character (ordinary, shell special, or pattern
special) is quoted, that pattern will match the character
itself. The shell special characters always require quoting.
When unquoted and outside a bracket expression, the follow-
ing three characters will have special meaning in the
specification of patterns:
? A question-mark is a pattern that will match any
character.
* An asterisk is a pattern that will match multiple
characters, as described in Patterns Matching Mul-
tiple Characters, below.
[ The open bracket will introduce a pattern bracket
expression.
The description of basic regular expression bracket expres-
sions on the regex(5) manual page also applies to the pat-
tern bracket expression, except that the exclamation-mark
character ( ! ) replaces the circumflex character (^) in its
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 28 Mar 1995 1
Standards, Environments, and Macros fnmatch(5)
role in a non-matching list in the regular expression nota-
tion. A bracket expression starting with an unquoted circum-
flex character produces unspecified results.
The restriction on a circumflex in a bracket expression is
to allow implementations that support pattern matching using
the circumflex as the negation character in addition to the
exclamation-mark. A portable application must use something
like [\^!] to match either character.
When pattern matching is used where shell quote removal is
not performed (such as in the argument to the find -name
primary when find is being called using one of the exec
functions, or in the pattern argument to the fnmatch(3C)
function, special characters can be escaped to remove their
special meaning by preceding them with a backslash charac-
ter. This escaping backslash will be discarded. The sequence
\\ represents one literal backslash. All of the requirements
and effects of quoting on ordinary, shell special and spe-
cial pattern characters will apply to escaping in this con-
text.
Both quoting and escaping are described here because pattern
matching must work in three separate circumstances:
o Calling directly upon the shell, such as in pathname
expansion or in a case statement. All of the following
will match the string or file abc:
abc "abc" a"b"c a\bc a[b]c
a["b"]c a[\b]c a["\b"]c a?c a*c
The following will not:
"a?c" a\*c a\[b]c
o Calling a utility or function without going through a
shell, as described for find(1) and the function
fnmatch(3C)
o Calling utilities such as find, cpio, tar or pax
through the shell command line. In this case, shell
quote removal is performed before the utility sees the
argument. For example, in:
find /bin -name e\c[\h]o -print
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 28 Mar 1995 2
Standards, Environments, and Macros fnmatch(5)
after quote removal, the backslashes are presented to find
and it treats them as escape characters. Both precede ordi-
nary characters, so the c and h represent themselves and
echo would be found on many historical systems (that have it
in /bin). To find a file name that contained shell special
characters or pattern characters, both quoting and escaping
are required, such as:
pax -r ... "*a\(\?"
to extract a filename ending with a(?.
Conforming applications are required to quote or escape the shell
special characters (sometimes called metacharacters). If used
without this protection, syntax errors can result or implementa-
tion extensions can be triggered. For example, the KornShell sup-
ports a series of extensions based on parentheses in patterns;
see ksh(1)
Patterns Matching Multiple Characters
The following rules are used to construct patterns matching
multiple characters from patterns matching a single charac-
ter:
o The asterisk (*) is a pattern that will match any
string, including the null string.
o The concatenation of patterns matching a single charac-
ter is a valid pattern that will match the concatena-
tion of the single characters or collating elements
matched by each of the concatenated patterns.
o The concatenation of one or more patterns matching a
single character with one or more asterisks is a valid
pattern. In such patterns, each asterisk will match a
string of zero or more characters, matching the
greatest possible number of characters that still
allows the remainder of the pattern to match the
string.
Since each asterisk matches zero or more occurrences, the
patterns a*b and a**b have identical functionality.
Examples:
a[bc] matches the strings ab and ac.
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 28 Mar 1995 3
Standards, Environments, and Macros fnmatch(5)
a*d matches the strings ad, abd and abcd, but
not the string abc.
a*d* matches the strings ad, abcd, abcdef, aaaad
and adddd.
*a*d matches the strings ad, abcd, efabcd, aaaad
and adddd.
Patterns Used for Filename Expansion
The rules described so far in Patterns Matching Multiple
Characters and Patterns Matching a Single Character are
qualified by the following rules that apply when pattern
matching notation is used for filename expansion.
1. The slash character in a pathname must be explicitly
matched by using one or more slashes in the pattern; it
cannot be matched by the asterisk or question-mark spe-
cial characters or by a bracket expression. Slashes in
the pattern are identified before bracket expressions;
thus, a slash cannot be included in a pattern bracket
expression used for filename expansion. For example, the
pattern a[b/c]d will not match such pathnames as abd or
a/d. It will only match a pathname of literally
a[b/c]d.
2. If a filename begins with a period (.), the period must
be explicitly matched by using a period as the first
character of the pattern or immediately following a
slash character. The leading period will not be matched
by:
o the asterisk or question-mark special characters
o a bracket expression containing a non-matching list,
such as:
[!a]
a range expression, such as:
[%-0]
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 28 Mar 1995 4
Standards, Environments, and Macros fnmatch(5)
or a character class expression, such as:
[[:punct:]]
It is unspecified whether an explicit period in a
bracket expression matching list, such as:
[.abc]
can match a leading period in a filename.
3. Specified patterns are matched against existing
filenames and pathnames, as appropriate. Each com-
ponent that contains a pattern character requires read
permission in the directory containing that component.
Any component, except the last, that does not contain a
pattern character requires search permission. For exam-
ple, given the pattern:
/foo/bar/x*/bam
search permission is needed for directories / and foo,
search and read permissions are needed for directory
bar, and search permission is needed for each x* direc-
tory.
If the pattern matches any existing filenames or path-
names, the pattern will be replaced with those filenames
and pathnames, sorted according to the collating
sequence in effect in the current locale. If the pattern
contains an invalid bracket expression or does not match
any existing filenames or pathnames, the pattern string
is left unchanged.
SEE ALSO
find(1), ksh(1), fnmatch(3C), regex(5)
SunOS 5.10 Last change: 28 Mar 1995 5
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