WORDEXP(3) BSD Library Functions Manual WORDEXP(3)NAME
wordexp — perform shell-style word expansions
SYNOPSIS
#include <wordexp.h>
int
wordexp(const char *restrict words, wordexp_t *restrict pwordexp,
int flags);
void
wordfree(wordexp_t *pwordexp);
DESCRIPTION
The wordexp() function performs shell-style word expansion on words. It
places the list of words into the we_wordv member of pwordexp and the
number of words into we_wordc.
The flags argument (see BUGS) is the bitwise inclusive OR of any of the
following constants:
WRDE_APPEND Append the words to those generated by a previous call to
wordexp().
WRDE_DOOFS As many NULL pointers as are specified by the we_offs mem‐
ber of pwordexp are added to the front of we_wordv.
WRDE_NOCMD Disallow command substitution in words. See the note in
BUGS before using this.
WRDE_REUSE The pwordexp argument was passed to a previous successful
call to wordexp() but has not been passed to wordfree().
The implementation may reuse the space allocated to it.
WRDE_SHOWERR Do not redirect shell error messages to /dev/null.
WRDE_UNDEF Report error on an attempt to expand an undefined shell
variable.
The wordexp_t structure is defined in <wordexp.h> as:
typedef struct {
size_t we_wordc; /* count of words matched */
char **we_wordv; /* pointer to list of words */
size_t we_offs; /* slots to reserve in we_wordv */
} wordexp_t;
The wordfree() function frees the memory allocated by wordexp().
RETURN VALUES
The wordexp() function returns zero if successful, otherwise it returns
one of the following error codes:
WRDE_BADCHAR The words argument contains one of the following unquoted
characters: ⟨newline⟩, ‘|’, ‘&’, ‘;’, ‘<’, ‘>’, ‘(’, ‘)’,
‘{’, ‘}’.
WRDE_BADVAL An attempt was made to expand an undefined shell variable
and WRDE_UNDEF is set in flags.
WRDE_CMDSUB An attempt was made to use command substitution and
WRDE_NOCMD is set in flags.
WRDE_NOSPACE Not enough memory to store the result.
WRDE_SYNTAX Shell syntax error in words.
The wordfree() function returns no value.
EXAMPLES
Invoke the editor on all .c files in the current directory and /etc/motd
(error checking omitted):
wordexp_t pwordexp;
wordexp("${EDITOR:-vi} *.c /etc/motd", &pwordexp, 0);
execvp(pwordexp->we_wordv[0], pwordexp->we_wordv);
SEE ALSOsh(1), fnmatch(3), glob(3), popen(3), system(3)BUGS
This version of wordexp() ignores the value of the flags argument.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 1995-2002 University Corporation for Atmospheric
Research/Unidata
Portions of this software were developed by the Unidata Program at the
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.
BSD December 27, 2002 BSD
