problem with wildcards

amr_salah944 · 02-14-2012, 07:00 AM

Hello
I got a problem using wildcards , I always get unexpected results , for example I wanna list the files that only start with capital letters in /etc

$ls [A-Z]*

I got strange output that contains files not have any capital letters like :

Code:

xml:
catalog          docbook-xml.xml.old  resolver           xml-core.xml
catalog.old      docbook-xsl.xml.old  sgml-data.xml      xml-core.xml.old
docbook-xml.xml  rarian-compat.xml    sgml-data.xml.old

Also if I tried

$ls b*

I got

Code:

....
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   11359 2011-03-01 13:50 no-oub.ttb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root     839 2011-03-01 13:50 no.ttb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    1447 2011-03-01 13:50 numbers-dot6.tti
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    1470 2011-03-01 13:50 numbers-dot8.tti
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    1450 2011-03-01 13:50 numbers-french.tti
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    1486 2011-03-01 13:50 numbers-nemeth.tti
.....

that's totally wired , can you help me ?
I am on ubuntu 11.11 , SHELL=/bin/bash

T3RM1NVT0R · 02-14-2012, 07:35 AM

Hi amr_salah944,

Welcome to LQ!!!

Well that is not the correct way to do it and that is the reason you are not getting expected result.

If you want to list down all the files under /etc that start with a capital letter then you should run the command as follows:

Code:

ls -a /etc | grep ^[A-Z]

You can change the path I mean instead of using ls -a /etc you can also use /var to find out the files starting with capital letters under /var directory.

Cedrik · 02-14-2012, 07:41 AM

Code:

cd /etc
ls -d [A-Z]*

works for me...

T3RM1NVT0R · 02-14-2012, 07:43 AM

@ Cedrik,

Thank you.

@ amr_salah944,

Yes, that is another way to get the result you are expecting.

amr_salah944 · 02-14-2012, 08:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by T3RM1NVT0R

Hi amr_salah944,

Welcome to LQ!!!

Well that is not the correct way to do it and that is the reason you are not getting expected result.

If you want to list down all the files under /etc that start with a capital letter then you should run the command as follows:

Code:

ls -a /etc | grep ^[A-Z]

You can change the path I mean instead of using ls -a /etc you can also use /var to find out the files starting with capital letters under /var directory.

Thnx 4 ur help , but I really wanna use wildcard nor regexp , or you can say I wanna know what makes it give that strange output

amr_salah944 · 02-14-2012, 08:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cedrik

Code:

cd /etc
ls -d [A-Z]*

works for me...

I tried this also but getting files such

Code:

hdparm.conf                    pcmcia               xul-ext
host.conf                      perl                 xulrunner-2.0
hostname                       pkcs11               zekr
hosts                          pm                   zsh_command_not_found
hosts.allow                    pnm2ppa.conf

T3RM1NVT0R · 02-14-2012, 08:11 AM

That is because you are not running the command mentioned as root user. Try it with the root user and I am pretty sure it will work. I got the same output as you are getting when I used a regular user account.

amr_salah944 · 02-14-2012, 08:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by T3RM1NVT0R

That is because you are not running the command mentioned as root user. Try it with the root user and I am pretty sure it will work. I got the same output as you are getting when I used a regular user account.

The same result

Really I don't wanna know another method , I just wanna know why this happens , so please help me

T3RM1NVT0R · 02-14-2012, 08:42 AM

Appears to me as some limitation with regular user account to use wildcards. When I use the regular user account I get the same output. If I use root user account I got the correct output. If I add the regular use to sudo still I get the same output.

So it appears to be some limitation with regular user account to use wildcards.

Cedrik · 02-14-2012, 09:00 AM

Maybe something with your locale ??

Could you try

Code:

cd /etc
LC_ALL=C ls -d [A-Z]*

amr_salah944 · 02-14-2012, 09:12 AM

@ T3RM1NVT0R
@Cedrik

I tried all of that but still the same problem , and by the way I tried it yesterday on a Centos machine and also I had a problem like that , that's why I decided that I must figure out what's happening , I don't know if It's a bug or what !!

amr_salah944 · 02-15-2012, 11:10 AM

Hello again
I really don't want any suggestion for that function , I am just very curious to know what causes that strange output that is totally different from all what we learnt and what books say, so please help me know where the problem is

chrism01 · 02-15-2012, 08:32 PM

Code:

ls [A-Z}?.*

works for me with ls --version=8.4, bash --version=4.1.2(1) & see also http://linux.die.net/Bash-Beginners-...ect_04_03.html

amr_salah944 · 02-16-2012, 03:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrism01

Code:

ls [A-Z}?.*

works for me with ls --version=8.4, bash --version=4.1.2(1) & see also http://linux.die.net/Bash-Beginners-...ect_04_03.html

Hello Chris
The dot is not a wildcard character , I still getting unexpected results, really I need to know what causes that , I am not asking about any complex issue , It's just the basics that we learnt years ago from books, I don't know why it's not working correctly !! Please help me figuring out that.