Unix Tip: GRABBING THE HIDDEN

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UNIX GURU UNIVERSE
UNIX HOT TIP

Unix Tip 3093 - July 26, 2009

http://www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/show?tip.today

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GRABBING THE HIDDEN

To easily select all hidden files, use the following:

.[^.]* ..?*

For example,
echo .[^.]* ..?*

will output a list of all hidden files in your current directory.

.[^.]* selects all files starting with a dot but NOT having a dot as their second character.

..?* selects all files starting with two dots and having at least one additional character

Together, they will retrieve ANY file starting with '.' except '.' and '..' (even tricky ones like '...hideme')

The ^ (caret) symbol can be used as the first character inside [ ] at any time to say "not one of the following" rather than the usual "any one of the following."

[^0-9a-fA-F] will match any character that is NOT a hex digit.

This tip generously supported by: wurzel@concentric.net

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