** Synopsis **

    :   '''string match''' ''?'''''-nocase'''''? pattern string''



** Description **

Determine whether ''pattern'' matches ''string'', returning return 1 if it
does, 0 if it doesn't. If '''-nocase''' is specified, then the pattern attempts
to match against the string in a case insensitive manner.

'''[string equal]''' compares strings literally, but '''string match''' matches
interprets a pattern expression and matches a string against that.

For the two strings to match, their contents must be identical except that the
following special sequences may appear in ''pattern'':

   '''*''':   Matches any sequence of characters in ''string'', including a null string.
   '''?''':   Matches any single character in ''string''.
   '''[['''''chars''''']]''':   Matches any character in the set given by ''chars''. If a sequence of the form ''x-y'' appears in ''chars'', then any character between ''x'' and ''y'', inclusive, will match. When used with '''-nocase''', the end points of the range are converted to lower case first. Whereas {[[A-z]]} matches '_' when matching case-sensitively ('_' falls between the 'Z' and 'a'), with '''-nocase''' this is considered like {[[A-Za-z]]} (and probably what was meant in the first place).
   * '''\'''''x'' Matches the single character ''x''. This provides a way of avoiding the special interpretation of the characters '''*?[[]]\''' in ''pattern''.

Beware that the parsing of strings inside grouping '''[[]]''' is not
particularly robust -- neither the manual, the tests nor the code takes pains
to specify how to interpret combinations of '''\[[]]*?-''' inside brackets.  If
you need a character class which includes any of these special characters, you
are probably better off with a [regexp].  (see also
[http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=219233&group_id=10894&atid=110894]).


'''string match''' does not use the same code as [glob]



** Example **

======
string match GENERIC_*.xml "GENERIC_MarketScaling.xml" ;# -> true
======



** Layers of Quoting **

to match a single left bracket, the match pattern should be a backslash
followed by a left bracket so that '''string match''' sees the left bracket as
a literal character.  One possibility is to place the backslash and left
bracket in curly quotes so that Tcl leaves them alone:

======
string match {\[} {[}
======

Alternatively, the backslash could be preceded by a backslash and the left
bracket could be preceded by a backslash: 

======
string match \\\[ \[
======



** Pattern Ending in Backslash **

A pattern ending in a backslash doesn't match a string ending in a backslash.
Bug?

======
string match a\\ a\\
# -> 0
======



** See Also **

   * [glob]

   * [string]

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