Glob /glob/, Not /glohb/ V.,n.
[Unix;
Common] To Expand Special Characters In A Wildcarded Name, Or The
Act Of So Doing (the Action Is Also Called `globbing').
[Unix;
common] To expand special characters in a wildcarded name, or the
act of so doing (the action is also called `globbing'). The Unix
conventions for filename wildcarding have become sufficiently
pervasive that many hackers use some of them in written English,
especially in email or news on technical topics. Those commonly
encountered include the following:
*
wildcard for any string (see also UN*X)
?
wildcard for any single character (generally read this way only at the
beginning or in the middle of a word)
[]
delimits a wildcard matching any of the enclosed characters
{}
alternation of comma-separated alternatives; thus, `foo{baz,qux}'
would be read as `foobaz' or `fooqux'
Some examples: "He said his name was [KC]arl" (expresses
ambiguity). "I don't read talk.politics.*" (any of the
talk.politics subgroups on Usenet). Other examples are given
under the entry for X. Note that glob patterns are similar,
but not identical, to those used in regexps.
Historical note: The jargon usage derives from glob, the
name of a subprogram that expanded wildcards in archaic pre-Bourne
versions of the Unix shell.
