Regular expression for hidden files under unix.

I'm looking for a regex to match every file begining with a "." in a directory.

I'm using CMake (from CMake doc : "CMake expects regular expressions, not globs") and want to ignore every file begining with a dot (hidden files) BUT "\..*" or "^\..*" doesn't work :(

The strange thing : this works (thanks to rq's answer) and remove every hidden files and temp files ("~" terminated files)

file(GLOB DOT ".*")
file(GLOB TILD "*~")

set (CPACK_SOURCE_IGNORE_FILES "${DOT};${TILD}")

But I can't find the right thing to write directly into CPACK_SOURCE_IGNORE_FILES to have the same result!

Here is the "doc" of this variable.

From stackoverflow

• Using standard regex syntax:

  ^\..*
  

  Since CMake apparently doesn't like this, it may use something like:

  ^\\..*
  

  That's just a guess, though, since I don't have/use CMake.

  claferri : I need a regex to use in CMake, your expression gives me the result : "CMake Error: Invalid escape sequence \."

  Sergej Andrejev : maybe you nead to add slashes /^\..*/

  Hank Gay : CMake is doing you wrong, then. That's the standard regex syntax to do what you asked. Maybe it requires you to use ^\\..* instead?

  claferri : doesnt work neither :(

• You need to escape it.

  ^\..*
  

• Try this:

  ^[.].*
  

  claferri : doesn't work neither (but doesn't produce error)

• Sounds like GLOB is probably what you want.

  Try this. Open a file "test.cmake" and add the following:

  file(GLOB ALL "*")
  file(GLOB DOT ".*")
  file(GLOB NOTDOT "[^.]*")
  
  message("All Files ${ALL}")
  message("Dot files ${DOT}")
  message("Not dot files ${NOTDOT}")
  

  Then create a couple of test files:

  touch .dotfile
  touch notdot
  

  Then run "cmake -P test.cmake". The output is:

  All Files /tmp/cmake_test/.dotfile;/tmp/cmake_test/notdot;/tmp/cmake_test/test.cmake
  Dot files /tmp/cmake_test/.dotfile
  Not dot files /tmp/cmake_test/notdot;/tmp/cmake_test/test.cmake
  

  This was tested with cmake 2.6.0.

  claferri : Even if "CMake expects regular expressions, not globs", your solution help me do what I want using CMake variables to list all files I want to ignore. What is weird : I can't find the right thing to write directly into the variable in order to avoid listing the file using your solution. Thx anyway!