Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!axion!tsa!domo
From: domo@tsa.co.uk (Dominic Dunlop)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: wildcard matching
Message-ID: <1991Jan4.095351.12412@tsa.co.uk>
Date: 4 Jan 91 09:53:51 GMT
References: <4739.277BA2FB@urchin.fidonet.org> <579@cadlab.sublink.ORG>
Reply-To: domo@tsa.co.uk (Dominic Dunlop)
Organization: The Standard Answer Ltd.
Lines: 26

In article <579@cadlab.sublink.ORG> staff@cadlab.sublink.ORG (Alex Martelli)
writes:
> I know that MSDOS and OS/2 consider that, when typing "a*b" or "a*c",
> the user was just being funny, and he _actually_ meant just "a*" in
> either case... presumably the extra letter, or letters, having been
> typed just to keep his or her fingers in exercise?-)
> 
> I'm also happy to relate, though, that _other_ operating systems DO
> have a modicum of common sense in their wildcars semantics!
> That is, one can use, for example, "a*b" to stand for all files with
> names beginning with a and ending with b, with anything or nothing in
> between.  This is true at least in Dec's VMS and IBM's VM/SP (CMS), as
> well, of course, as in Unix.

For what it's worth (all contributions gratefully received), the
forthcoming POSIX 1003.2 shell and tools standard codifies UNIX-style
filename ``globbing'', including the System V-ish ``*[!c]'' to match, in
this example, any filename not ending in ``c''.  The standard will
specify two functions, glob() and globfree() which can be called from
the C language, ending today's unsatisfactory situation, where one must
either recode globbing or spawn a shell to do it.

How much all this helps users of other operating systems is open to
question...
-- 
Dominic Dunlop