NAME

File::DosGlob - DOS like globbing and then some

SYNOPSIS

    require 5.004;

    # override CORE::glob in current package
    use File::DosGlob 'glob';

    # override CORE::glob in ALL packages (use with extreme caution!)
    use File::DosGlob 'GLOBAL_glob';

    @perlfiles = glob  "..\\pe?l/*.p?";
    print <..\\pe?l/*.p?>;

    # from the command line (overrides only in main::)
    > perl -MFile::DosGlob=glob -e "print <../pe*/*p?>"

DESCRIPTION

A module that implements DOS-like globbing with a few enhancements. It is largely compatible with perlglob.exe (the M$ setargv.obj version) in all but one respect--it understands wildcards in directory components.

For example, "<..\\l*b\\file/*glob.p?>" will work as expected (in that it will find something like '..\lib\File/DosGlob.pm' alright). Note that all path components are case-insensitive, and that backslashes and forward slashes are both accepted, and preserved. You may have to double the backslashes if you are putting them in literally, due to double-quotish parsing of the pattern by perl.

Spaces in the argument delimit distinct patterns, so "glob('*.exe *.dll')" globs all filenames that end in ".exe" or ".dll". If you want to put in literal spaces in the glob pattern, you can escape them with either double quotes, or backslashes. e.g. "glob('c:/"Program Files"/*/*.dll')", or "glob('c:/Program\ Files/*/*.dll')". The argument is tokenized using "Text::ParseWords::parse_line()", so see Text::ParseWords for details of the quoting rules used.

Extending it to csh patterns is left as an exercise to the reader.

EXPORTS (by request only)

glob()

BUGS

Should probably be built into the core, and needs to stop pandering to DOS habits. Needs a dose of optimization too.

AUTHOR

Gurusamy Sarathy <gsar@activestate.com>

HISTORY

Support for globally overriding glob() (GSAR 3-JUN-98)
Scalar context, independent iterator context fixes (GSAR 15-SEP-97)
A few dir-vs-file optimizations result in glob importation being 10 times faster than using perlglob.exe, and using perlglob.bat is only twice as slow as perlglob.exe (GSAR 28-MAY-97)
Several cleanups prompted by lack of compatible perlglob.exe under Borland (GSAR 27-MAY-97)
Initial version (GSAR 20-FEB-97)