3

Given these files:

$ ls
file1  file2  file21  file3  fileFoo

I expected this globbing pattern (bash with extglob enabled):

$ ls file?({1..2}|Foo)

to output:

file1  file2  fileFoo

but instead I got this with fileFoo listed twice:

$ ls file?({1..2}|Foo)
file1  file2  fileFoo  fileFoo

Neither side of the "or" produces unexpected results:

$ ls file?({1..2})
file1  file2

$ ls file?(Foo)
fileFoo

so why is fileFoo printed twice when I "or" the expressions and what would be the correct globbing pattern to match a range (e.g. 1-2 above but could be 17-593 or any other range) or some other unrelated string (e.g. Foo above)?

$ bash --version
GNU bash, version 4.4.12(3)-release (x86_64-unknown-cygwin)
Ed Morton
  • 188,023
  • 17
  • 78
  • 185

2 Answers2

2

Expansion is performed before globbing:

file?({1..2}|Foo)

becomes

file?(1|Foo) file?(2|Foo)

and then both arguments are globbed.

Using only expansion as follows works as expected, but will trip up nullglob and the like:

file{{1..2},Foo}
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
  • 776,304
  • 153
  • 1,341
  • 1,358
2

It's being interpreted as:

ls file?(1|Foo) file?(2|Foo)

The range is being expanded and then each value is combined with |Foo.

So when each pattern is expanded, you get both the file ending with a number and the file ending with Foo.

Try:

ls file{{1..2},Foo)
Barmar
  • 741,623
  • 53
  • 500
  • 612
  • Yup that was it thanks, upvoting but will have to accept Ignacios almost identical answer as he beat you be a couple of mins. – Ed Morton Jun 08 '17 at 00:22