A directory contains the following files: a.txt b.txt c.cav What would be the output of the following shell script? for file in * .txt do echo $file done

The glob * expands successfully to existing files, so it is never output as the unexpanded literal *.txt.

The loop echoes full filenames including extensions, not bare basenames like 'a' and 'b'.

c.cav is only one of several values echoed; the loop iterates over all files matched by * plus the literal .txt.

a.txt alone is insufficient because the loop also echoes b.txt, c.cav, and the literal .txt due to the space-separated tokens.

Because there is a space between * and .txt, the shell treats them as two separate words: * expands to all files in the directory (a.txt, b.txt, c.cav) and .txt is passed as a literal string. The loop therefore echoes a.txt, b.txt, c.cav, and .txt on separate lines, producing more output than any single-file answer reflects.

The literal token is .txt with its leading dot, not the bare string txt without a dot.