globs

Globs, or glob patterns, are patterns used for filename matching in many operating systems and programming environments. They provide a simple wildcard syntax for selecting multiple files or paths without regular expressions. Globbing is common in Unix shells, Windows, and various programming languages that manipulate files.

The core elements of glob patterns are wildcards such as the asterisk, question mark, and character classes. The asterisk * matches any sequence of characters, the question mark ? matches any single character, and brackets [set] match a single character from a specified set or range, with [!set] negating the set. In some shells, braces {a,b,c} expand to a, b, or c, and double asterisks ** can enable recursive matching across directories when the feature is enabled (globstar in Bash).

Examples include ls *.txt to list text files in the current directory, or /logs/**/*.log to recursively locate log files under logs. The exact behavior of * and the availability of features like ** or braces depend on the environment and the glob implementation.

Glob patterns differ from regular expressions in that they are designed specifically for simple filename matching and do not capture text or support backreferences. They are generally faster and easier to read for file selection tasks but less expressive.

Common environments include Unix shells (Bash, Zsh), Windows command prompts and PowerShell, Python's glob module, and Node.js glob libraries. Each implements the syntax slightly differently, so consulting the specific documentation is advisable.