GLOB implemented; what to do with it?

From: Vladimir Prus (ghost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-01-08 06:35:04

David Abrahams wrote:
> I like the name "GLOB", if the primitive is going to actually do globbing.
>
> The very simplest primitive would be one that returns the names of all
> files in a given directory. We could then implement GLOB in Jam rules,
> using regular expressions. In general I have been in favor of making the
> built-in rules as primitive as possible and doing as much as is feasible at
> the interpreted level.

I've implemented GLOB builtin recently. The question is if we really need it 
now? I ask just because I never desperately needed GLOB myself and adding new 
features without discussion might be dangerous, especially if Boost.Jam 
should be in sync with Perforce Jam (which is talked about in other thread).

GLOB works the following way: 
1. It takes one arguments (might take sevaral and process then all)
2. It splits the arguments into directory name and everything following it.
3. The second part is taken to be wildcard. Filenames in named directory are 
matched against the wildcard, and the list of those which matches is returned.

For example

[ GLOB subdir/* ] 

might return

subdir/a.c subdir/b.c

If it is decided that GLOB is needed, I'll write more tests, document the 
feature and check it in. Something that works (but needs cleanup)
is in
http://chronos.cs.msu.su/~ghost/projects/jam_src.tar.gz
http://chronos.cs.msu.su/~ghost/projects/jam_src.diff

- Volodya