glob

/glob/ , not , /glohb/ , v.,n. [Unix; common] To expand special characters
in a wildcarded name, or the act of so doing (the action is also called
globbing ). The Unix conventions for filename wildcarding have become
sufficiently pervasive that many hackers use some of them in written
English, especially in email or news on technical topics. Those commonly
encountered include the following: * wildcard for any string (see also UN*X
) ? wildcard for any single character (generally read this way only at the
beginning or in the middle of a word) [] delimits a wildcard matching any of
the enclosed characters {} alternation of comma-separated alternatives;
thus, foo{baz,qux} would be read as foobaz or fooqux Some examples: He said
his name was [KC]arl (expresses ambiguity). I don't read talk.politics.*
(any of the talk.politics subgroups on Usenet ). Other examples are given
under the entry for X. Note that glob patterns are similar, but not
identical, to those used in regexp s. Historical note: The jargon usage
derives from glob , the name of a subprogram that expanded wildcards in
archaic pre-Bourne versions of the Unix shell.

