<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>glob – Filename pattern matching — Python Module of the Week</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../_static/sphinxdoc.css" type="text/css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../_static/pygments.css" type="text/css" />
<script type="text/javascript">
var DOCUMENTATION_OPTIONS = {
URL_ROOT: '../',
VERSION: '1.132',
COLLAPSE_INDEX: false,
FILE_SUFFIX: '.html',
HAS_SOURCE: true
};
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/jquery.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/underscore.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/doctools.js"></script>
<link rel="author" title="About these documents" href="../about.html" />
<link rel="top" title="Python Module of the Week" href="../index.html" />
<link rel="up" title="File and Directory Access" href="../file_access.html" />
<link rel="next" title="fnmatch – Compare filenames against Unix-style glob patterns." href="../fnmatch/index.html" />
<link rel="prev" title="tempfile – Create temporary filesystem resources." href="../tempfile/index.html" />
</head>
<body>
<div class="related">
<h3>Navigation</h3>
<ul>
<li class="right" style="margin-right: 10px">
<a href="../genindex.html" title="General Index"
accesskey="I">index</a></li>
<li class="right" >
<a href="../py-modindex.html" title="Python Module Index"
>modules</a> |</li>
<li class="right" >
<a href="../fnmatch/index.html" title="fnmatch – Compare filenames against Unix-style glob patterns."
accesskey="N">next</a> |</li>
<li class="right" >
<a href="../tempfile/index.html" title="tempfile – Create temporary filesystem resources."
accesskey="P">previous</a> |</li>
<li><a href="../contents.html">PyMOTW</a> »</li>
<li><a href="../file_access.html" accesskey="U">File and Directory Access</a> »</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="sphinxsidebar">
<div class="sphinxsidebarwrapper">
<h3><a href="../contents.html">Table Of Contents</a></h3>
<ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#">glob – Filename pattern matching</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#example-data">Example Data</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#wildcards">Wildcards</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#single-character-wildcard">Single Character Wildcard</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#character-ranges">Character Ranges</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h4>Previous topic</h4>
<p class="topless"><a href="../tempfile/index.html"
title="previous chapter">tempfile – Create temporary filesystem resources.</a></p>
<h4>Next topic</h4>
<p class="topless"><a href="../fnmatch/index.html"
title="next chapter">fnmatch – Compare filenames against Unix-style glob patterns.</a></p>
<h3>This Page</h3>
<ul class="this-page-menu">
<li><a href="../_sources/glob/index.txt"
rel="nofollow">Show Source</a></li>
</ul>
<div id="searchbox" style="display: none">
<h3>Quick search</h3>
<form class="search" action="../search.html" method="get">
<input type="text" name="q" size="18" />
<input type="submit" value="Go" />
<input type="hidden" name="check_keywords" value="yes" />
<input type="hidden" name="area" value="default" />
</form>
<p class="searchtip" style="font-size: 90%">
Enter search terms or a module, class or function name.
</p>
</div>
<script type="text/javascript">$('#searchbox').show(0);</script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="document">
<div class="documentwrapper">
<div class="bodywrapper">
<div class="body">
<div class="section" id="module-glob">
<span id="glob-filename-pattern-matching"></span><h1>glob – Filename pattern matching<a class="headerlink" href="#module-glob" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
<table class="docutils field-list" frame="void" rules="none">
<col class="field-name" />
<col class="field-body" />
<tbody valign="top">
<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Purpose:</th><td class="field-body">Use Unix shell rules to fine filenames matching a pattern.</td>
</tr>
<tr class="field"><th class="field-name">Python Version:</th><td class="field-body">1.4</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Even though the glob API is very simple, the module packs a lot of
power. It is useful in any situation where your program needs to look
for a list of files on the filesystem with names matching a
pattern. If you need a list of filenames that all have a certain
extension, prefix, or any common string in the middle, use <a class="reference internal" href="#module-glob" title="glob: Use Unix shell rules to fine filenames matching a pattern."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">glob</span></tt></a>
instead of writing code to scan the directory contents yourself.</p>
<p>The pattern rules for glob are not regular expressions. Instead, they
follow standard Unix path expansion rules. There are only a few
special characters: two different wild-cards, and character ranges are
supported. The patterns rules are applied to segments of the filename
(stopping at the path separator, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">/</span></tt>). Paths in the pattern can be
relative or absolute. Shell variable names and tilde (<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">~</span></tt>) are not
expanded.</p>
<div class="section" id="example-data">
<h2>Example Data<a class="headerlink" href="#example-data" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>The examples below assume the following test files are present in the
current working directory:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><pre>$ python glob_maketestdata.py
dir
dir/file.txt
dir/file1.txt
dir/file2.txt
dir/filea.txt
dir/fileb.txt
dir/subdir
dir/subdir/subfile.txt</pre>
</div>
<div class="admonition note">
<p class="first admonition-title">Note</p>
<p class="last">Use <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">glob_maketestdata.py</span></tt> in the sample code to create these
files if you want to run the examples.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="wildcards">
<h2>Wildcards<a class="headerlink" href="#wildcards" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>An asterisk (<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">*</span></tt>) matches zero or more characters in a segment of a
name. For example, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">dir/*</span></tt>.</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="kn">import</span> <span class="nn">glob</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">name</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">glob</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">glob</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">'dir/*'</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="k">print</span> <span class="n">name</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>The pattern matches every pathname (file or directory) in the directory dir,
without recursing further into subdirectories.</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><pre>$ python glob_asterisk.py
dir/file.txt
dir/file1.txt
dir/file2.txt
dir/filea.txt
dir/fileb.txt
dir/subdir</pre>
</div>
<p>To list files in a subdirectory, you must include the subdirectory in the
pattern:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="kn">import</span> <span class="nn">glob</span>
<span class="k">print</span> <span class="s">'Named explicitly:'</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">name</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">glob</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">glob</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">'dir/subdir/*'</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="k">print</span> <span class="s">'</span><span class="se">\t</span><span class="s">'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">name</span>
<span class="k">print</span> <span class="s">'Named with wildcard:'</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">name</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">glob</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">glob</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">'dir/*/*'</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="k">print</span> <span class="s">'</span><span class="se">\t</span><span class="s">'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">name</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>The first case above lists the subdirectory name explicitly, while the second
case depends on a wildcard to find the directory.</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><pre>$ python glob_subdir.py
Named explicitly:
dir/subdir/subfile.txt
Named with wildcard:
dir/subdir/subfile.txt</pre>
</div>
<p>The results, in this case, are the same. If there was another subdirectory,
the wildcard would match both subdirectories and include the filenames from
both.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="single-character-wildcard">
<h2>Single Character Wildcard<a class="headerlink" href="#single-character-wildcard" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>The other wildcard character supported is the question mark
(<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">?</span></tt>). It matches any single character in that position in the
name. For example,</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="kn">import</span> <span class="nn">glob</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">name</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">glob</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">glob</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">'dir/file?.txt'</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="k">print</span> <span class="n">name</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>Matches all of the filenames which begin with “file”, have one more character
of any type, then end with ”.txt”.</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><pre>$ python glob_question.py
dir/file1.txt
dir/file2.txt
dir/filea.txt
dir/fileb.txt</pre>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="character-ranges">
<h2>Character Ranges<a class="headerlink" href="#character-ranges" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>When you need to match a specific character, use a character range instead of
a question mark. For example, to find all of the files which have a digit in
the name before the extension:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="kn">import</span> <span class="nn">glob</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">name</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">glob</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">glob</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">'dir/*[0-9].*'</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="k">print</span> <span class="n">name</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>The character range <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">[0-9]</span></tt> matches any single digit. The range is
ordered based on the character code for each letter/digit, and the
dash indicates an unbroken range of sequential characters. The same
range value could be written <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">[0123456789]</span></tt>.</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><pre>$ python glob_charrange.py
dir/file1.txt
dir/file2.txt</pre>
</div>
<div class="admonition-see-also admonition seealso">
<p class="first admonition-title">See also</p>
<dl class="last docutils">
<dt><a class="reference external" href="http://docs.python.org/library/glob.html">glob</a></dt>
<dd>The standard library documentation for this module.</dd>
<dt><a class="reference external" href="http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/000095399/utilities/xcu_chap02.html#tag_02_13">Pattern Matching Notation</a></dt>
<dd>An explanation of globbing from The Open Group’s Shell Command Language specification.</dd>
<dt><a class="reference internal" href="../fnmatch/index.html#module-fnmatch" title="fnmatch: Compare filenames against Unix-style glob patterns."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">fnmatch</span></tt></a></dt>
<dd>Filename matching implementation.</dd>
<dt><a class="reference internal" href="../articles/file_access.html#article-file-access"><em>File Access</em></a></dt>
<dd>Other tools for working with files.</dd>
</dl>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="clearer"></div>
</div>
<div class="related">
<h3>Navigation</h3>
<ul>
<li class="right" style="margin-right: 10px">
<a href="../genindex.html" title="General Index"
>index</a></li>
<li class="right" >
<a href="../py-modindex.html" title="Python Module Index"
>modules</a> |</li>
<li class="right" >
<a href="../fnmatch/index.html" title="fnmatch – Compare filenames against Unix-style glob patterns."
>next</a> |</li>
<li class="right" >
<a href="../tempfile/index.html" title="tempfile – Create temporary filesystem resources."
>previous</a> |</li>
<li><a href="../contents.html">PyMOTW</a> »</li>
<li><a href="../file_access.html" >File and Directory Access</a> »</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="footer">
© Copyright Doug Hellmann.
Last updated on Oct 24, 2010.
Created using <a href="http://sphinx.pocoo.org/">Sphinx</a>.
<br/><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/" rel="license"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/88x31.png"/></a>
</div>
</body>
</html>