Dumb (?) Q: how to do brace expansion in /bin/sh?

MrPete

The pfSense default shell allows this simple filename/etc expansion:
ls {a,b,c,d}.txt

But the default /bin/sh shell says "no such file or directory" with that.

How is that done in /bin/sh?

Why I ask: things like ACME action lists allow a shell command. It would sure be helpful to have expansion capability there!

NollipfSense

@mrpete I tried looking there as well as try your command...it doesn't seems to contain nothing but machine language...hope someone more senior can help.

Screenshot 2023-03-22 at 1.18.29 PM.png

FSC830

The a, b, c ,d are only placeholders, you need to type something useful for that.
The command allows to limit the outcome. See i.e. an unlimited listing and a listing showing only files starting with h or i and an extension .php:

user@vmmt82:/var/www/wetter/meteo$ ls -al
total 388
drwxr-xr-x 18 www-data www-data  4096 Mär 22 11:08 .
drwxr-xr-x  3 www-data www-data  4096 Mär 17 16:48 ..
drwxr-xr-x  8 www-data www-data  4096 Mär 18 01:20 admin
-rw-r--r--  1 www-data www-data 73438 Mär 16 19:12 api.php
drwxr-xr-x  2 www-data www-data  4096 Mär 16 19:12 backup
drwxr-xr-x  2 www-data www-data  4096 Mär 22 19:57 cache
-rwxrwxrwx  1 www-data www-data  6499 Mär 17 18:46 config.php
drwxr-xr-x  5 www-data www-data  4096 Mär 16 19:12 css
drwxr-xr-x  2 www-data www-data  4096 Mär 16 19:12 custom
-rw-r--r--  1 www-data www-data 28797 Mär 16 19:12 footer.php
-rw-r--r--  1 www-data www-data    31 Mär 17 16:20 fs_info.php
-rw-r--r--  1 www-data www-data 32298 Mär 16 19:12 header.php
drwxr-xr-x  4 www-data www-data  4096 Mär 16 19:12 homepage
drwxr-xr-x 10 www-data www-data  4096 Mär 16 19:12 icons
drwxr-xr-x 12 www-data www-data  4096 Mär 16 19:12 imgs
-rw-r--r--  1 www-data www-data 34619 Mär 16 19:12 indexDesktop.php
-rw-r--r--  1 www-data www-data  3658 Mär 16 19:12 indexFull.php
-rw-r--r--  1 www-data www-data 27427 Mär 16 19:12 indexMobile.php
-rw-r--r--  1 www-data www-data  7204 Mär 16 19:12 index.php
drwxr-xr-x  3 www-data www-data  4096 Mär 16 19:12 install
drwxr-xr-x  2 www-data www-data  4096 Mär 20 10:37 lang
drwxr-xr-x  4 www-data www-data  4096 Mär 16 19:12 load
-rw-r--r--  1 www-data www-data 51620 Mär 20 16:06 menu.php
-rw-r--r--  1 www-data www-data   524 Mär 22 20:00 meteotemplateLive.txt
drwxr-xr-x  3 www-data www-data  4096 Mär 16 19:12 mobile
drwxr-xr-x 11 www-data www-data  4096 Mär 16 19:12 pages
-rw-r--r--  1 www-data www-data    65 Mär 22 11:08 php_version.php
-rw-r--r--  1 www-data www-data    59 Mär 22 11:04 php_vers.php
drwxr-xr-x 13 www-data www-data  4096 Mär 18 18:07 plugins
drwxr-xr-x  6 www-data www-data  4096 Mär 17 10:53 scripts
-rw-r--r--  1 www-data www-data  2471 Mär 16 19:12 sitemap.php
-rw-r--r--  1 www-data www-data  8733 Mär 22 19:17 sitemap.txt
-rw-r--r--  1 www-data www-data  1452 Mär 16 19:12 sitemapXML.php
drwxr-xr-x  2 www-data www-data  4096 Mär 16 19:12 update
-rw-r--r--  1 www-data www-data  1779 Mär 16 19:12 userSettings.php
-rw-r--r--  1 www-data www-data    59 Mär 22 11:04 version.php

user@vmmt82:/var/www/wetter/meteo$ ls -al {h*,i*}.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 32298 Mär 16 19:12 header.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 34619 Mär 16 19:12 indexDesktop.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data  3658 Mär 16 19:12 indexFull.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 27427 Mär 16 19:12 indexMobile.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data  7204 Mär 16 19:12 index.php

Regards

Edit: Works in shell without issues...

[23.01-RELEASE][admin@firewall.home]/root: ls -al {check_mount,qrmount}.sh
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  321 Dec 12 10:37 check_mount.sh
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   66 Dec 12 10:38 qrmount.sh
[23.01-RELEASE][admin@firewall.home]/root:

Edit: Got it. You mean the curly braces command does not work in pfSense GUI - Diagnostics when running a shell command.
Seems, that the GUI cant interprete/escape the curly braces.

Just looked in PHP file: the function "htmlspecialchars" is used for translating special characters, but referring to PHP manual this function does not know the curly braces. So only solutions seems to be running such a command at command lie (by SSH or serial).

stephenw10

The default shell is csh not sh. That's probably what you're seeing.

MrPete

@stephenw10 Exactly.
Works fine in the normal interactive shell.

It's other situations that use sh... such as the "acme scripts" field...

jimp

I don't think /bin/sh supports that kind of glob/brace expansion.

   Pathname Expansion (File Name Generation)
     Unless the -f option is set, file name generation is performed after word
     splitting is complete.  Each word is viewed as a series of patterns,
     separated by slashes.  The process of expansion replaces the word with
     the names of all existing files whose names can be formed by replacing
     each pattern with a string that matches the specified pattern.  There are
     two restrictions on this: first, a pattern cannot match a string
     containing a slash, and second, a pattern cannot match a string starting
     with a period unless the first character of the pattern is a period.  The
     next section describes the patterns used for Pathname Expansion, the four
     varieties of parameter expansion for substring processing and the case
     command.

   Shell Patterns
     A pattern consists of normal characters, which match themselves, and
     meta-characters.  The meta-characters are ‘*’, ‘?’, and ‘[’.  These
     characters lose their special meanings if they are quoted.  When command
     or variable substitution is performed and the dollar sign or back quotes
     are not double-quoted, the value of the variable or the output of the
     command is scanned for these characters and they are turned into meta-
     characters.

     An asterisk (‘*’) matches any string of characters.  A question mark
     (‘?’) matches any single character.  A left bracket (‘[’) introduces a
     character class.  The end of the character class is indicated by a ‘]’;
     if the ‘]’ is missing then the ‘[’ matches a ‘[’ rather than introducing
     a character class.  A character class matches any of the characters
     between the square brackets.  A locale-dependent range of characters may
     be specified using a minus sign.  A named class of characters (see
     wctype(3)) may be specified by surrounding the name with ‘[:’ and ‘:]’.
     For example, ‘[[:alpha:]]’ is a shell pattern that matches a single
     letter.  The character class may be complemented by making an exclamation
     point (‘!’) the first character of the character class.  A caret (‘^’)
     has the same effect but is non-standard.

     To include a ‘]’ in a character class, make it the first character listed
     (after the ‘!’ or ‘^’, if any).  To include a ‘-’, make it the first or
     last character listed.

No mention of {} style in there.

MrPete

@jimp I was afraid of that. :(