Ubuntu – Is it possible to identify windows using regular expressions in xdotool

command linexdotool

OS: Ubuntu 18.04

Say I have the following five open windows with mozilla in their title:

$ wmctrl -lx
0x03e00018  0 Navigator.Firefox     kububb Ubuntu Manpage: xdotool - command-line X11 automation tool - Mozilla Firefox
0x05a00003  0 leafpad.Leafpad       kububb mozilla1.txt
0x05e00003  0 mousepad.Mousepad     kububb mozilla2.txt - Mousepad
0x06000005  0 kate.kate                N/A mozilla3.txt  — Kate
0x06400093  0 gedit.Gedit           kububb mozilla4.txt (~/Desktop) - gedit

man xdotool has this in the WINDOW COMMANDS section:

search [options] pattern
Search for windows with titles, names, or classes with a regular expression pattern.

and this:

–name
Match against the window name. This is the same string that is displayed in the window titlebar.

Is it possible to exclude only the first entry, the Firefox one?

If I run

xdotool search --name mozilla

five identifiers are listed. How can I list just the four mozilla*.txt ones?

Best Answer

Based on a couple of quick tests, it appears to support GNU-style extended regular expressions. Ex. given

$ wmctrl -ilx | grep brave
0x04000001  0 brave-browser.Brave-browser  t400s Newest Questions - Ask Ubuntu - Brave
0x040000fe  0 brave-browser.Brave-browser  t400s file2.txt - Brave
0x040000ff  0 brave-browser.Brave-browser  t400s fileA.txt - Brave

then

$ xdotool search -name 'file.+\.txt'
67109118
67109119

or

$ xdotool search -name 'file[0-9]\.txt'
67109118