File Glob

wiki

Globs have had a number of syntaxes. See

• [Apache APR fnmatch] (based on POSIX 1003.2-1992, section B.6)
• [Wildcards in Windows/MSDOS]. (Windows globs are often implemented by calling the FindFileFirst/FindFileNext Win32 API calls.)

The glob function implemented by Windows FindFileFirst/FindFileNext API calls can be especially counterintuitive and should sometimes be avoided (e.g. *.txt may match both 1.txt and 1.txt~). So, wrapping these API calls in a Lua extension DLL may not be the most desirable approach.

Solution: Pure Lua

The following approach converts a glob expression into a Lua pattern, which can then be used in Lua's pattern matching function. Roughly in concept, ignoring differences in syntax, globs are a subset of Lua patterns which are a subset of regular expressions. However, globs sometimes have some obscure rules and corner cases (see above) depending on chosen syntax.

source code: https://gist.github.com/1408288

--DavidManura

Solution: Posix

Posix specifies that compilant systems provide a glob system call: see any such man page, e.g. http://linux.die.net/man/3/glob, for details.

The [luaposix] module interfaces to this library. --CharlesStewart?

Solution: Wrap APR fnmatch

See the [apr.fnmatch()] function in LuaApr, which wraps the APR's fnmatch function.

Other Examples

See also scite_Files in SciteExtMan. Also note [Perl glob].