Globbing

Globbing is the procedure of

• matching all filenames against a given pattern
• expanding to all matching filenames

Unlike MSDOS, where the called program had to interpret the patterns, the globbing on UNIX® is done by the shell, the matched filenames are given as parameters to a called command:

$ cat *.txt

$ cat 1.txt 3.txt foobar.txt XXX.txt

• shell
• hardlink

• pathname expansion