extglob

What is extglob?

The extglob npm package provides extended globbing capabilities with support for advanced pattern matching. It allows users to create more complex and flexible glob patterns for matching file paths and strings.

What are extglob's main functionalities?

Basic Pattern Matching

This feature allows users to create basic pattern matching using extended glob syntax. The example demonstrates a pattern that matches 'ad', 'abd', or 'acd'.

const extglob = require('extglob');
const pattern = 'a?(b|c)d';
console.log(extglob(pattern)); // => 'a?(b|c)d'

Negation

This feature allows users to create patterns that exclude certain matches. The example demonstrates a pattern that matches anything except 'a' or 'b'.

const extglob = require('extglob');
const pattern = '!(a|b)';
console.log(extglob(pattern)); // => '!(a|b)'

Character Classes

This feature allows users to create patterns using character classes. The example demonstrates a pattern that matches 'a' followed by any character except 'b', followed by 'c'.

const extglob = require('extglob');
const pattern = 'a[!b]c';
console.log(extglob(pattern)); // => 'a[!b]c'

Multiple Patterns

This feature allows users to create patterns that match one or more occurrences of the specified patterns. The example demonstrates a pattern that matches 'abd', 'abcd', 'abbcd', etc.

const extglob = require('extglob');
const pattern = 'a+(b|c)d';
console.log(extglob(pattern)); // => 'a+(b|c)d'

Other packages similar to extglob

micromatch

Micromatch is a powerful globbing library that supports advanced pattern matching features similar to extglob. It is known for its speed and accuracy in matching file paths and strings. Compared to extglob, micromatch offers a more comprehensive set of features and better performance.

minimatch

Minimatch is another popular globbing library that provides pattern matching capabilities. It is simpler and more lightweight compared to extglob, making it suitable for basic globbing needs. However, it lacks some of the advanced features provided by extglob.

glob

Glob is a widely-used library for matching file paths using glob patterns. It is part of the Node.js ecosystem and provides a robust set of features for file system operations. While it supports basic globbing, it does not offer the extended pattern matching capabilities of extglob.

README

extglob

Extended glob support for JavaScript. Adds (almost) the expressive power of regular expressions to glob patterns.

Install

Install with npm:

$ npm install --save extglob

Install with yarn:

$ yarn add extglob

• Convert an extglob string to a regex-compatible string.
• More complete (and correct) support than minimatch (minimatch fails a large percentage of the extglob tests)
• Handles negation patterns
• Handles nested patterns
• Organized code base, easy to maintain and make changes when edge cases arise
• As you can see by the benchmarks, extglob doesn't pay with speed for it's completeness, accuracy and quality.

Heads up!: This library only supports extglobs, to handle full glob patterns and other extended globbing features use micromatch instead.

Usage

The main export is a function that takes a string and options, and returns an object with the parsed AST and the compiled .output, which is a regex-compatible string that can be used for matching.

var extglob = require('extglob');
console.log(extglob('!(xyz)*.js'));

Extglob cheatsheet

Extended globbing patterns can be defined as follows (as described by the bash man page):

pattern	regex equivalent	description
?(pattern-list)	(...|...)?	Matches zero or one occurrence of the given pattern(s)
*(pattern-list)	(...|...)*	Matches zero or more occurrences of the given pattern(s)
+(pattern-list)	(...|...)+	Matches one or more occurrences of the given pattern(s)
@(pattern-list)	(...|...) [^1]	Matches one of the given pattern(s)
!(pattern-list)	N/A	Matches anything except one of the given pattern(s)

API

extglob

Convert the given extglob pattern into a regex-compatible string. Returns an object with the compiled result and the parsed AST.

Params

• pattern {String}
• options {Object}
• returns {String}

Example

const extglob = require('extglob');
console.log(extglob('*.!(*a)'));
//=> '(?!\\.)[^/]*?\\.(?!(?!\\.)[^/]*?a\\b).*?'

.match

Takes an array of strings and an extglob pattern and returns a new array that contains only the strings that match the pattern.

Params

• list {Array}: Array of strings to match
• pattern {String}: Extglob pattern
• options {Object}
• returns {Array}: Returns an array of matches

Example

const extglob = require('extglob');
console.log(extglob.match(['a.a', 'a.b', 'a.c'], '*.!(*a)'));
//=> ['a.b', 'a.c']

.isMatch

Returns true if the specified string matches the given extglob pattern.

Params

• string {String}: String to match
• pattern {String}: Extglob pattern
• options {String}
• returns {Boolean}

Example

const extglob = require('extglob');

console.log(extglob.isMatch('a.a', '*.!(*a)'));
//=> false
console.log(extglob.isMatch('a.b', '*.!(*a)'));
//=> true

.contains

Returns true if the given string contains the given pattern. Similar to .isMatch but the pattern can match any part of the string.

Params

• str {String}: The string to match.
• pattern {String}: Glob pattern to use for matching.
• options {Object}
• returns {Boolean}: Returns true if the patter matches any part of str.

Example

const extglob = require('extglob');
console.log(extglob.contains('aa/bb/cc', '*b'));
//=> true
console.log(extglob.contains('aa/bb/cc', '*d'));
//=> false

.matcher

Takes an extglob pattern and returns a matcher function. The returned function takes the string to match as its only argument.

Params

• pattern {String}: Extglob pattern
• options {String}
• returns {Boolean}

Example

const extglob = require('extglob');
const isMatch = extglob.matcher('*.!(*a)');

console.log(isMatch('a.a'));
//=> false
console.log(isMatch('a.b'));
//=> true

.create

Convert the given extglob pattern into a regex-compatible string. Returns an object with the compiled result and the parsed AST.

Params

• str {String}
• options {Object}
• returns {String}

Example

const extglob = require('extglob');
console.log(extglob.create('*.!(*a)').output);
//=> '(?!\\.)[^/]*?\\.(?!(?!\\.)[^/]*?a\\b).*?'

.capture

Returns an array of matches captured by pattern in string, or null if the pattern did not match.

Params

• pattern {String}: Glob pattern to use for matching.
• string {String}: String to match
• options {Object}: See available options for changing how matches are performed
• returns {Boolean}: Returns an array of captures if the string matches the glob pattern, otherwise null.

Example

const extglob = require('extglob');
extglob.capture(pattern, string[, options]);

console.log(extglob.capture('test/*.js', 'test/foo.js'));
//=> ['foo']
console.log(extglob.capture('test/*.js', 'foo/bar.css'));
//=> null

.makeRe

Create a regular expression from the given pattern and options.

Params

• pattern {String}: The pattern to convert to regex.
• options {Object}
• returns {RegExp}

Example

const extglob = require('extglob');
const re = extglob.makeRe('*.!(*a)');
console.log(re);
//=> /^[^\/]*?\.(?![^\/]*?a)[^\/]*?$/

Options

Available options are based on the options from Bash (and the option names used in bash).

options.nullglob

Type: boolean

Default: undefined

When enabled, the pattern itself will be returned when no matches are found.

options.nonull

Alias for options.nullglob, included for parity with minimatch.

options.cache

Type: boolean

Default: undefined

Functions are memoized based on the given glob patterns and options. Disable memoization by setting options.cache to false.

options.failglob

Type: boolean

Default: undefined

Throw an error is no matches are found.

Benchmarks

Last run on April 30, 2018

# negation-nested (49 bytes)
  extglob x 1,380,148 ops/sec ±3.35% (62 runs sampled)
  minimatch x 156,800 ops/sec ±4.13% (76 runs sampled)

  fastest is extglob (by 880% avg)

# negation-simple (43 bytes)
  extglob x 1,821,746 ops/sec ±1.61% (76 runs sampled)
  minimatch x 365,618 ops/sec ±1.87% (84 runs sampled)

  fastest is extglob (by 498% avg)

# range-false (57 bytes)
  extglob x 2,038,592 ops/sec ±3.39% (85 runs sampled)
  minimatch x 310,897 ops/sec ±12.62% (87 runs sampled)

  fastest is extglob (by 656% avg)

# range-true (56 bytes)
  extglob x 2,105,081 ops/sec ±0.69% (91 runs sampled)
  minimatch x 332,188 ops/sec ±0.45% (91 runs sampled)

  fastest is extglob (by 634% avg)

# star-simple (46 bytes)
  extglob x 2,154,184 ops/sec ±0.99% (89 runs sampled)
  minimatch x 452,812 ops/sec ±0.51% (88 runs sampled)

  fastest is extglob (by 476% avg)

Differences from Bash

This library has complete parity with Bash 4.3 with only a couple of minor differences.

• In some cases Bash returns true if the given string "contains" the pattern, whereas this library returns true if the string is an exact match for the pattern. You can relax this by setting options.contains to true.
• This library is more accurate than Bash and thus does not fail some of the tests that Bash 4.3 still lists as failing in their unit tests

About

Related projects

• braces: Bash-like brace expansion, implemented in JavaScript. Safer than other brace expansion libs, with complete support… more | homepage
• expand-brackets: Expand POSIX bracket expressions (character classes) in glob patterns. | homepage
• expand-range: Fast, bash-like range expansion. Expand a range of numbers or letters, uppercase or lowercase. Used… more | homepage
• fill-range: Fill in a range of numbers or letters, optionally passing an increment or step to… more | homepage
• micromatch: Glob matching for javascript/node.js. A drop-in replacement and faster alternative to minimatch and multimatch. | homepage

Contributing

Pull requests and stars are always welcome. For bugs and feature requests, please create an issue.

Contributors

Commits	Contributor
54	jonschlinkert
6	danez
2	isiahmeadows
1	doowb
1	devongovett
1	mjbvz
1	shinnn

Building docs

(This project's readme.md is generated by verb, please don't edit the readme directly. Any changes to the readme must be made in the .verb.md readme template.)

To generate the readme, run the following command:

$ npm install -g verbose/verb#dev verb-generate-readme && verb

Running tests

Running and reviewing unit tests is a great way to get familiarized with a library and its API. You can install dependencies and run tests with the following command:

$ npm install && npm test

Author

Jon Schlinkert

• github/jonschlinkert
• twitter/jonschlinkert

License

Copyright © 2018, Jon Schlinkert. Released under the MIT License.

---

This file was generated by verb-generate-readme, v0.6.0, on April 30, 2018.

Changelog

v3.0.0

Breaking changes

• Snapdragon was updated to 0.12. Other packages that integrate extglob need to also use snapdragon 0.12.
• Minimum Node.JS version is now version 4.