glob-parent

What is glob-parent?

The glob-parent npm package is used to extract the non-magic parent path from a glob string, which is useful for determining the directory that a glob is intended to match against, for ensuring consistent behavior in file watching and globbing.

What are glob-parent's main functionalities?

Extracting non-magic parent path from a glob string

This feature allows you to get the directory path without any glob patterns, which is useful for file operations that require a base directory.

const globParent = require('glob-parent');

console.log(globParent('path/to/*.js')); // Output: 'path/to'

Other packages similar to glob-parent

minimatch

Minimatch is a minimal matching utility that can convert glob expressions into JavaScript RegExp objects. It is similar to glob-parent in that it deals with glob patterns, but it focuses more on matching patterns rather than extracting the parent path.

glob

Glob is a package that provides a way to match file paths against specified glob patterns. It is more feature-rich than glob-parent, offering the ability to find all matching files based on a glob pattern, whereas glob-parent simply extracts the base path from a glob string.

README

glob-parent

Extract the non-magic parent path from a glob string.

Usage

var globParent = require('glob-parent');

globParent('path/to/*.js'); // 'path/to'
globParent('/root/path/to/*.js'); // '/root/path/to'
globParent('/*.js'); // '/'
globParent('*.js'); // '.'
globParent('**/*.js'); // '.'
globParent('path/{to,from}'); // 'path'
globParent('path/!(to|from)'); // 'path'
globParent('path/?(to|from)'); // 'path'
globParent('path/+(to|from)'); // 'path'
globParent('path/*(to|from)'); // 'path'
globParent('path/@(to|from)'); // 'path'
globParent('path/**/*'); // 'path'

// if provided a non-glob path, returns the nearest dir
globParent('path/foo/bar.js'); // 'path/foo'
globParent('path/foo/'); // 'path/foo'
globParent('path/foo'); // 'path' (see issue #3 for details)

API

globParent(maybeGlobString, [options])

Takes a string and returns the part of the path before the glob begins. Be aware of Escaping rules and Limitations below.

options

{
  // Disables the automatic conversion of slashes for Windows
  flipBackslashes: true
}

Escaping

The following characters have special significance in glob patterns and must be escaped if you want them to be treated as regular path characters:

• ? (question mark) unless used as a path segment alone
• * (asterisk)
• | (pipe)
• ( (opening parenthesis)
• ) (closing parenthesis)
• { (opening curly brace)
• } (closing curly brace)
• [ (opening bracket)
• ] (closing bracket)

Example

globParent('foo/[bar]/') // 'foo'
globParent('foo/\\[bar]/') // 'foo/[bar]'

Limitations

Braces & Brackets

This library attempts a quick and imperfect method of determining which path parts have glob magic without fully parsing/lexing the pattern. There are some advanced use cases that can trip it up, such as nested braces where the outer pair is escaped and the inner one contains a path separator. If you find yourself in the unlikely circumstance of being affected by this or need to ensure higher-fidelity glob handling in your library, it is recommended that you pre-process your input with expand-braces and/or expand-brackets.

Windows

Backslashes are not valid path separators for globs. If a path with backslashes is provided anyway, for simple cases, glob-parent will replace the path separator for you and return the non-glob parent path (now with forward-slashes, which are still valid as Windows path separators).

This cannot be used in conjunction with escape characters.

// BAD
globParent('C:\\Program Files \\(x86\\)\\*.ext') // 'C:/Program Files /(x86/)'

// GOOD
globParent('C:/Program Files\\(x86\\)/*.ext') // 'C:/Program Files (x86)'

If you are using escape characters for a pattern without path parts (i.e. relative to cwd), prefix with ./ to avoid confusing glob-parent.

// BAD
globParent('foo \\[bar]') // 'foo '
globParent('foo \\[bar]*') // 'foo '

// GOOD
globParent('./foo \\[bar]') // 'foo [bar]'
globParent('./foo \\[bar]*') // '.'

License

ISC