Re: <x-y> globing pattern doesn't sort?

[Louis-David Mitterrand <vindex@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Sep 13, 2004 at 06:00:36PM +0200, Oliver Kiddle wrote:
> Louis-David Mitterrand wrote:
> > I just tried that:
> > 
> > % bzcat ../patch-2.6.9-rc1.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk<1-19>.bz2<TAB>
> > 
> > and obtained:
> > 
> > bzcat ../patch-2.6.9-rc1.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk10.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk11.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk12.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk13.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk14.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk15.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk16.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk17.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk18.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk19.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk1.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk2.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk3.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk4.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk5.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk6.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk7.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk8.bz2 ../patch-2.6.9-rc1-bk9.bz2
> 
> Is it the order of the expansions that surprised you. It often helps us
> understand a point like this if you state what you expected to obtain.

Right, I expected the list to be numerically sorted. Actually I now
understand <-> is a way to state a range and has nothing to do with
sorting.

> > which really suprised my as I thought the whole point of the <-> pattern
> > was to allow for an ordered sequence to be returned (contrary to a
> > simple *).
> > 
> > Am I mistaken in that belief?
> 
> <-> doesn't expand a sequence in order. Like *, it is just matching
> filenames except it looks for a number within a range. Files are matched
> and then sorted.
> 
> You could use {1..19} for an ordered expansion but that expands
> unconditionally: there doesn't need to be existing files with each name
> in the sequence.
> 
> Alternatively, you can use the (n) glob qualifier to sort the
> expansions numerically:
>	patch*(n)

Hey, thanks for these snippets. I learned two new tricks today.

Best regards,

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