FnMatch(3pm)
NAME
File::FnMatch - simple filename and pathname matching
SYNOPSIS
use File::FnMatch qw(:fnmatch); # import everything
# shell-style: match "/a/bc", but not "/a/.bc" nor "/a/b/c"
fnmatch("/a/*", $fn, FNM_PATHNAME|FNM_PERIOD);
# find our A- executables only
grep { fnmatch("A-*.exe", $_) } readdir SOMEDIR;
DESCRIPTION
File::FnMatch::fnmatch() provides simple, shell-like pattern matching.
- Though considerably less powerful than regular expressions, shell
patterns are nonetheless useful and familiar to a large audience of
end-users. - Functions
- fnmatch ( PATTERN, STRING [, FLAGS] )
Returns true if PATTERN matches STRING, undef otherwise. FLAGS may be the bitwise OR'ing of any supported FNM_* constants (see below).
- Constants
- FNM_NOESCAPE
Do not treat a backslash ('\') in PATTERN specially. Otherwise, a backslash escapes the following character.
- FNM_PATHNAME
Prohibit wildcards from matching a slash ('/').
- FNM_PERIOD
Prohibit wildcards from matching a period ('.') at the start of a
string and, if FNM_PATHNAME is also given, immediately after a
slash. - Other possibilities include at least FNM_CASEFOLD (compare "qr//i"),
FNM_LEADING_DIR to restrict matching to everything before the first
'/', FNM_FILE_NAME as a synonym for FNM_PATHNAME, and the rather more
exotic FNM_EXTMATCH. Consult your system documentation for details. - EXPORT
- None by default. The export tag ":fnmatch" exports the fnmatch
function and all available FNM_* constants.
PATTERN SYNTAX
Wildcards are the question mark ('?') to match any single character and
the asterisk ('*') to match zero or more characters. FNM_PATHNAME and
FNM_PERIOD restrict the scope of the wildcards, notably supporting the
UNIX convention of concealing "dotfiles":
Bracket expressions, enclosed by '[' and ']', match any of a set of
characters specified explicitly ("[abcdef]"), as a range ("[a-f0-9]"),
or as the combination these ("[a-f0-9XYZ]"). Additionally, many
implementations support named character classes such as "[[:xdigit:]]".
Character sets may be negated with an initial '!' ("[![:space:]]").
Locale influences the meaning of fnmatch() patterns.
CAVEATS
Most UNIX-like systems provide an fnmatch implementation. This module
will not work on platforms lacking an implementation, most notably
Win32.
SEE ALSO
File::Glob, POSIX::setlocale, fnmatch(3)
AUTHOR
Michael J. Pomraning
Please report bugs to <mjp-perl AT pilcrow.madison.wi.us>
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
Copyright 2005 by Michael J. Pomraning
- This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.