fnmatch

fnmatch(3)                  Library Functions Manual                  fnmatch(3)

NAME
       fnmatch - match filename or pathname

LIBRARY
       Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
       #include <fnmatch.h>

       int fnmatch(const char *pattern, const char *string, int flags);

DESCRIPTION
       The fnmatch() function checks whether the string argument matches the
       pattern argument, which is a shell wildcard pattern (see glob(7)).

       The flags argument modifies the behavior; it is the bitwise OR of zero or
       more of the following flags:

       FNM_NOESCAPE
              If this flag is set, treat backslash as an ordinary character,
              instead of an escape character.

       FNM_PATHNAME
              If this flag is set, match a slash in string only with a slash in
              pattern and not by an asterisk (*) or a question mark (?)
              metacharacter, nor by a bracket expression ([]) containing a
              slash.

       FNM_PERIOD
              If this flag is set, a leading period in string has to be matched
              exactly by a period in pattern.  A period is considered to be
              leading if it is the first character in string, or if both
              FNM_PATHNAME is set and the period immediately follows a slash.

       FNM_FILE_NAME
              This is a GNU synonym for FNM_PATHNAME.

       FNM_LEADING_DIR
              If this flag (a GNU extension) is set, the pattern is considered
              to be matched if it matches an initial segment of string which is
              followed by a slash.  This flag is mainly for the internal use of
              glibc and is implemented only in certain cases.

       FNM_CASEFOLD
       FNM_IGNORECASE (same as FNM_CASEFOLD)
              If this flag is set, the pattern is matched case-insensitively.

       FNM_EXTMATCH
              If this flag (a GNU extension) is set, extended patterns are
              supported, as introduced by 'ksh' and now supported by other
              shells.  The extended format is as follows, with pattern-list
              being a '|' separated list of patterns.

       '?(pattern-list)'
              The pattern matches if zero or one occurrences of any of the
              patterns in the pattern-list match the input string.

       '*(pattern-list)'
              The pattern matches if zero or more occurrences of any of the
              patterns in the pattern-list match the input string.

       '+(pattern-list)'
              The pattern matches if one or more occurrences of any of the
              patterns in the pattern-list match the input string.

       '@(pattern-list)'
              The pattern matches if exactly one occurrence of any of the
              patterns in the pattern-list match the input string.

       '!(pattern-list)'
              The pattern matches if the input string cannot be matched with any
              of the patterns in the pattern-list.

RETURN VALUE
       Zero if string matches pattern, FNM_NOMATCH if there is no match or
       another nonzero value if there is an error.

ATTRIBUTES
       For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).
       ┌──────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬────────────────────┐
       │ Interface                        │ Attribute     │ Value              │
       ├──────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────────┤
       │ fnmatch()                        │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe env locale │
       └──────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴────────────────────┘

STANDARDS
       fnmatch()
              POSIX.1-2008.

       FNM_CASEFOLD
       FNM_IGNORECASE
              POSIX.1-2024.

       FNM_FILE_NAME
       FNM_LEADING_DIR
              GNU.

HISTORY
       fnmatch()
              POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.2.

       FNM_CASEFOLD
              has been available on many systems even before POSIX.1-2024.

SEE ALSO
       sh(1), glob(3), scandir(3), wordexp(3), glob(7)

Linux man-pages 6.17               2026-02-08                         fnmatch(3)