NAME

     wildmat - perform shell-style wildcard matching

SYNOPSIS

     int
     wildmat(text, pattern)
         char       *text;
         char       *pattern;

DESCRIPTION

     Wildmat compares the text against the  pattern  and  returns
     non-zero  if  the  pattern matches the text.  The pattern is
     interpreted according to rules  similar  to  shell  filename
     wildcards,  and  not  as  a  full regular expression such as
     those handled by the  grep(1)  family  of  programs  or  the
     regex(3) or regexp(3) set of routines.

     The pattern is interpreted as follows:

     \x   Turns off the special  meaning  of  x  and  matches  it
          directly; this is used mostly before a question mark or
          asterisk, and is not special inside square brackets.

     ?    Matches any single character.

     *    Matches any sequence of zero or more characters.

     [x...y]
          Matches any  single  character  specified  by  the  set
          x...y.  A minus sign may be used to indicate a range of
          characters.  That  is,  [0-5abc]  is  a  shorthand  for
          [012345abc].   More  than one range may appear inside a
          character set; [0-9a-zA-Z._] matches almost all of  the
          legal  characters  for a host name.  The close bracket,
          ], may be used if it is the first character in the set.
          The  minus  sign,  -,  may  be used if it is either the
          first or last character in the set.

     [^x...y]
          This matches any character not in the set x...y,  which
          is  interpreted as described above.  For example, [^]-]
          matches any character other than  a  close  bracket  or
          minus sign.

HISTORY

     Written by  Rich  $alz  <rsalz@uunet.uu.net>  in  1986,  and
     posted  to  Usenet several times since then, most notably in
     comp.sources.misc in March, 1991.

     Lars Mathiesen <thorinn@diku.dk> enhanced the multi-asterisk
     failure mode in early 1991.

     Rich and Lars increased the efficiency of star patterns  and
     reposted it to comp.sources.misc in April, 1991.

     Robert Elz <kre@munnari.oz.au> added minus  sign  and  close
     bracket handling in June, 1991.

     This is revision 1.10, dated 1992/04/03.

SEE ALSO

     grep(1), regex(3), regexp(3).