CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bash
egelev
egelev

Reputation: 1205

Expand filepath pattern stored in variable in bash

I have the following value stored in a variable - pattern

$WS/*.asd

In my environment $WS evaluates to valid directory(/home/administrator/dev/workspaces/). There are some .asd files in this directory. I want to expand the pattern variable to all matching .asd files in this directory. However, I've tried the following commands, but neither of them works:

expand "$pattern"
expand: $WS/*.asd: No such file or directory

ls $pattern
ls: cannot access $WS/*.asd: No such file or directory

eval $pattern
/home/administrator/dev/workspaces/a.asd: Permission denied

echo $pattern
$WS/*.asd

I get the pattern as input. Any idea how I can expand the pattern to a list which includes all matching files.

EDIT: Explain the problem in more details

I may get any combination of env-vars and wildcards in any sequence. For example the input may be: /home/$USER/*/$DIR/*.my_extension. The problem is i want to evaluate all env-vars and expand the wildcards.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 521

Answers (2)

anubhava
anubhava

Reputation: 785266

Other than eval you can try this find:

pattern='$WS/*.asd'

find "$WS" -name "${pattern##*/}"

EDIT: Based on your edited question, it seems you will have to use:

eval echo "$pattern"

Upvotes: 3

Eugeniu Rosca
Eugeniu Rosca

Reputation: 5305

You can store all the elements following that pattern in an array:

#!/bin/bash
arr=()
shopt -s nullglob # expand the glob pattern to a null sting if no elements caught
arr+=($WS/*.asd)
shopt -u nullglob # undo the 'shopt -s nullglob'

To print the entries:

for entry in "${arr[@]}"; do
    echo "$entry"
done

Upvotes: 1

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