Re: Filename generation: instruct zsh not to follow symbolic links?

[Vincent Lefevre <vincent@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 2026-07-17 02:47:20 +0200, Mikael Magnusson wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 17, 2026 at 1:36 AM Vincent Lefevre <vincent@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On 2026-07-16 18:04:54 +0200, Mikael Magnusson wrote:
> > > On Thu, Jul 16, 2026 at 11:35 AM Vincent Lefevre <vincent@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On 2026-07-16 02:57:46 +0200, Mikael Magnusson wrote:
> > > > > On Thu, Jul 16, 2026 at 1:47 AM Vincent Lefevre <vincent@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > In filename generation, is there a way to instruct zsh not to follow
> > > > > > symbolic links?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Unfortunately, it is not possible to use glob qualifiers on
> > > > > > pathname components (except the last one, i.e. ending the pattern),
> > > > > > e.g. *(/)/foo, even though there would be no ambiguity in parsing
> > > > > > (because a slash cannot appear in a pathname component).
> > > > >
> > > > > No, but you can do things like
> > > > > () { mycmd $^@/foo } *(/)
> > > > > which conveniently doesn't need any named temporary parameters.
> > > >
> > > > I get "No such file or directory" errors for some directories.
> > > > But this is too complex anyway, and perhaps not usable in some
> > > > situations.
> > >
> > > Right, you might need
> > > () { setopt localoptions cshnullglob; mycmd $^@/foo } *(/)
> > > :)
> >
> > I still get "No such file or directory" errors; or if I use "echo"
> > as the command, I get non-existing files in the output.
> 
> It was implied that foo is a pattern in the above, in which case the
> cshnullglob wil filter out the nonexistant ones.

In my case, "foo" is not a pattern. The goal was to get all the
files named "foo" in each subdirectory (which are not symlinks).

> > > > I would rather think that a (/ sequence could have a special meaning.
> > > > That should be easy to parse.
> > >
> > > Sure, but that'd be an extreme special case then. You wouldn't be able
> > > to use any other glob qualifiers there.
> >
> > Why not?
> 
> Because the other glob qualifiers are not '/' and hence will not match
> the (/ sequence.

This is not true:

qaa% mkdir a b
qaa% chmod 500 b
qaa% ls -l
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 vinc17 vinc17 4096 2026-07-17 11:35:03 a
dr-x------ 2 vinc17 vinc17 4096 2026-07-17 11:35:03 b
qaa% ls -ld *(/)
drwxr-xr-x 2 vinc17 vinc17 4096 2026-07-17 11:35:03 a
dr-x------ 2 vinc17 vinc17 4096 2026-07-17 11:35:03 b
qaa% ls -ld *(/w)
drwxr-xr-x 2 vinc17 vinc17 4096 2026-07-17 11:35:03 a

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@xxxxxxxxxx> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
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Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Pascaline project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)