shell: pass a glob with no match to the command as written

[robobun]

Fixes #10581

Problem

• A glob that matches no file fails the command: bun: no matches found: build:*. This breaks run-p build:* and rsync --include=*/.
• Expansion::on_glob_walk_done (src/runtime/shell/states/Expansion.rs:702) makes an empty walk result an error, the zsh default. POSIX 2.13.3, bash and sh leave the word unchanged.
• On Windows the script now fails with bun: Invalid argument: . The glob walker passes a pattern component to NtQueryDirectoryFile as a name filter (glob: pass pattern component as NtQueryDirectoryFile FileName filter on Windows #28489), which rejects :, | and control characters. new Glob("build:*").scanSync() throws EINVAL.

Fix

• A word whose pattern matches nothing goes to argv as written. A brace word is not pushed again: do_brace_expand already pushed its variants.
• compute_nt_filter (src/glob/GlobWalker.rs) sends no filter for a component with one of those characters. The matcher still checks every entry.
• The error existed so that ls *.js does not list every file (await $ls *.js returns all files in the current directory #8403). Now ls gets *.js and reports ENOENT.
• Verified: test/js/bun/shell/bunshell.test.ts. 13 tests fail on 1.4.3-canary on Linux, one more (glob/scan.test.ts) on Windows. Also ran test/js/bun/shell/ on Linux.

Background

• Bun Shell runs Bun.$ everywhere, and package.json scripts on Windows.
• A word with a literal * goes to the glob walker, and on_glob_walk_done pushes each match to argv.

Downsides

• A script that relied on the failure (exit 1 or a thrown ShellError) runs the command with the literal pattern. echo hi > *.log with no match creates the file *.log, as in bash.
• On Windows rm -rf dist/* with an empty dist still fails: rm: dist/*: Invalid argument. That is a separate rm bug.

Notes

Behavior, in an empty directory

command	bash	before	after
echo --include=*/ nomatch*.xyz	--include=*/ nomatch*.xyz	bun: no matches found: --include=*/, exit 1	same as bash
echo {a,b}*	a* b*	bun: no matches found: {a,b}*	a* b*
ls *.x	ENOENT from ls, exit 2	bun: no matches found: *.x, exit 1	ls: *.x: No such file or directory, exit 1
rm -f *.x, rm -rf dist/*	exit 0	exit 1	exit 0 on POSIX. On Windows see Downsides
export FOO=*.x; echo $FOO	*.x	bun: no matches found: FOO=*.x	*.x
echo $(echo *.x)	*.x	empty line, exit 0	*.x
echo *.x | cat	*.x	error on stderr, exit 0	*.x
FOO={a,b}*; echo $FOO	{a,b}*	a* b* {a,b}*	a* b*

The last row changes because the assignment position and the command position now share one fallback. Bun expands braces in an assignment, bash does not. That difference is not new.

Kept as it is. A walk error other than ENOENT and ENOTDIR still fails the command in command position, for example bun: Permission denied: /root/ for echo /root/*. #31367 decided that. bash passes the literal word there too, so docs/runtime/shell.mdx names this exception next to the new sentence. The test glob over an unreadable directory reports the real error now also asserts that stdout is empty. It is skipped for root, so I ran it as uid 65534.

Windows name filter. On 1.4.3-canary new Glob("x" + c + "y*").scanSync() throws EINVAL: invalid argument, NtQueryDirectoryFile for c in 0x01 to 0x1F, : and |, and for no other ASCII character. A debug build logs Received OBJECT_NAME_INVALID for the status. *, ?, <, >, " are NT wildcards and \ and / never reach a component, so this is the full set of characters NTFS rejects in a filter. No Windows file name can hold one of them, so the walk without a filter matches nothing.

Tests.

• Linux: 13 tests fail on 1.4.3-canary and pass on the debug build (11 in bunshell.test.ts, 1 in brace.test.ts, 1 in bun-run.test.ts). The scan.test.ts test passes on Linux before and after, it is a Windows bug. All of test/js/bun/shell/ ran: 978 pass, 14 fail. The 14 are 12 timeouts of the debug ASAN build in a small container (7 of them the 100 s leak tests) and two ls EACCES tests that cannot pass as root. None of them use a glob.
• Windows x64 debug build: the glob expansion block (20 pass), brace.test.ts (43 pass), the new bun-run.test.ts and scan.test.ts tests. On 1.4.3-canary the scan.test.ts test fails with EINVAL and the bun-run.test.ts test fails with bun: Invalid argument: .
• brace.test.ts: the test for a comma-less brace group used the no-match error to prove that the pattern reaches the glob walker. It now uses a fixture that matches (x,a.txt, because the walker reads {x} as a group with one branch) and asserts the exact output, {x},*.txt x,a.txt. The literal word next to the match is the existing brace and glob composition that shell: pathname-expand each brace variant instead of appending the patterns #33423 changes. The unmatched word is checked separately.
• I did not run bun run rust:check-all. The only platform-gated change is in compute_nt_filter, and the native Windows x64 build compiled it.

Review. Two review bots raised five points. One is addressed (exact assertion in brace.test.ts), one led to the docs sentence about an unreadable directory, and three describe behavior that this PR does not change (walk errors in an assignment, twice, and the Windows rm bug). Each thread has the reason.

Overlap. #33423 and #39706 change the same function in Expansion.rs and keep the error for a no-match variant. Whichever lands second needs a rebase. The open docs PR #36462 documents the zsh-style failure and needs an update after this PR.

[coderabbitai]

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Walkthrough

Unmatched glob patterns now remain literal across shell contexts. Windows NT pre-filtering excludes components with invalid name-filter characters. Documentation and regression tests cover both behaviors.

Changes

Glob behavior

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Shell unmatched-glob handling src/runtime/shell/states/Expansion.rs, docs/runtime/shell.mdx, test/js/bun/shell/*, test/cli/install/bun-run.test.ts	Shell expansion emits unmatched patterns unchanged instead of raising a no-match error. Tests cover arguments, assignments, redirects, substitutions, builtins, subprocesses, brace variants, interpolated metacharacters, absolute paths, permissions, and bun run.
Windows NT filter validation src/glob/GlobWalker.rs, test/js/bun/glob/scan.test.ts	NT pre-filter generation skips components containing :, `

Suggested reviewers: jarred-sumner

Priority: ➖ Normal

Severity of issue fixed: Medium

Merge Risk: 🔵 Low · up to c8087

Assignments involving inaccessible glob paths can silently receive an incorrect literal value. This narrow issue should be fixed before merging.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4

✅ Passed checks (4 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Issue [#10581] requires bun run to pass build:* to run-p instead of failing with bun: no matches found. src/runtime/shell/states/Expansion.rs now preserves unmatched glob words. `src/glob/Gl…
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	The changes remain within glob handling for issue [#10581]. The Windows filter change addresses the reported EINVAL path. Shell, glob, brace, documentation, and regression-test changes validate unma…
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly summarizes the main change: unmatched shell globs are passed to the command unchanged.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description explains the problem, implementation, behavior changes, limitations, and verification results. It does not use the exact template headings, but it provides the required information in …

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[robobun]

^{Updated 10:32 PM PT - Sep 21st, 2026}

✅ @robobun, your commit 5fd2d5f39e4dc5639ed6cbdbc019359c279a5177 passed in Build #119557! 🎉

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🧪   To try this PR locally:

bunx bun-pr 43746

That installs a local version of the PR into your bun-43746 executable, so you can run:

bun-43746 --bun

[robobun]

Status: fix is in this PR (#43746). CI is green on the current head 5fd2d5f (build 119557, 181 jobs passed). All review threads are answered and resolved.

How I reproduced #10581 on 1.4.3-canary:

• Linux, in an empty directory: await $`echo --include=*/ nomatch*.xyz` exits 1 with bun: no matches found: --include=*/. bash and sh print --include=*/ nomatch*.xyz.
• Linux: bun run --shell=bun build with the script bun print-args.js build:* dist/* fails with bun: no matches found: build:*, the error from the issue.
• Windows x64: the same script fails with bun: Invalid argument: , and new Glob("build:*").scanSync() throws EINVAL: invalid argument, NtQueryDirectoryFile.

With this change the command gets build:* and dist/* as written on both platforms. This PR changes a default of Bun Shell on purpose (an unmatched glob is no longer an error), so it needs a maintainer to agree with that behavior.

[coderabbitai]

Actionable comments posted: 1

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Inline comments:
In `@src/runtime/shell/states/Expansion.rs`:
- Line 691: Update the glob error handling in the assignment expansion match
around the Some(err) if !in_assign arm so all remaining errors return
ExpansionState::Err. Preserve the existing ENOENT/ENOTDIR normalization,
allowing ordinary unmatched assignment patterns to remain literal while
propagating errors such as EACCES.

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 2f9bf19 and c808775.

📒 Files selected for processing (7)

• docs/runtime/shell.mdx
• src/glob/GlobWalker.rs
• src/runtime/shell/states/Expansion.rs
• test/cli/install/bun-run.test.ts
• test/js/bun/glob/scan.test.ts
• test/js/bun/shell/brace.test.ts
• test/js/bun/shell/bunshell.test.ts

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[claude]

Nothing blocking. The comments below are optional suggestions. There is no need to push a fix for them before merging.

[claude]

I re-reviewed after 5fd2d5f and found no new bugs; since this deliberately changes a default Bun Shell behaviour (zsh-style no-match error to bash-style literal passthrough, including echo hi > *.log now creating the file), a maintainer should still sign off on the semantics.

What was reviewed:

• 5fd2d5f pins exact stdout for {x},*.txt in brace.test.ts and names the unreadable-directory exception in shell.mdx, which covers the earlier brace-assertion nit and the docs gap.
• The brace_variants_already_pushed premise in Expansion.rs: has_brace_expansion() always routes through BraceExpand before Glob (line 257), and the count-0 path pushes the word once, so no-match brace words are not emitted twice.
• The new slice.iter().any(|&b| b < 0x20) in GlobWalker.rs is a range compare, not a byte-literal equality, so it is outside what byte-search.test.ts bans; compute_nt_filter is the only NT-filter site.

Extended reasoning...

The PR changes Bun Shell glob expansion in src/runtime/shell/states/Expansion.rs so an unmatched pattern is passed to the command as written (bash/POSIX default) instead of failing with "no matches found", keeps real walk errors fatal in command position, and widens the Windows NtQueryDirectoryFile filter bail-out in src/glob/GlobWalker.rs to :, | and control bytes; docs and tests are updated accordingly. It touches no auth, crypto or injection surface, but it is a user-visible default-behaviour change that existing scripts may have relied on (exit 1 / thrown ShellError), and the redirect-target case now creates a file named after the pattern. The follow-up commit addressed the earlier inline nit and docs point; the remaining inline comments from the prior run were pre-existing, non-blocking notes. The deliberate semantic change, not any code defect, is what makes a maintainer look worthwhile.