In the previous section, we discussed how to work with files and directories using absolute and relative paths. In this section, we will discuss file and path expansion, a powerful feature in Linux that allows us to work with groups of files and directories easily.

Path expansion is a feature that expands patterns in file and directory names into a list of matching names. There are two types of path expansion: globbing and brace expansion.

Globbing

Globbing is a way of matching patterns in file and directory names using wildcards. Wildcards are special characters that match one or more characters in a filename. The most common wildcards are:

• * – matches zero or more characters
• ? – matches exactly one character
• [] – matches a range of characters

Here are some examples of using wildcards with globbing:

Brace Expansion

Brace expansion is a way of generating a list of strings based on a pattern. Brace expansion uses the {} characters to enclose a list of strings separated by commas. The brace expansion will generate all possible combinations of the strings in the list.

Here are some examples of using brace expansion:

In conclusion, file and path expansion is a powerful feature in Linux that allows us to work with groups of files and directories easily. Globbing and brace expansion are two types of path expansion that can help us match patterns in file and directory names and generate lists of strings based on a pattern.