minimatch
A minimal matching utility.
This is the matching library used internally by npm.
It works by converting glob expressions into JavaScript RegExp
objects.
Usage
import { minimatch } from 'minimatch'
const { minimatch } = require('minimatch')
import minimatch from 'minimatch'
const minimatch = require('minimatch')
minimatch('bar.foo', '*.foo')
minimatch('bar.foo', '*.bar')
minimatch('bar.foo', '*.+(bar|foo)', { debug: true })
Features
Supports these glob features:
- Brace Expansion
- Extended glob matching
- "Globstar"
**
matching
See:
man sh
man bash
man 3 fnmatch
man 5 gitignore
Windows
Please only use forward-slashes in glob expressions.
Though windows uses either /
or \
as its path separator, only /
characters are used by this glob implementation. You must use
forward-slashes only in glob expressions. Back-slashes in patterns
will always be interpreted as escape characters, not path separators.
Note that \
or /
will be interpreted as path separators in paths on
Windows, and will match against /
in glob expressions.
So just always use /
in patterns.
UNC Paths
On Windows, UNC paths like //?/c:/...
or
//ComputerName/Share/...
are handled specially.
- Patterns starting with a double-slash followed by some
non-slash characters will preserve their double-slash. As a
result, a pattern like
//*
will match //x
, but not /x
. - Patterns staring with
//?/<drive letter>:
will not treat
the ?
as a wildcard character. Instead, it will be treated
as a normal string. - Patterns starting with
//?/<drive letter>:/...
will match
file paths starting with <drive letter>:/...
, and vice versa,
as if the //?/
was not present. This behavior only is
present when the drive letters are a case-insensitive match to
one another. The remaining portions of the path/pattern are
compared case sensitively, unless nocase:true
is set.
Note that specifying a UNC path using \
characters as path
separators is always allowed in the file path argument, but only
allowed in the pattern argument when windowsPathsNoEscape: true
is set in the options.
Minimatch Class
Create a minimatch object by instantiating the minimatch.Minimatch
class.
var Minimatch = require('minimatch').Minimatch
var mm = new Minimatch(pattern, options)
Properties
-
pattern
The original pattern the minimatch object represents.
-
options
The options supplied to the constructor.
-
set
A 2-dimensional array of regexp or string expressions.
Each row in the
array corresponds to a brace-expanded pattern. Each item in the row
corresponds to a single path-part. For example, the pattern
{a,b/c}/d
would expand to a set of patterns like:
[ [ a, d ]
, [ b, c, d ] ]
If a portion of the pattern doesn't have any "magic" in it
(that is, it's something like "foo"
rather than fo*o?
), then it
will be left as a string rather than converted to a regular
expression.
-
regexp
Created by the makeRe
method. A single regular expression
expressing the entire pattern. This is useful in cases where you wish
to use the pattern somewhat like fnmatch(3)
with FNM_PATH
enabled.
-
negate
True if the pattern is negated.
-
comment
True if the pattern is a comment.
-
empty
True if the pattern is ""
.
Methods
makeRe
Generate the regexp
member if necessary, and return it.
Will return false
if the pattern is invalid.match(fname)
Return true if the filename matches the pattern, or
false otherwise.matchOne(fileArray, patternArray, partial)
Take a /
-split
filename, and match it against a single row in the regExpSet
. This
method is mainly for internal use, but is exposed so that it can be
used by a glob-walker that needs to avoid excessive filesystem calls.
All other methods are internal, and will be called as necessary.
minimatch(path, pattern, options)
Main export. Tests a path against the pattern using the options.
var isJS = minimatch(file, '*.js', { matchBase: true })
minimatch.filter(pattern, options)
Returns a function that tests its
supplied argument, suitable for use with Array.filter
. Example:
var javascripts = fileList.filter(minimatch.filter('*.js', { matchBase: true }))
minimatch.match(list, pattern, options)
Match against the list of
files, in the style of fnmatch or glob. If nothing is matched, and
options.nonull is set, then return a list containing the pattern itself.
var javascripts = minimatch.match(fileList, '*.js', { matchBase: true })
minimatch.makeRe(pattern, options)
Make a regular expression object from the pattern.
Options
All options are false
by default.
debug
Dump a ton of stuff to stderr.
nobrace
Do not expand {a,b}
and {1..3}
brace sets.
noglobstar
Disable **
matching against multiple folder names.
dot
Allow patterns to match filenames starting with a period, even if
the pattern does not explicitly have a period in that spot.
Note that by default, a/**/b
will not match a/.d/b
, unless dot
is set.
noext
Disable "extglob" style patterns like +(a|b)
.
nocase
Perform a case-insensitive match.
nocaseMagicOnly
When used with {nocase: true}
, create regular expressions that
are case-insensitive, but leave string match portions untouched.
Has no effect when used without {nocase: true}
Useful when some other form of case-insensitive matching is used,
or if the original string representation is useful in some other
way.
nonull
When a match is not found by minimatch.match
, return a list containing
the pattern itself if this option is set. When not set, an empty list
is returned if there are no matches.
matchBase
If set, then patterns without slashes will be matched
against the basename of the path if it contains slashes. For example,
a?b
would match the path /xyz/123/acb
, but not /xyz/acb/123
.
Suppress the behavior of treating #
at the start of a pattern as a
comment.
nonegate
Suppress the behavior of treating a leading !
character as negation.
flipNegate
Returns from negate expressions the same as if they were not negated.
(Ie, true on a hit, false on a miss.)
partial
Compare a partial path to a pattern. As long as the parts of the path that
are present are not contradicted by the pattern, it will be treated as a
match. This is useful in applications where you're walking through a
folder structure, and don't yet have the full path, but want to ensure that
you do not walk down paths that can never be a match.
For example,
minimatch('/a/b', '/a/*/c/d', { partial: true })
minimatch('/a/b', '/**/d', { partial: true })
minimatch('/x/y/z', '/a/**/z', { partial: true })
windowsPathsNoEscape
Use \\
as a path separator only, and never as an escape
character. If set, all \\
characters are replaced with /
in
the pattern. Note that this makes it impossible to match
against paths containing literal glob pattern characters, but
allows matching with patterns constructed using path.join()
and
path.resolve()
on Windows platforms, mimicking the (buggy!)
behavior of earlier versions on Windows. Please use with
caution, and be mindful of the caveat about Windows
paths.
For legacy reasons, this is also set if
options.allowWindowsEscape
is set to the exact value false
.
preserveMultipleSlashes
By default, multiple /
characters (other than the leading //
in a UNC path, see "UNC Paths" above) are treated as a single
/
.
That is, a pattern like a///b
will match the file path a/b
.
Set preserveMultipleSlashes: true
to suppress this behavior.
optimizationLevel
A number indicating the level of optimization that should be done
to the pattern prior to parsing and using it for matches.
Globstar parts **
are always converted to *
when noglobstar
is set, and multiple adjascent **
parts are converted into a
single **
(ie, a/**/**/b
will be treated as a/**/b
, as this
is equivalent in all cases).
-
0
- Make no further changes. In this mode, .
and ..
are
maintained in the pattern, meaning that they must also appear
in the same position in the test path string. Eg, a pattern
like a/*/../c
will match the string a/b/../c
but not the
string a/c
.
-
1
- (default) Remove cases where a double-dot ..
follows a
pattern portion that is not **
, .
, ..
, or empty ''
. For
example, the pattern ./a/b/../*
is converted to ./a/*
, and
so it will match the path string ./a/c
, but not the path
string ./a/b/../c
. Dots and empty path portions in the
pattern are preserved.
-
2
(or higher) - Much more aggressive optimizations, suitable
for use with file-walking cases:
- Remove cases where a double-dot
..
follows a pattern
portion that is not **
, .
, or empty ''
. Remove empty
and .
portions of the pattern, where safe to do so (ie,
anywhere other than the last position, the first position, or
the second position in a pattern starting with /
, as this
may indicate a UNC path on Windows). - Convert patterns containing
<pre>/**/../<p>/<rest>
into the
equivalent <pre>/{..,**}/<p>/<rest>
, where <p>
is a
a pattern portion other than .
, ..
, **
, or empty
''
. - Dedupe patterns where a
**
portion is present in one and
omitted in another, and it is not the final path portion, and
they are otherwise equivalent. So {a/**/b,a/b}
becomes
a/**/b
, because **
matches against an empty path portion. - Dedupe patterns where a
*
portion is present in one, and a
non-dot pattern other than **
, .
, ..
, or ''
is in the
same position in the other. So a/{*,x}/b
becomes a/*/b
,
because *
can match against x
.
While these optimizations improve the performance of
file-walking use cases such as glob (ie,
the reason this module exists), there are cases where it will
fail to match a literal string that would have been matched in
optimization level 1 or 0.
Specifically, while the Minimatch.match()
method will
optimize the file path string in the same ways, resulting in
the same matches, it will fail when tested with the regular
expression provided by Minimatch.makeRe()
, unless the path
string is first processed with
minimatch.levelTwoFileOptimize()
or similar.
Comparisons to other fnmatch/glob implementations
While strict compliance with the existing standards is a
worthwhile goal, some discrepancies exist between minimatch and
other implementations. Some are intentional, and some are
unavoidable.
If the pattern starts with a !
character, then it is negated. Set the
nonegate
flag to suppress this behavior, and treat leading !
characters normally. This is perhaps relevant if you wish to start the
pattern with a negative extglob pattern like !(a|B)
. Multiple !
characters at the start of a pattern will negate the pattern multiple
times.
If a pattern starts with #
, then it is treated as a comment, and
will not match anything. Use \#
to match a literal #
at the
start of a line, or set the nocomment
flag to suppress this behavior.
The double-star character **
is supported by default, unless the
noglobstar
flag is set. This is supported in the manner of bsdglob
and bash 4.1, where **
only has special significance if it is the only
thing in a path part. That is, a/**/b
will match a/x/y/b
, but
a/**b
will not.
If an escaped pattern has no matches, and the nonull
flag is set,
then minimatch.match returns the pattern as-provided, rather than
interpreting the character escapes. For example,
minimatch.match([], "\\*a\\?")
will return "\\*a\\?"
rather than
"*a?"
. This is akin to setting the nullglob
option in bash, except
that it does not resolve escaped pattern characters.
If brace expansion is not disabled, then it is performed before any
other interpretation of the glob pattern. Thus, a pattern like
+(a|{b),c)}
, which would not be valid in bash or zsh, is expanded
first into the set of +(a|b)
and +(a|c)
, and those patterns are
checked for validity. Since those two are valid, matching proceeds.
Negated extglob patterns are handled as closely as possible to
Bash semantics, but there are some cases with negative extglobs
which are exceedingly difficult to express in a JavaScript
regular expression. In particular the negated pattern
<start>!(<pattern>*|)*
will in bash match anything that does
not start with <start><pattern>
. However,
<start>!(<pattern>*)*
will match paths starting with
<start><pattern>
, because the empty string can match against
the negated portion. In this library, <start>!(<pattern>*|)*
will not match any pattern starting with <start>
, due to a
difference in precisely which patterns are considered "greedy" in
Regular Expressions vs bash path expansion. This may be fixable,
but not without incurring some complexity and performance costs,
and the trade-off seems to not be worth pursuing.
Note that fnmatch(3)
in libc is an extremely naive string comparison
matcher, which does not do anything special for slashes. This library is
designed to be used in glob searching and file walkers, and so it does do
special things with /
. Thus, foo*
will not match foo/bar
in this
library, even though it would in fnmatch(3)
.