glob qualifier on intermediate directory / no symbolic links

[Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net>]

Is there a way to use a glob qualifier on an intermediate directory?
At least, avoid symbolic links from being followed.

For instance, with:

% mkdir -p dir/dir2
% ln -s dir foo
% touch {dir,dir/dir2}/file

With recursive globbing, one can choose whether or not to follow
symbolic links:

% echo **/file
dir/dir2/file dir/file

% echo ***/file
dir/dir2/file dir/file foo/dir2/file foo/file

Without recursive globbing, * matches symbolic links:

% echo */file
dir/file foo/file

But what if I don't want to match symbolic links?

At the end of a pattern, (^@) can be used:

% echo *
dir foo

% echo *(^@)
dir

but not inside a pattern:

% echo *(^@)/file
zsh: no matches found: *(^@)/file

With EXTENDED_GLOB, I get both, like */file, because (...) is used
here for grouping, not for a glob qualifier.

% setopt EXTENDED_GLOB
% echo *(^@)/file
dir/file foo/file

I would have expected the following to work, but doesn't.

% echo (*(^@))/file
dir/file foo/file

The zshexpn(1) man page says:

    Glob Qualifiers
        Patterns used for filename generation may end in a list of
        qualifiers enclosed in parentheses. [...]

What "patterns" means here is not clear. Above, one has

    (...)  Matches the enclosed pattern. [...]
                                ^^^^^^^

but it seems that this is not a pattern that can have a glob qualifier.
I assume that except for the grouping exception and recursive globbing,
this is because patterns are mainly string operations until the list of
files before considering glob qualifiers is obtained.

I'm wondering why the following is not accepted:

% echo (*/)file
zsh: bad pattern: (*/)file

I think that (pat/) without a following # should match a single
occurrence of pat/ (without following symbolic links, contrary
to the case without parentheses).

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
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Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / AriC project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)