On 2022-11-27, Klaus Dittrich wrote: > Given file.txt with three lines: > > /usr/local/lib/gdk-pixbuf-2.0 > empty > /usr/local/lib/libgd2 > > When I do: > > grep gdk file.txt > this results in : /usr/local/lib/gdk-pixbuf-2.0 > > Which looks ok for me. > > When I do: > > grep gdk* file.txt > this results in : /usr/local/lib/gdk-pixbuf-2 > /usr/local/lib/libgd2.0 > > This looks like then '*' eats the 'k' > from 'gdk*' and looks for 'gd'' instead of 'gdk*'. > Or equivalent to grep gd* file.txt > Or equivalent to grep gd file.txt > > grep gdk.* file.txt > this results in : /usr/local/lib/gdk-pixbuf-2.0 > > Which looks ok for me. > Either now the point is eaten or the point is correctly replaced by > 'any character'
> Can you please verify if this is a bug or anything in my thinking is > wrong beacuse I have overlooked something? I think you are confusing regular expressions with globs. The pattern used by most if not all shells for file-name expansion is a glob. In a glob, an asterisk is replaced by zero or more characters. In a glob, gdk* means gdk followed by zero or more characters. The pattern argument to grep is a regular expression. In a regular expression, an asterisk means zero or more of the preceding element, which in the simplest case is a single character. In a regular expression, gdk* means gd followed by zero or more of the letter k. HTH, Gary
