fair guess, but . isn't special in that context.  what i was missing was
s*s*g was matching right through syslog.2.g so !(*.*) couldn't eliminate
dots it couldn't see.  no way to specify shortest match for s*s*g afaik.
anyway a better pattern is *(messages|syslog)


On 10 May 2014 13:17, Daniel Taylor <random at argle.org> wrote:

>  (*\.*)
>
>
> On 05/10/2014 08:12 AM, gregrwm wrote:
>
>  ok you bashers, check me on this:
>
> matches wanted:  messages syslog
> matches not wanted:  anaconda.syslog messages.1 syslog.1 syslog.2.gz
> pattern1:  !(*.)s*s*g!(*.*)
>  pattern1 match results:  messages syslog syslog.2.gz syslog.3.gz
> syslog.4.gz
>  pattern2:  !(*.)s*s*g!(*1|*z)
> pattern2 match results:  messages syslog
>
> so pattern2 works.  but is that pattern1 result a bug?
>
>
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