What is File Globbing?

File globbing refers to the use of wildcards to match filenames or paths. It’s handled by the shell (e.g., Bash), not by the command itself.

It allows you to match:

Pattern	Meaning	Example	Matches
`*`	Matches zero or more characters (except `/`)	`*.txt`	`a.txt`, `file.txt`, `note1.txt`
`?`	Matches exactly one character	`?.txt`	`a.txt`, `b.txt` (but not `ab.txt`)
`[]`	Matches any one character from the set	`[ab].txt`	`a.txt`, `b.txt`
`[!x]`	Matches any one character except x	`[!a]*`	Files not starting with `a`
`[a-z]`	Matches any single character in a range	`[a-c]*`	`apple`, `banana`, `cat`
`{}`	Matches any one of comma-separated patterns	`{.txt,.sh}`	Files ending with `.txt` or `.sh`
`\`	Escapes the next character (used to match special characters literally)	`file\*`	Matches a file literally named `file*`

Examples


ls *.sh

Matches: script.sh, install.sh, but not file.txt.


ls ?.txt

Matches: a.txt, b.txt, but not ab.txt or abc.txt.


ls [ab]*.txt

Matches: a.txt, bfile.txt, but not c.txt.


ls [!a]*.txt

Matches: b.txt, c.txt, but not a.txt.


ls file[1-3].txt

Matches: file1.txt, file2.txt, file3.txt.


ls *.{sh,txt}

Matches: file.sh, notes.txt, but not image.png.

If you want to pass wildcard characters literally:


set -f   # Disable globbing
ls *.txt # Will literally look for *.txt
set +f   # Re-enable globbing

Pattern	Description	Matches
`*`	Zero or more characters	`file.txt`, `hello.sh`
`?`	Exactly one character	`a.txt`, `b.txt`
`[abc]`	One character in list	`a.txt`, `b.txt`
`[a-z]`	Character in range	`filea`, `fileb`, …, `filez`
`[!x]`	Not the character `x`	Anything except files starting with `x`
`{a,b}`	Either pattern `a` or `b`	`.txt`, `.sh`
`\*`	Escaped `*` (literal asterisk)	File named `*`