Advanced UNIX Programming

The glob(3) Function

The glob(3) function represents another way that a process can gather a list of file and directory name objects. Unlike the fnmatch(3) function, the glob(3) function actually performs directory searches. The function synopsis for glob(3) and globfree(3) is as follows:

#include <glob.h>

int glob(
    const char *pattern,
    int flags,
    int (*errfunc)(const char *, int),
    glob_t *pglob);

void globfree(glob_t *pglob);

typedef struct {
    int    gl_pathc;       /* count of total paths so far */
    int    gl_matchc;      /* count of paths matching pattern */
    int    gl_offs;        /* reserved at beginning of gl_pathv */
    int    gl_flags;       /* returned flags */
    char   **gl_pathv;     /* list of paths matching pattern */
} glob_t;

The first argument pattern for glob(3) is a shell ...