Bash slash does't work in wildcards square brackets

Alex Misiulia

9/12/23, 10:46 PM

I'm curious why command ls -pd *[!/] or ls -pd *[!\/] doesn't match all files which don't end with /.

My use case is that I want to list only files inside the current working directory. I know that it's better to use find instead of ls but I want to understand in general is it possible to use / in square brackets in wildcards.

0 + 0

bash

wildcards

glenn jackman

9/12/23, 11:29 PM

You might get more traction on this question on stackoverflow

glenn jackman

9/12/23, 11:35 PM

In the manual, [Filename Expansion](https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html#Filename-Expansion) says "When matching a filename, the slash character must always be matched explicitly by a slash in the pattern". Other than that, I can't find anything that says `*/` only expands to directories. Note that the slash is not actually part of the filename. Having said all that, I don't know how to formulate a glob pattern that excludes directories.

glenn jackman

9/12/23, 11:36 PM

perhaps `ls -pd1 * | grep -v '/$'`

Alex Misiulia

9/13/23, 10:24 AM

@glennjackman thanks for the answer. But it's strange that's it's not documented in the manual or other sources. I can match other special characters with quoting them in square brackets. But back slash doesn't work.

Gordon Davisson

9/13/23, 6:00 PM

@AlexMisiulia The slash isn't actually part of the filename, it's a delimiter *after* the filename, so it's inherently going to act differently from characters that're part of the filename.

Alex Misiulia

9/14/23, 8:03 PM

@GordonDavisson thanks. Maybe you have some reference to documentation which can describe deeply this topic?

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Bash slash does't work in wildcards square brackets

TH: Bash slash ใช้ไม่ได้ในวงเล็บเหลี่ยมสัญลักษณ์แทน

RO: Bara oblică nu funcționează în paranteze drepte

RU: Косая черта Bash не работает в квадратных скобках с подстановочными знаками

VI: Dấu gạch chéo Bash không hoạt động trong dấu ngoặc vuông ký tự đại diện

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