glob() is a Unix library function that expands file paths according to a minimal regular expression syntax. The syntax of glob patterns is not identical with that of regular expressions used by Unix utilities like grep. The word "glob" is also used as a noun when discussing a particular pattern match, e.g. "use the glob *.log to match all those log files".

Larry Wall's Programming Perl discusses glob in the context of the Perl language; thus a glob can also be used under other operating systems as well as Unix.

See also

• wildmat