zsh ignore glob if nomatch

Question

To list all docker repositories I need to use an asterisk. But I am forced to add quotes because zsh globbing catches the asterisk.

sudo docker image list "hub.local/*"

I try aliasing with noglob, but sudo will fail, and docker needs sudo

alias docker="noglob docker"

I thought I could set zsh to not complain when it fails to match, but it seems zsh will remove the asterisk anyway.

setopt nomatch

I want to either disable zsh globbing entirely, or get zsh to pass through the globbing character if it fails to match. Or possibly set zsh globbing to behave like bash. I want to get around typing quotes all the time.

What is the actual argument that you want to pass to docker? Is it a list of filenames or a string with a * at the end? If it's a string with a * at the end, quoting that string is the correct way of doing it. The question is otherwise a duplicate of Getting sudo to work for an alias and other similar questions. — Kusalananda, Oct 07 '19 at 07:51
@Kusalananda the argument is a string with * at the end. I don't want to use quotes! I don't want zsh globbing when I'm not specifying files — caduceus, Oct 07 '19 at 08:45
@Kusalananda The command sudo noglob docker still fails after settings alias sudo="sudo " — caduceus, Oct 07 '19 at 08:46

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 08 '19 at 05:59

alias docker='noglob sudo docker'

Would cause globs to never be expanded on a line that starts with docker and would run docker under sudo. If you still occasionally need to run docker not as root, you could make it a sudo-docker or sdocker alias instead.

I wouldn't recommend enabling the Bourne/bash behaviour which is really a bad design and is dangerous, but it you really wanted to, that could be done with set +o nomatch (or setopt nonomatch or unsetopt nomatch...).

zsh ignore glob if nomatch

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