# Globs

Zed supports the use of [glob](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glob_(programming)>) patterns that are the formal name for Unix shell-style path matching wildcards like `*.md` or `docs/src/**/*.md` supported by sh, bash, zsh, etc. A glob is similar but distinct from a [regex (regular expression)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression). You may be In Zed these are commonly used when matching filenames.

## Glob Flavor

Zed uses two different rust crates for matching glob patterns:

- [ignore crate](https://docs.rs/ignore/latest/ignore/) for matching glob patterns stored in `.gitignore` files
- [glob crate](https://docs.rs/glob/latest/glob/) for matching file paths in Zed

While simple expressions are portable across environments (e.g. running `ls *.py` or `*.tmp` in a gitignore) there is significant divergence in the support for and syntax of more advanced features varies (character classes, exclusions, `**`, etc) across implementations. For the rest of this document we will be describing globs as supported in Zed via the `glob` crate implementation. Please see [References](#references) below for documentation links for glob pattern syntax for `.gitignore`, shells and other programming languages.

The `glob` crate is implemented entirely in rust and does not rely on the `glob` / `fnmatch` interfaces provided by your platforms libc. This means that globs in Zed should behave similarly with across platforms.

## Introduction

A glob "pattern" is used to match a file name or complete file path. For example, when using "Search all files" {#kb project_search::ToggleFocus} you can click the funnel shaped Toggle Filters" button or {#kb project_search::ToggleFilters} and it will show additional search fields for "Include" and "Exclude" which support specifying glob patterns for matching file paths and file names.

When creating a glob pattern you can use one or multiple special characters:

| Special Character | Meaning                                                           |
| ----------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `?`               | Matches any single character                                      |
| `*`               | Matches any (possibly empty) sequence of characters               |
| `**`              | Matches the current directory and arbitrary subdirectories        |
| `[abc]`           | Matches any one character in the brackets                         |
| `[a-z]`           | Matches any of a range of characters (ordered by Unicode)         |
| `[!...]`          | The negation of `[...]` (matches a character not in the brackets) |

Notes:

1. Shell-style brace-expansions like `{a,b,c}` are not supported.
2. To match a literal `-` character inside brackets it must come first `[-abc]` or last `[abc-]`.
3. To match the literal `[` character use `[[]` or put it as the first character in the group `[[abc]`.
4. To match the literal `]` character use `[]]` or put it as the last character in the group `[abc]]`.

## Examples

### Matching file extensions

If you wanted to only search Markdown files add `*.md` to the "Include" search field.

### Case insensitive matching

Globs in Zed are case-sensitive, so `*.c` will not match `main.C` (even on case-insensitive filesystems like HFS+/APFS on MacOS). Instead use brackets to match characters. So instead of `*.c` use `*.[cC]`.