Inconsistent behaviour between `pathlib.PurePath.match` and `glob.glob` about cpython

[zhukoff-pavel]

Recursive expansion isn't supported, and so ** wildcards work exactly like *

Oh, I see. So, this is intended. Thank you for quick reply!

Is it possible then to add this note to the documentation of previous Python versions? (e.g. Python 3.12)

By the way, side-question regarding naming: Doesn't full_match sound more strict than just match? :)
full_match seems more relaxed than the regular match, because of allowing for recursive patterns to be used, thus allowing more matches per recursive glob.

[barneygale]

By the way, side-question regarding naming: Doesn't full_match sound more strict than just match? :) full_match seems more relaxed than the regular match, because of allowing for recursive patterns to be used, thus allowing more matches per recursive glob.

full_match() matches against the entire path, whereas match() matches from the right, so:

>>> from pathlib import PurePath
>>> PurePath('foo/bar.py').match('*.py')
True
>>> PurePath('foo/bar.py').full_match('*.py')
False

It's analogous to re.match() vs re.fullmatch().

Support for recursive ** wildcards only really makes sense once you eliminate the right-hand-side matching, otherwise all your patterns have an implicit **/ prefix, which makes it much less useful.

[barneygale]

No worries, thank you very much for the report :)

[zhukoff-pavel]

Follow-up: May be connected with #106747

[sobolevn]

cc @barneygale

[barneygale]

PurePath.match() has a couple of important differences from Path.glob() and glob.glob():

1. Recursive expansion isn't supported, and so ** wildcards work exactly like *
2. If a relative pattern is given, matching is performed from the right

Could you try using Path.full_match() in an alpha or (upcoming) beta of 3.13? I think it does what you want:

>>> import pathlib
>>> path = pathlib.PurePath("a/b/c/d/e")
>>> path.full_match("**/b/c/**")
True
>>> path.full_match("**/c/d/**")
True

[zhukoff-pavel]

I see now.

Thank you for detailed explanations and for documenting!