File Globbing

• The section on Shell Expansions from the Bash Reference Manual can be helpful.

The first glob we'll learn is *. When it encounters a * character in any argument, the shell will treat it as "wildcard" and try to replace that argument with any files that match the pattern. It's easier to show you than explain:

hacker@dojo:~$ touch file_a
hacker@dojo:~$ touch file_b
hacker@dojo:~$ touch file_c
hacker@dojo:~$ ls
file_a	file_b	file_c
hacker@dojo:~$ echo Look: file_*
Look: file_a file_b file_c

Of course, though in this case, the glob resulted in multiple arguments, it can just as simply match only one. For example:

hacker@dojo:~$ touch file_a
hacker@dojo:~$ ls
file_a
hacker@dojo:~$ echo Look: file_*
Look: file_a

When zero files are matched, by default, the shell leaves the glob unchanged:

hacker@dojo:~$ touch file_a
hacker@dojo:~$ ls
file_a
hacker@dojo:~$ echo Look: nope_*
Look: nope_*

The * matches any part of the filename except for / or a leading . character. For example:

hacker@dojo:~$ echo ONE: /ho*/*ck*
ONE: /home/hacker
hacker@dojo:~$ echo TWO: /*/hacker
TWO: /home/hacker
hacker@dojo:~$ echo THREE: ../*
THREE: ../hacker

Now, practice this yourself! Starting from your home directory, change your directory to /challenge, but use globbing to keep the argument you pass to cd to at most four characters! Once you're there, run /challenge/run for the flag!

Next, let's learn about ?. When it encounters a ? character in any argument, the shell will treat it as single-character wildcard. This works like *, but only matches one character. For example:

hacker@dojo:~$ touch file_a
hacker@dojo:~$ touch file_b
hacker@dojo:~$ touch file_cc
hacker@dojo:~$ ls
file_a	file_b	file_cc
hacker@dojo:~$ echo Look: file_?
Look: file_a file_b
hacker@dojo:~$ echo Look: file_??
Look: file_cc

Now, practice this yourself! Starting from your home directory, change your directory to /challenge, but use the ? character instead of c and l in the argument to cd! Once you're there, run /challenge/run for the flag!

Next, we will cover []. The square brackes are, essentially, a limited form of ?, in that instead of matching any character, [] is a wildcard for some subset of potential characters, specified within the brackets. For example, [pwn] will match the character p, w, or n. For example:

hacker@dojo:~$ touch file_a
hacker@dojo:~$ touch file_b
hacker@dojo:~$ touch file_c
hacker@dojo:~$ ls
file_a	file_b	file_c
hacker@dojo:~$ echo Look: file_[ab]
Look: file_a file_b

Try it here! We've placed a bunch of files in /challenge/files. Change your working directory to /challenge/files and run /challenge/run with a single argument that bracket-globs into file_b, file_a, file_s, and file_h!

Globbing happens on a path basis, so you can expand entire paths with your globbed arguments. For example:

hacker@dojo:~$ touch file_a
hacker@dojo:~$ touch file_b
hacker@dojo:~$ touch file_c
hacker@dojo:~$ ls
file_a	file_b	file_c
hacker@dojo:~$ echo Look: /home/hacker/file_[ab]
Look: /home/hacker/file_a /home/hacker/file_b

Now it's your turn. Once more, we've placed a bunch of files in /challenge/files. Starting from your home directory, run /challenge/run with a single argument that bracket-globs into the absolute paths to the file_b, file_a, file_s, and file_h files!

Now, let's put the previous levels together! We put a few happy, but diversely-named files in /challenge/files. Go cd there and, using the globbing you've learned, write a single, short (6 characters or less) glob that will match the files "challenging", "educational", and "pwning"!

Sometimes, you want to filter out files in a glob! Luckily, [] helps you do just this. If the first character in the brackets is a ! or (in newer versions of bash) a ^, the glob inverts, and that bracket instance matches characters that aren't listed. For example:

hacker@dojo:~$ touch file_a
hacker@dojo:~$ touch file_b
hacker@dojo:~$ touch file_c
hacker@dojo:~$ ls
file_a	file_b	file_c
hacker@dojo:~$ echo Look: file_[!ab]
Look: file_c
hacker@dojo:~$ echo Look: file_[^ab]
Look: file_c
hacker@dojo:~$ echo Look: file_[ab]
Look: file_a file_b

Armed with this knowledge, go forth to /challenge/files and run /challenge/run with all files that don't start with p, w, or n!

NOTE: The ! character has a different special meaning in bash when it's not the first character of a [] glob, so keep that in mind if things stop making sense! ^ does not have this problem, but is also not compatible with older shells.