[ python-Bugs-1580472 ] glob.glob("c:\\[ ]\*) doesn't work

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Bugs item #1580472, was opened at 2006-10-19 11:44
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by gbrandl
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Category: Python Library
Group: Python 2.5
>Status: Closed
>Resolution: Invalid
Priority: 5
Private: No
Submitted By: Koblaid (koblaid)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: glob.glob("c:\\[ ]\*) doesn't work

Initial Comment:
OS: Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
Python 2.5

glob.glob() doesn't work in directories named 
"[ ]" (with a blank in it). Another example is a 
directory named "A - [Aa-Am]"

Example:
#########################
C:\>md []
C:\>md "[ ]"
C:\>copy anyfile.txt []
        1 Datei(en) kopiert.
C:\>copy anyfile.txt "[ ]"
        1 Datei(en) kopiert.

C:\>python
Python 2.5 (r25:51908, Sep 19 2006, 09:52:17) [MSC 
v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for 
more information.
>>> import glob
>>> glob.glob ("c:\\[]\*")
['c:\\[]\\anyfile.txt']
>>> glob.glob ("c:\\[ ]\*")
[]
#########################

The second glob should have resulted the same as the 
first glob since I copied the same file to both 
directories.
I may be wrong because I'm new to python. But I've 
tested it a couple of times, and I think it have to be 
a bug of python or a bug of windows.

Greets, Koblaid

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>Comment By: Georg Brandl (gbrandl)
Date: 2006-10-27 14:01

Message:
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Not a bug, as Peter said.

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Comment By: Peter Otten (potten)
Date: 2006-10-27 12:32

Message:
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user_id=703365

Not a bug. "[abc]" matches exactly one character which may be "a", "b" or "c". 
Therefore "[ ]" matches one space character. If you want a literal "[", put it in brackets, 
e. g. glob.glob("C:\\[[] ]\\*").  
 
--- 
 
By the way, do you think this problem is common enough to warrant the addition of a 
fnmatch.escape() function? I have something like this in mind: 
 
>>> import re 
>>> r = re.compile("(%s)" % "|".join(re.escape(c) for c in "*?[")) 
>>> def escape(s): 
...     return r.sub(r"[\1]", s) 
... 
>>> escape("c:\\[a-z]\\*") 
'c:\\[[]a-z]\\[*]' 
 

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Comment By: Josiah Carlson (josiahcarlson)
Date: 2006-10-27 06:14

Message:
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This is a known issue with the fnmatch module (what glob
uses under the covers).  According to the documentation of
the translate method that converts patterns into regular
expressions... "There is no way to quote meta-characters." 
The fact that "[]" works but "[ ]" doesn't work is a
convenient bug, for those who want to use "[]".

If you can come up with some similar but non-ambiguous
syntax to update the fnmatch module, I'm sure it would be
considered, but as-is, I can't see this as a "bug" per-se.

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