read[command] in bash

Question

When I read[command] some lines including character '*' , it seems that '*' will be looked as a wildcard. whether exsits some solutions leting '*' just be a '*' , please!

Answer 1

It depends how you use the variable: if you quote it, filename expansion will not happen. Example:

$ ls
f1  f2  f3
$ read line
*
$ echo "$line"
*
$ echo $line
f1 f2 f3

Answer 2

You can escape it with the escape character: \\* . This means the * will be a literal * , not matching one or more characters as the glob pattern.

Answer 3

If you do not want any of the special file name characters to be used as wildcards then enter the following in your script before the read.

set -o noglob

This will prevent the * ? and [] from having special meaning and treat them as normal characters.

The following example demonstrates the point

touch 1 2 3
echo "With wild card expansion"
echo *

echo "Without wild card expansion"
set -o noglob
echo *

And produces the following results

With wild card expansion
1 2 3 
Without wild card expansion
*