Unix-style pathname pattern expansion

Table of Contents

• Quick Start
  • Build Library and Standalone Sample
• Usage
• API
• Wildcards
• Examples
  • Match file extensions
  • Match files in absolute pathnames
  • Wildcards: Match a range of characters listed in brackets ('[]')
  • Exclude files from the matching
  • Wildcards: Match any one character with question mark ('?')
  • Case sensitivity
  • Tilde expansion
• Contributing
• License

Quick Start

• This library is available in two flavors:
  1. Two file version: glob.h and glob.cpp
  2. Single header file version in single_include/
• No external dependencies - just the standard library
• Requires C++17 std::filesystem
  • If you can't use C++17, you can integrate gulrak/filesystem with minimal effort.
• MIT License

Build Library and Standalone Sample

cmake -Hall -Bbuild
cmake --build build

# run standalone `glob` sample
./build/standalone/glob --help

Usage

// Match on a single pattern
for (auto& p : glob::glob("~/.b*")) {                // e.g., .bash_history, .bashrc
  // do something with `p`
}

// Match on multiple patterns
for (auto& p : glob::glob({"*.png", "*.jpg"})) {     // e.g., foo.png, bar.jpg
  // do something with `p`
}

// Match recursively with `rglob`
for (auto& p : glob::rglob("**/*.hpp")) {            // e.g., include/foo.hpp, include/foo/bar.hpp
  // do something with `p`
}

API

/// e.g., glob("*.hpp")
/// e.g., glob("**/*.cpp")
/// e.g., glob("test_files_02/[0-9].txt")
/// e.g., glob("/usr/local/include/nc*.h")
/// e.g., glob("test_files_02/?.txt")
vector<filesystem::path> glob(string pathname);

/// Globs recursively
/// e.g., rglob("Documents/Projects/Foo/**/*.hpp")
/// e.g., rglob("test_files_02/*[0-9].txt")
vector<filesystem::path> rglob(string pathname);

There are also two convenience functions to glob on a list of patterns:

/// e.g., glob({"*.png", "*.jpg"})
vector<filesystem::path> glob(vector<string> pathnames);

/// Globs recursively
/// e.g., rglob({"**/*.h", "**/*.hpp", "**/*.cpp"})
vector<filesystem::path> rglob(vector<string> pathnames);

Wildcards

Wildcard	Matches	Example
*	any characters	*.txt matches all files with the txt extension
?	any one character	??? matches files with 3 characters long
[]	any character listed in the brackets	[ABC]* matches files starting with A,B or C
[-]	any character in the range listed in brackets	[A-Z]* matches files starting with capital letters
[!]	any character not listed in the brackets	[!ABC]* matches files that do not start with A,B or C

Examples

The following examples use the standalone sample that is part of this repository to illustrate the library functionality.

foo@bar:~$ ./build/standalone/glob -h
Run glob to find all the pathnames matching a specified pattern
Usage:
  ./build/standalone/glob [OPTION...]

  -h, --help       Show help
  -v, --version    Print the current version number
  -r, --recursive  Run glob recursively
  -i, --input arg  Patterns to match

Match file extensions

foo@bar:~$ tree
.
├── include
│   └── foo
│       ├── bar.hpp
│       ├── baz.hpp
│       └── foo.hpp
└── test
    ├── bar.cpp
    ├── doctest.hpp
    ├── foo.cpp
    └── main.cpp

3 directories, 7 files

foo@bar:~$ ./glob -i "**/*.hpp"
"test/doctest.hpp"

foo@bar:~$ ./glob -i "**/**/*.hpp"
"include/foo/baz.hpp"
"include/foo/foo.hpp"
"include/foo/bar.hpp"

NOTE If you run glob recursively, i.e., using rglob:

foo@bar:~$ ./glob -r -i "**/*.hpp"
"test/doctest.hpp"
"include/foo/baz.hpp"
"include/foo/foo.hpp"
"include/foo/bar.hpp"

Match files in absolute pathnames

foo@bar:~$ ./glob -i '/usr/local/include/nc*.h'
"/usr/local/include/ncCheck.h"
"/usr/local/include/ncGroupAtt.h"
"/usr/local/include/ncUshort.h"
"/usr/local/include/ncByte.h"
"/usr/local/include/ncString.h"
"/usr/local/include/ncUint64.h"
"/usr/local/include/ncGroup.h"
"/usr/local/include/ncUbyte.h"
"/usr/local/include/ncvalues.h"
"/usr/local/include/ncInt.h"
"/usr/local/include/ncAtt.h"
"/usr/local/include/ncVar.h"
"/usr/local/include/ncUint.h"

Wildcards: Match a range of characters listed in brackets ('[]')

foo@bar:~$ ls test_files_02
1.txt 2.txt 3.txt 4.txt

foo@bar:~$ ./glob -i 'test_files_02/[0-9].txt'
"test_files_02/4.txt"
"test_files_02/3.txt"
"test_files_02/2.txt"
"test_files_02/1.txt"

foo@bar:~$ ./glob -i 'test_files_02/[1-2]*'
"test_files_02/2.txt"
"test_files_02/1.txt"

foo@bar:~$ ls test_files_03
file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt file4.txt

foo@bar:~$ ./glob -i 'test_files_03/file[0-9].*'
"test_files_03/file2.txt"
"test_files_03/file3.txt"
"test_files_03/file1.txt"
"test_files_03/file4.txt"

Exclude files from the matching

foo@bar:~$ ls test_files_01
__init__.py     bar.py      foo.py

foo@bar:~$ ./glob -i 'test_files_01/*[!__init__].py'
"test_files_01/bar.py"
"test_files_01/foo.py"

foo@bar:~$ ./glob -i 'test_files_01/*[!__init__][!bar].py'
"test_files_01/foo.py"

foo@bar:~$ ./glob -i 'test_files_01/[!_]*.py'
"test_files_01/bar.py"
"test_files_01/foo.py"

Wildcards: Match any one character with question mark ('?')

foo@bar:~$ ls test_files_02
1.txt 2.txt 3.txt 4.txt

foo@bar:~$ ./glob -i 'test_files_02/?.txt'
"test_files_02/4.txt"
"test_files_02/3.txt"
"test_files_02/2.txt"
"test_files_02/1.txt"

foo@bar:~$ ls test_files_03
file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt file4.txt

foo@bar:~$ ./glob -i 'test_files_03/????[3-4].txt'
"test_files_03/file3.txt"
"test_files_03/file4.txt"

Case sensitivity

glob matching is case-sensitive:

foo@bar:~$ ls test_files_05
file1.png file2.png file3.PNG file4.PNG

foo@bar:~$ ./glob -i 'test_files_05/*.png'
"test_files_05/file2.png"
"test_files_05/file1.png"

foo@bar:~$ ./glob -i 'test_files_05/*.PNG'
"test_files_05/file3.PNG"
"test_files_05/file4.PNG"

foo@bar:~$ ./glob -i "test_files_05/*.png","test_files_05/*.PNG"
"test_files_05/file2.png"
"test_files_05/file1.png"
"test_files_05/file3.PNG"
"test_files_05/file4.PNG"

Tilde expansion

foo@bar:~$ ./glob -i "~/.b*"
"/Users/pranav/.bashrc"
"/Users/pranav/.bash_sessions"
"/Users/pranav/.bash_profile"
"/Users/pranav/.bash_history"

foo@bar:~$ ./glob -i "~/Documents/Projects/glob/**/glob/*.h"
"/Users/pranav/Documents/Projects/glob/include/glob/glob.h"

Contributing

Contributions are welcome, have a look at the CONTRIBUTING.md document for more information.

License

The project is available under the MIT license.