filelist

What is filelist?

The filelist npm package is a utility for managing and manipulating lists of file paths. It is commonly used in build systems and task runners to handle groups of files efficiently.

What are filelist's main functionalities?

Creating a FileList

This feature allows you to create a new FileList instance and include files matching a specific pattern. In this example, all JavaScript files in the 'src' directory and its subdirectories are included.

const FileList = require('filelist').FileList;
const files = new FileList();
files.include('src/**/*.js');
console.log(files.toArray());

Excluding Files

This feature allows you to exclude specific files from the FileList. In this example, all JavaScript files in the 'src' directory are included except for those named 'test.js'.

const FileList = require('filelist').FileList;
const files = new FileList();
files.include('src/**/*.js');
files.exclude('src/**/test.js');
console.log(files.toArray());

Refreshing the FileList

This feature allows you to refresh the FileList to ensure it is up-to-date with the current file system state. This is useful when files are added or removed during the execution of a script.

const FileList = require('filelist').FileList;
const files = new FileList();
files.include('src/**/*.js');
files.refresh();
console.log(files.toArray());

Other packages similar to filelist

glob

The glob package is a popular utility for matching file paths using patterns. It is more focused on pattern matching and file searching compared to filelist, which also provides list management capabilities.

minimatch

The minimatch package is a library for matching file paths against glob patterns. It is often used as a lower-level utility for pattern matching, whereas filelist provides higher-level list management features.

fast-glob

The fast-glob package is a high-performance globbing library for Node.js. It offers faster file matching and searching capabilities compared to filelist, but does not include list management features.

README

FileList

A FileList is a lazy-evaluated list of files. When given a list of glob patterns for possible files to be included in the file list, instead of searching the file structures to find the files, a FileList holds the pattern for latter use.

This allows you to define a FileList to match any number of files, but only search out the actual files when then FileList itself is actually used. The key is that the first time an element of the FileList/Array is requested, the pending patterns are resolved into a real list of file names.

Usage

Add files to the list with the include method. You can add glob patterns, individual files, or RegExp objects. When the Array methods are invoked on the FileList, these items are resolved to an actual list of files.

var fl = new FileList();
fl.include('test/*.js');
fl.exclude('test/helpers.js');

Use the exclude method to override inclusions. You can use this when your inclusions are too broad.

Array methods

FileList has lazy-evaluated versions of most of the array methods, including the following:

• join
• pop
• push
• concat
• reverse
• shift
• unshift
• slice
• splice
• sort
• filter
• forEach
• some
• every
• map
• indexOf
• lastIndexOf
• reduce
• reduceRight

When you call one of these methods, the items in the FileList will be resolved to the full list of files, and the method will be invoked on that result.

Special length method

length: FileList includes a length method (instead of a property) which returns the number of actual files in the list once it's been resolved.

FileList-specific methods

include: Add a filename/glob/regex to the list

exclude: Override inclusions by excluding a filename/glob/regex

resolve: Resolve the items in the FileList to the full list of files. This method is invoked automatically when one of the array methods is called.

toArray: Immediately resolves the list of items, and returns an actual array of filepaths.

clearInclusions: Clears any pending items -- must be used before resolving the list.

clearExclusions: Clears the list of exclusions rules.