[Caml-list] Wildcard expansion/command line Q#2

["Jens Olsson" <jenso@operamail.com>]

Hi again,

as I dig more into the code of my program I realize that I have some more questions. I just hope these hasn't as obvious answers than my previous ones... :) 

Now, I know the shell expands any wildcard for my program, resulting in a argv array with all the expanded filenames in the given directory. Allright, nice and neat. I can deal with that. 

But what happens if I want to go recursive? As I understand it, the expansion made by the shell is *not* recursive itself. If my wildcard is *.txt I will only get expanded names for the current directory but not for any txt files in the subdirectories. Is this a desired behaviour?

I mean, one could interpret the wildcard *.txt as ./*.txt. In that case, maybe recursive action is not logical - as the complete path of the files in any subdirectories do not match the wildcard. If this is the case I find it locical and I only have to implement my program to deal with either one or more files given by the user directly or by shell expansion.

But if the wildcard *.txt together with a recurse flag means "all txt files in this and any subdirectory" I am a bit puzzled - what do I do with subdirectories? Do I have to open them manually and let the shell expand them too, using a globbing feature (if it works that way)? And if so, is this supported by Ocaml? I do not believe in this second alternative. It seems so awkward and so not in harmony with the idea of shell expansion of wildcards. But maybe I am missing something here?

I do not know if I make sense... but I guess that a little bit more examination of tools similar to the one I write might give some answers. Or maybe someone of you have it right away. I'd be more than happy to elaborate my thoughts if nescessary.

Jens
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