bash4 - creating array of directory contents on regex filter

Question

Looking for a way to create an bash array based on a regex in filtering a directory.

For example I do:

A. local -a arr=( "$1"/* ); arr=( "${arr[@]##*/} );
- Creates array of all contents of the path sent in $1.

B. local -a arr=( "$1"/*"$2" ); arr=( "${arr[@]##*/}" );
- Creates array on filter expression in $2.

(I do not know why the * is not showing up in "$1"/*"$2" in B. If I put 2 **s both show up!)

But it only works for a simple expression: example '.pub' - lists all public keys.

However if I send 'z.*.zip'to find all zip files beginning with 'z.' does not work.

I even tried taking out the *"$2" in arr=( "$1"/*"$2" ). *"$2" not showing up!

Your help would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Globs don't expand in double quotes. You have to unquote it:

local -a arr=( "$1"/*$2 ); 

To avoid issues with whitespace, you can use IFS="" first to inhibit word splitting while still doing glob expansion on unquoted variables.

Here's an example invocation:

$ cat script

foo() {
  local -a arr=( "$1"/*$2 );
  echo "Matching files: " "${arr[@]}"
}

foo "." "z.*.zip"

$ ls
lobsters.png  pelican.zip  script  z.bar.zip  z.cow.txt

$ bash script
Matching files:  ./z.bar.zip

$