I believe this was not a problem in the past. I find it quite annoying that when no files match the '*whatever' expansion the asterisk is left in and hence, in my example below, bash is looking for a filename with literal '*'. $ for f in *_nonexisting.txt; do ls -la $f; done ls: cannot access *_nonexisting.txt: No such file or directory $ Practically, I have on my system files with '*' in their name. The bug is maybe few months old, as I think I did hit this already few times in the past. [ebuild R ] app-shells/bash-4.2_p8 USE="net nls -afs -bashlogger -examples -mem-scramble -plugins -vanilla" 0 kB $ emerge --info Portage 2.1.9.45 (default/linux/amd64/10.0, gcc-4.5.2, glibc-2.13-r2, 2.6.37.6 x86_64) ================================================================= System uname: Linux-2.6.37.6-x86_64-Intel-R-_Xeon-R-_CPU_X5680_@_3.33GHz-with-gentoo-2.0.2 Timestamp of tree: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:00:01 +0000 app-shells/bash: 4.2_p8 dev-java/java-config: 2.1.11-r3 dev-lang/python: 2.6.6-r2, 2.7.1-r1, 3.1.3-r1 dev-util/cmake: 2.8.4 sys-apps/baselayout: 2.0.2 sys-apps/openrc: 0.8.0 sys-apps/sandbox: 2.5 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.68 sys-devel/automake: 1.9.6-r3, 1.11.1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.21 sys-devel/gcc: 4.1.2, 4.2.4-r1, 4.3.5, 4.4.5, 4.5.2 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.1 sys-devel/libtool: 2.4-r1 sys-devel/make: 3.82 sys-kernel/linux-headers: 2.6.38 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.38 (sys-kernel/linux-headers) ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64" ACCEPT_LICENSE="* -@EULA dlj-1.1 sun-bcla-java-vm PUEL" CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -march=core2" CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/share/config /usr/share/gnupg/qualified.txt" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/php/apache2-php5.2/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5.2/ext-active/ /etc/php/cli-php5.2/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/language.dat.d /etc/texmf/language.def.d /etc/texmf/updmap.d /etc/texmf/web2c" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -march=core2" DISTDIR="/scratch/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="assume-digests binpkg-logs distlocks fixlafiles fixpackages news nostrip parallel-fetch protect-owned sandbox sfperms splitdebug strict unknown-features-warn unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans userfetch" FFLAGS="" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed" LINGUAS="en cs cz" MAKEOPTS="-j23" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/scratch/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/var/lib/layman/science /scratch/usr/local/portage /var/lib/layman" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="X amd64 apache2 berkdb bzip2 cgi cli cracklib crypt cups cxx dbus dri fontconfig fortran gd gdbm gnutls iconv innodb java jce jpeg jpg kde laptop mmx modules mpi mpich2 multilib mysql ncurses nfs nls nptl nptlonly nsplugin opengl openmp openssl pam pcre perl png python qt3support qt4 readline server session sse sse2 ssl static-libs suexec svg sysfs syslog tcpd threads tiff truetype udev unicode usb xdm xml xorg zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic auth_digest authn_anon authn_dbd authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache cgi cgid dbd deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers icu ident imagemap include info log_config mem_cache mime mime_magic rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias negotiation" CAMERAS="ptp2" COLLECTD_PLUGINS="df interface irq load memory rrdtool swap syslog" ELIBC="glibc" GPSD_PROTOCOLS="ashtech aivdm earthmate evermore fv18 garmin garmintxt gpsclock itrax mtk3301 nmea ntrip navcom oceanserver oldstyle oncore rtcm104v2 rtcm104v3 sirf superstar2 timing tsip tripmate tnt ubx" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse evdev" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="en cs cz" PHP_TARGETS="php5-3" RUBY_TARGETS="ruby18" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="vesa matrox" XTABLES_ADDONS="quota2 psd pknock lscan length2 ipv4options ipset ipp2p iface geoip fuzzy condition tee tarpit sysrq steal rawnat logmark ipmark dhcpmac delude chaos account" Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, PORTAGE_BUNZIP2_COMMAND, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS
It's always been like this. jer@bastiaan ~ $ mkdir empty jer@bastiaan ~ $ cd empty jer@bastiaan ~/empty $ ls * ls: cannot access *: No such file or directory jer@bastiaan ~/empty $ bash --version GNU bash, version 4.1.9(2)-release (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html> This is free software; you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
You could look into your bash configuration, though, particularly nullglob and failglob.
