file-set

What is file-set?

The file-set npm package allows you to easily include and exclude files using glob patterns. It is useful for tasks such as file manipulation, filtering, and organizing files based on specific patterns.

What are file-set's main functionalities?

Include Files

This feature allows you to include files that match a specific glob pattern. In this example, all JavaScript files in the 'src' directory and its subdirectories are included.

const fileSet = require('file-set');
fileSet('src/**/*.js', function(err, files) {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log(files);
});

Exclude Files

This feature allows you to exclude files that match a specific glob pattern. In this example, all JavaScript files in the 'src' directory and its subdirectories are included, except for files named 'test.js'.

const fileSet = require('file-set');
fileSet(['src/**/*.js', '!src/**/test.js'], function(err, files) {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log(files);
});

Multiple Patterns

This feature allows you to include files from multiple patterns. In this example, all JavaScript files in both the 'src' and 'lib' directories and their subdirectories are included.

const fileSet = require('file-set');
fileSet(['src/**/*.js', 'lib/**/*.js'], function(err, files) {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log(files);
});

Other packages similar to file-set

glob

The 'glob' package is a popular library for matching files using glob patterns. It is more flexible and powerful than file-set, but requires more configuration and does not support exclusion patterns as easily.

fast-glob

The 'fast-glob' package is a high-performance alternative to 'glob'. It supports advanced features like negative patterns for exclusion and is faster, making it suitable for large projects with many files.

multimatch

The 'multimatch' package allows you to match files against multiple glob patterns, including support for exclusion patterns. It is similar to file-set but offers more advanced pattern matching capabilities.

README

file-set

Cross-platform glob expansions simplified. Input: file paths and glob expressions. Output: resolved file paths organised by type (file, directory and not-found). It handles all the cross-platform issues associated with file paths.

Particularly useful for handling user input, for example a CLI utility which accepts a list of file paths and globs.

$ example-utility index.js * not/existing/*

The example-utility above could pass its user input into FileSet. Call await .add(<string[]>) as many times as necessary, adding more path/glob expressions each time.

import FileSet from 'file-set'
const fileSet = new FileSet()
await fileSet.add([ 'index.js', '*', 'not/existing/*' ])
console.log(fileSet)

The output has been organised into sets. Any duplicates caused by overlapping glob expressions are removed.

FileSet {
  files: [ 'index.js', 'LICENSE', 'package.json', 'README.md' ],
  dirs: [ 'jsdoc2md/', 'lib/', 'node_modules/', 'test/' ],
  notExisting: [ 'not/existing/*' ]
}

© 2014-25 Lloyd Brookes <[e-mail]>.