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:mod:`!fnmatch` --- Unix filename pattern matching

.. module:: fnmatch
   :synopsis: Unix shell style filename pattern matching.

Source code: :source:`Lib/fnmatch.py`

.. index:: single: filenames; wildcard expansion


.. index:: pair: module; re

This module provides support for Unix shell-style wildcards, which are not the same as regular expressions (which are documented in the :mod:`re` module). The special characters used in shell-style wildcards are:

.. index::
   single: * (asterisk); in glob-style wildcards
   single: ? (question mark); in glob-style wildcards
   single: [] (square brackets); in glob-style wildcards
   single: ! (exclamation); in glob-style wildcards
   single: - (minus); in glob-style wildcards
Pattern Meaning
* matches everything
? matches any single character
[seq] matches any character in seq
[!seq] matches any character not in seq

For a literal match, wrap the meta-characters in brackets. For example, '[?]' matches the character '?'.

.. index:: pair: module; glob

Note that the filename separator ('/' on Unix) is not special to this module. See module :mod:`glob` for pathname expansion (:mod:`glob` uses :func:`.filter` to match pathname segments). Similarly, filenames starting with a period are not special for this module, and are matched by the * and ? patterns.

Unless stated otherwise, "filename string" and "pattern string" either refer to :class:`str` or ISO-8859-1 encoded :class:`bytes` objects. Note that the functions documented below do not allow to mix a :class:`!bytes` pattern with a :class:`!str` filename, and vice-versa.

Finally, note that :func:`functools.lru_cache` with a maxsize of 32768 is used to cache the (typed) compiled regex patterns in the following functions: :func:`fnmatch`, :func:`fnmatchcase`, :func:`.filter`, :func:`.filterfalse`.

.. function:: fnmatch(name, pat)

   Test whether the filename string *name* matches the pattern string *pat*,
   returning ``True`` or ``False``.  Both parameters are case-normalized
   using :func:`os.path.normcase`. :func:`fnmatchcase` can be used to perform a
   case-sensitive comparison, regardless of whether that's standard for the
   operating system.

   This example will print all file names in the current directory with the
   extension ``.txt``::

      import fnmatch
      import os

      for file in os.listdir('.'):
          if fnmatch.fnmatch(file, '*.txt'):
              print(file)



.. function:: fnmatchcase(name, pat)

   Test whether the filename string *name* matches the pattern string *pat*,
   returning ``True`` or ``False``;
   the comparison is case-sensitive and does not apply :func:`os.path.normcase`.



.. function:: filter(names, pat)

   Construct a list from those elements of the :term:`iterable` of filename
   strings *names* that match the pattern string *pat*.
   It is the same as ``[n for n in names if fnmatch(n, pat)]``,
   but implemented more efficiently.



.. function:: filterfalse(names, pat)

   Construct a list from those elements of the :term:`iterable` of filename
   strings *names* that do not match the pattern string *pat*.
   It is the same as ``[n for n in names if not fnmatch(n, pat)]``,
   but implemented more efficiently.

   .. versionadded:: 3.14



.. function:: translate(pat)

   Return the shell-style pattern *pat* converted to a regular expression for
   using with :func:`re.prefixmatch`. The pattern is expected to be a
   :class:`str`.

   Example:

      >>> import fnmatch, re
      >>>
      >>> regex = fnmatch.translate('*.txt')
      >>> regex
      '(?s:.*\\.txt)\\z'
      >>> reobj = re.compile(regex)
      >>> reobj.prefixmatch('foobar.txt')
      <re.Match object; span=(0, 10), match='foobar.txt'>



.. seealso::

   Module :mod:`glob`
      Unix shell-style path expansion.