6.21 glob -- Unix style pathname pattern expansion
Keywords: lib

# 6.21 `glob` -- Unix style pathname pattern expansion

The `glob` module finds all the pathnames matching a specified pattern according to the rules used by the Unix shell. No tilde expansion is done, but `*`, `?`, and character ranges expressed with `[]` will be correctly matched. This is done by using the `os.listdir()` and `fnmatch.fnmatch()` functions in concert, and not by actually invoking a subshell. (For tilde and shell variable expansion, use `os.path.expanduser()` and `os.path.expandvars()`.)

`glob`(pathname)
  Returns a possibly-empty list of path names that match pathname, which must be a string containing a path specification. pathname can be either absolute (like /usr/src/Python-1.5/Makefile) or relative (like ../../Tools/*/*.gif), and can contain shell-style wildcards.

For example, consider a directory containing only the following files: 1.gif, 2.txt, and card.gif. `glob()` will produce the following results. Notice how any leading components of the path are preserved.

      >>> import glob
      >>> glob.glob('./[0-9].*')
      ['./1.gif', './2.txt']
      >>> glob.glob('*.gif')
      ['1.gif', 'card.gif']
      >>> glob.glob('?.gif')
      ['1.gif']

See Also:

Module `fnmatch`:
  Shell-style filename (not path) expansion.