Arch Linux

pacman.conf documents that shell-style glob patterns can be used, which means that * to match zero or more characters and ? to match one character will work. regex(3) support is not currently implemented, however.

Does the shell-style glob pattern support do what you need it to do? Most of the examples you've listed are for that.

@Eli Schwartz (eschwartz)

The problem is exactly that these and similar expressions, like examples, just don't work (instead of asterisk of course). Grouping don't work.

To compare - bash globbing:
https://linuxhint.com/bash_globbing_tutorial/
http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/globbingref.html
http://tldp.org/LDP/GNU-Linux-Tools-Summary/html/x11655.htm

The allowable globs are in man 7 glob. They are:

* ? [

That means you can use e.g. [abc] or [[:alpha:]] as well, which you did not mention in your original question but which are mentioned in your links.

Use of {} is not globbing and the tutorials you've been looking at are unreliable and in this case wrong. They describe the effects of {} which in bash is known as brace expansion, and they group it under "globbing". However, in bash, brace expansion is the first form of expansion which is performed -- globbing is part of pathname expansion, which is the seventh and last form of expansion.

Ok. I understand. I've overdone ;] So the only way would be to implement regex, but is it possible...