strmatch(3)

NAME

       strmatch - match shell file patterns

SYNOPSIS

       int strmatch(char* s, char* p)
       char* submatch(char* s, char* p, int m)

DESCRIPTION

       strmatch  compares  the string s with the shell pattern p and returns 1
       for match and 0 otherwise.  submatch does a leading substring match  of
       the  shell  pattern  p  with the string s.  If m is 0 then the match is
       minimal, otherwise a maximal match is done.  A  pointer  to  the  first
       character  after  the  matched  substring is returned, 0 if there is no
       match.

       Except for & and !, each shell pattern has an equivalent egrep(1)  con-
       struct.

                        sh pattern          egrep RE  description
                        *                   .*                  0 or more chars
                        ?                   .                   any single char
                        [.]                 [.]                 char class
                        [!.]                [^.]                negated char class
                        *(.)                (.)*                0 or more of
                        +(.)                (.)+                1 or more of
                        ?(.)                (.)?                0 or 1 of
                        (.)                 (.)                 1 of
                        @(.)                (.)                 1 of
                        a|b                 a|b                 a or b
                        a&b                                     a and b
                        !(.)                                    none of

       \ is used to escape *, ?, (, |, &, ), [, and \ outside of [...].

SEE ALSO

       grep(1)

BUGS

       An unbalanced ) terminates the top level pattern.
       Nested  &  and  !  constructs are non-intuitive and are computationally
       intensive.

                                                                   STRMATCH(3)