Question

I’m trying to list files using regex but it’s not getting listed as expected.

# ls test*.tgz
test-2012_07_17_11_23_45.tgz

But when I use little drilled regex it’s failing.

# ls test-[0-9]{4}_*.tgz
ls: cannot access test-[0-9]{4}_*.tgz: No such file or directory

# ls test-[0-9]\{4\}_*.tgz
ls: cannot access test-[0-9]{4}_*.tgz: No such file or directory

# ls "test-"[0-9]\{4\}"_"*".tgz"
ls: cannot access test-[0-9]{4}_*.tgz: No such file or directory

Any pointers would be helpful.

Answer 1

bash does not support glob expansion via regular expressions. You need to use glob syntax or extglob syntax, neither of which allows {4} for number of occurrences.

Try `ls | pcregrep’ or something like that instead, or provide more info on what you are trying to do.