picomatch

What is picomatch?

The picomatch npm package is a minimal matching utility that uses glob patterns to test, match, or parse strings. It is designed to be a faster and lighter alternative to other pattern matching libraries, with a focus on performance and accuracy.

What are picomatch's main functionalities?

Glob matching

Use picomatch to create a matcher function for glob patterns, which can then be used to test if strings match the pattern.

const picomatch = require('picomatch');
const isMatch = picomatch('*.js');
console.log(isMatch('file.js')); // true
console.log(isMatch('file.txt')); // false

Multiple patterns

Create a matcher function that can handle multiple patterns, including negation patterns, to match against strings.

const picomatch = require('picomatch');
const isMatch = picomatch(['*.js', '!foo.js']);
console.log(isMatch('file.js')); // true
console.log(isMatch('foo.js')); // false

Parse glob patterns

Parse glob patterns to analyze their structure and components, which can be useful for understanding the pattern or for further processing.

const picomatch = require('picomatch');
const result = picomatch.parse('*.js');
console.log(result);

Other packages similar to picomatch

minimatch

Minimatch is a glob processing library that provides similar functionality to picomatch. It is widely used but is generally slower and less minimal than picomatch.

micromatch

Micromatch is a more extensive glob matching library built on top of picomatch. It offers additional features and capabilities but is larger in size.

fast-glob

Fast-glob is a fast and efficient library for matching against file paths. It is optimized for file system operations and can handle a large number of patterns and files.

node-glob

Node-glob is a glob implementation for Node.js that provides pattern matching and directory traversal. It is feature-rich but not as performant as picomatch for simple pattern matching tasks.

README

Picomatch

Blazing fast and accurate glob matcher written in JavaScript.
No dependencies and full support for standard and extended Bash glob features, including braces, extglobs, POSIX brackets, and regular expressions.

Why picomatch?

• Lightweight - No dependencies
• Minimal - Tiny API surface. Main export is a function that takes a glob pattern and returns a matcher function.
• Fast - Loads in about 2ms (that's several times faster than a single frame of a HD movie at 60fps)
• Performant - Use the returned matcher function to speed up repeat matching (like when watching files)
• Accurate matching - Using wildcards (* and ?), globstars (**) for nested directories, advanced globbing with extglobs, braces, and POSIX brackets, and support for escaping special characters with \ or quotes.
• Well tested - Thousands of unit tests

See the library comparison to other libraries.

Table of Contents

Click to expand

• Install
• Usage
• API
  • picomatch
  • .test
  • .matchBase
  • .isMatch
  • .parse
  • .scan
  • .compileRe
  • .makeRe
  • .toRegex
• Options
  • Picomatch options
  • Scan Options
  • Options Examples
• Globbing features
  • Basic globbing
  • Advanced globbing
  • Braces
  • Matching special characters as literals
• Library Comparisons
• Benchmarks
• Philosophies
• About
  • Author
  • License

(TOC generated by verb using markdown-toc)

Install

Install with npm:

npm install --save picomatch

Usage

The main export is a function that takes a glob pattern and an options object and returns a function for matching strings.

const pm = require('picomatch');
const isMatch = pm('*.js');

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

API

picomatch

Creates a matcher function from one or more glob patterns. The returned function takes a string to match as its first argument, and returns true if the string is a match. The returned matcher function also takes a boolean as the second argument that, when true, returns an object with additional information.

Params

• globs {String|Array}: One or more glob patterns.
• options {Object=}
• returns {Function=}: Returns a matcher function.

Example

const picomatch = require('picomatch');
// picomatch(glob[, options]);

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

Example without node.js

For environments without node.js, picomatch/posix provides you a dependency-free matcher, without automatic OS detection.

const picomatch = require('picomatch/posix');
// the same API, defaulting to posix paths
const isMatch = picomatch('a/*');
console.log(isMatch('a\\b')); //=> false
console.log(isMatch('a/b')); //=> true

// you can still configure the matcher function to accept windows paths
const isMatch = picomatch('a/*', { options: windows });
console.log(isMatch('a\\b')); //=> true
console.log(isMatch('a/b')); //=> true

.test

Test input with the given regex. This is used by the main picomatch() function to test the input string.

Params

• input {String}: String to test.
• regex {RegExp}
• returns {Object}: Returns an object with matching info.

Example

const picomatch = require('picomatch');
// picomatch.test(input, regex[, options]);

console.log(picomatch.test('foo/bar', /^(?:([^/]*?)\/([^/]*?))$/));
// { isMatch: true, match: [ 'foo/', 'foo', 'bar' ], output: 'foo/bar' }

.matchBase

Match the basename of a filepath.

Params

• input {String}: String to test.
• glob {RegExp|String}: Glob pattern or regex created by .makeRe.
• returns {Boolean}

Example

const picomatch = require('picomatch');
// picomatch.matchBase(input, glob[, options]);
console.log(picomatch.matchBase('foo/bar.js', '*.js'); // true

.isMatch

Returns true if any of the given glob patterns match the specified string.

Params

• {String|Array}: str The string to test.
• {String|Array}: patterns One or more glob patterns to use for matching.
• {Object}: See available options.
• returns {Boolean}: Returns true if any patterns match str

Example

const picomatch = require('picomatch');
// picomatch.isMatch(string, patterns[, options]);

console.log(picomatch.isMatch('a.a', ['b.*', '*.a'])); //=> true
console.log(picomatch.isMatch('a.a', 'b.*')); //=> false

.parse

Parse a glob pattern to create the source string for a regular expression.

Params

• pattern {String}
• options {Object}
• returns {Object}: Returns an object with useful properties and output to be used as a regex source string.

Example

const picomatch = require('picomatch');
const result = picomatch.parse(pattern[, options]);

.scan

Scan a glob pattern to separate the pattern into segments.

Params

• input {String}: Glob pattern to scan.
• options {Object}
• returns {Object}: Returns an object with

Example

const picomatch = require('picomatch');
// picomatch.scan(input[, options]);

const result = picomatch.scan('!./foo/*.js');
console.log(result);
{ prefix: '!./',
  input: '!./foo/*.js',
  start: 3,
  base: 'foo',
  glob: '*.js',
  isBrace: false,
  isBracket: false,
  isGlob: true,
  isExtglob: false,
  isGlobstar: false,
  negated: true }

.compileRe

Compile a regular expression from the state object returned by the parse() method.

Params

• state {Object}
• options {Object}
• returnOutput {Boolean}: Intended for implementors, this argument allows you to return the raw output from the parser.
• returnState {Boolean}: Adds the state to a state property on the returned regex. Useful for implementors and debugging.
• returns {RegExp}

.makeRe

Create a regular expression from a parsed glob pattern.

Params

• state {String}: The object returned from the .parse method.
• options {Object}
• returnOutput {Boolean}: Implementors may use this argument to return the compiled output, instead of a regular expression. This is not exposed on the options to prevent end-users from mutating the result.
• returnState {Boolean}: Implementors may use this argument to return the state from the parsed glob with the returned regular expression.
• returns {RegExp}: Returns a regex created from the given pattern.

Example

const picomatch = require('picomatch');
const state = picomatch.parse('*.js');
// picomatch.compileRe(state[, options]);

console.log(picomatch.compileRe(state));
//=> /^(?:(?!\.)(?=.)[^/]*?\.js)$/

.toRegex

Create a regular expression from the given regex source string.

Params

• source {String}: Regular expression source string.
• options {Object}
• returns {RegExp}

Example

const picomatch = require('picomatch');
// picomatch.toRegex(source[, options]);

const { output } = picomatch.parse('*.js');
console.log(picomatch.toRegex(output));
//=> /^(?:(?!\.)(?=.)[^/]*?\.js)$/

Options

Picomatch options

The following options may be used with the main picomatch() function or any of the methods on the picomatch API.

Option	Type	Default value	Description
basename	boolean	false	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.
bash	boolean	false	Follow bash matching rules more strictly - disallows backslashes as escape characters, and treats single stars as globstars (**).
capture	boolean	undefined	Return regex matches in supporting methods.
contains	boolean	undefined	Allows glob to match any part of the given string(s).
cwd	string	process.cwd()	Current working directory. Used by picomatch.split()
debug	boolean	undefined	Debug regular expressions when an error is thrown.
dot	boolean	false	Enable dotfile matching. By default, dotfiles are ignored unless a . is explicitly defined in the pattern, or options.dot is true
expandRange	function	undefined	Custom function for expanding ranges in brace patterns, such as {a..z}. The function receives the range values as two arguments, and it must return a string to be used in the generated regex. It's recommended that returned strings be wrapped in parentheses.
failglob	boolean	false	Throws an error if no matches are found. Based on the bash option of the same name.
fastpaths	boolean	true	To speed up processing, full parsing is skipped for a handful common glob patterns. Disable this behavior by setting this option to false.
flags	string	undefined	Regex flags to use in the generated regex. If defined, the nocase option will be overridden.
format	function	undefined	Custom function for formatting the returned string. This is useful for removing leading slashes, converting Windows paths to Posix paths, etc.
ignore	array|string	undefined	One or more glob patterns for excluding strings that should not be matched from the result.
keepQuotes	boolean	false	Retain quotes in the generated regex, since quotes may also be used as an alternative to backslashes.
literalBrackets	boolean	undefined	When true, brackets in the glob pattern will be escaped so that only literal brackets will be matched.
matchBase	boolean	false	Alias for basename
maxLength	boolean	65536	Limit the max length of the input string. An error is thrown if the input string is longer than this value.
nobrace	boolean	false	Disable brace matching, so that {a,b} and {1..3} would be treated as literal characters.
nobracket	boolean	undefined	Disable matching with regex brackets.
nocase	boolean	false	Make matching case-insensitive. Equivalent to the regex i flag. Note that this option is overridden by the flags option.
nodupes	boolean	true	Deprecated, use nounique instead. This option will be removed in a future major release. By default duplicates are removed. Disable uniquification by setting this option to false.
noext	boolean	false	Alias for noextglob
noextglob	boolean	false	Disable support for matching with extglobs (like +(a|b))
noglobstar	boolean	false	Disable support for matching nested directories with globstars (**)
nonegate	boolean	false	Disable support for negating with leading !
noquantifiers	boolean	false	Disable support for regex quantifiers (like a{1,2}) and treat them as brace patterns to be expanded.
onIgnore	function	undefined	Function to be called on ignored items.
onMatch	function	undefined	Function to be called on matched items.
onResult	function	undefined	Function to be called on all items, regardless of whether or not they are matched or ignored.
posix	boolean	false	Support POSIX character classes ("posix brackets").
posixSlashes	boolean	undefined	Convert all slashes in file paths to forward slashes. This does not convert slashes in the glob pattern itself
prepend	boolean	undefined	String to prepend to the generated regex used for matching.
regex	boolean	false	Use regular expression rules for + (instead of matching literal +), and for stars that follow closing parentheses or brackets (as in )* and ]*).
strictBrackets	boolean	undefined	Throw an error if brackets, braces, or parens are imbalanced.
strictSlashes	boolean	undefined	When true, picomatch won't match trailing slashes with single stars.
unescape	boolean	undefined	Remove backslashes preceding escaped characters in the glob pattern. By default, backslashes are retained.
unixify	boolean	undefined	Alias for posixSlashes, for backwards compatibility.
windows	boolean	false	Also accept backslashes as the path separator.

Scan Options

In addition to the main picomatch options, the following options may also be used with the .scan method.

Option	Type	Default value	Description
tokens	boolean	false	When true, the returned object will include an array of tokens (objects), representing each path "segment" in the scanned glob pattern
parts	boolean	false	When true, the returned object will include an array of strings representing each path "segment" in the scanned glob pattern. This is automatically enabled when options.tokens is true

Example

const picomatch = require('picomatch');
const result = picomatch.scan('!./foo/*.js', { tokens: true });
console.log(result);
// {
//   prefix: '!./',
//   input: '!./foo/*.js',
//   start: 3,
//   base: 'foo',
//   glob: '*.js',
//   isBrace: false,
//   isBracket: false,
//   isGlob: true,
//   isExtglob: false,
//   isGlobstar: false,
//   negated: true,
//   maxDepth: 2,
//   tokens: [
//     { value: '!./', depth: 0, isGlob: false, negated: true, isPrefix: true },
//     { value: 'foo', depth: 1, isGlob: false },
//     { value: '*.js', depth: 1, isGlob: true }
//   ],
//   slashes: [ 2, 6 ],
//   parts: [ 'foo', '*.js' ]
// }

Options Examples

options.expandRange

Type: function

Default: undefined

Custom function for expanding ranges in brace patterns. The fill-range library is ideal for this purpose, or you can use custom code to do whatever you need.

Example

The following example shows how to create a glob that matches a folder

const fill = require('fill-range');
const regex = pm.makeRe('foo/{01..25}/bar', {
  expandRange(a, b) {
    return `(${fill(a, b, { toRegex: true })})`;
  }
});

console.log(regex);
//=> /^(?:foo\/((?:0[1-9]|1[0-9]|2[0-5]))\/bar)$/

console.log(regex.test('foo/00/bar'))  // false
console.log(regex.test('foo/01/bar'))  // true
console.log(regex.test('foo/10/bar')) // true
console.log(regex.test('foo/22/bar')) // true
console.log(regex.test('foo/25/bar')) // true
console.log(regex.test('foo/26/bar')) // false

options.format

Type: function

Default: undefined

Custom function for formatting strings before they're matched.

Example

// strip leading './' from strings
const format = str => str.replace(/^\.\//, '');
const isMatch = picomatch('foo/*.js', { format });
console.log(isMatch('./foo/bar.js')); //=> true

options.onMatch

const onMatch = ({ glob, regex, input, output }) => {
  console.log({ glob, regex, input, output });
};

const isMatch = picomatch('*', { onMatch });
isMatch('foo');
isMatch('bar');
isMatch('baz');

options.onIgnore

const onIgnore = ({ glob, regex, input, output }) => {
  console.log({ glob, regex, input, output });
};

const isMatch = picomatch('*', { onIgnore, ignore: 'f*' });
isMatch('foo');
isMatch('bar');
isMatch('baz');

options.onResult

const onResult = ({ glob, regex, input, output }) => {
  console.log({ glob, regex, input, output });
};

const isMatch = picomatch('*', { onResult, ignore: 'f*' });
isMatch('foo');
isMatch('bar');
isMatch('baz');

Globbing features

• Basic globbing (Wildcard matching)
• Advanced globbing (extglobs, posix brackets, brace matching)

Basic globbing

Character	Description
*	Matches any character zero or more times, excluding path separators. Does not match path separators or hidden files or directories ("dotfiles"), unless explicitly enabled by setting the dot option to true.
**	Matches any character zero or more times, including path separators. Note that ** will only match path separators (/, and \\ with the windows option) when they are the only characters in a path segment. Thus, foo**/bar is equivalent to foo*/bar, and foo/a**b/bar is equivalent to foo/a*b/bar, and more than two consecutive stars in a glob path segment are regarded as a single star. Thus, foo/***/bar is equivalent to foo/*/bar.
?	Matches any character excluding path separators one time. Does not match path separators or leading dots.
[abc]	Matches any characters inside the brackets. For example, [abc] would match the characters a, b or c, and nothing else.

Matching behavior vs. Bash

Picomatch's matching features and expected results in unit tests are based on Bash's unit tests and the Bash 4.3 specification, with the following exceptions:

• Bash will match foo/bar/baz with *. Picomatch only matches nested directories with **.
• Bash greedily matches with negated extglobs. For example, Bash 4.3 says that !(foo)* should match foo and foobar, since the trailing * bracktracks to match the preceding pattern. This is very memory-inefficient, and IMHO, also incorrect. Picomatch would return false for both foo and foobar.

Advanced globbing

• extglobs
• POSIX brackets
• Braces

Extglobs

Pattern	Description
@(pattern)	Match only one consecutive occurrence of pattern
*(pattern)	Match zero or more consecutive occurrences of pattern
+(pattern)	Match one or more consecutive occurrences of pattern
?(pattern)	Match zero or one consecutive occurrences of pattern
!(pattern)	Match anything but pattern

Examples

const pm = require('picomatch');

// *(pattern) matches ZERO or more of "pattern"
console.log(pm.isMatch('a', 'a*(z)')); // true
console.log(pm.isMatch('az', 'a*(z)')); // true
console.log(pm.isMatch('azzz', 'a*(z)')); // true

// +(pattern) matches ONE or more of "pattern"
console.log(pm.isMatch('a', 'a+(z)')); // false
console.log(pm.isMatch('az', 'a+(z)')); // true
console.log(pm.isMatch('azzz', 'a+(z)')); // true

// supports multiple extglobs
console.log(pm.isMatch('foo.bar', '!(foo).!(bar)')); // false

// supports nested extglobs
console.log(pm.isMatch('foo.bar', '!(!(foo)).!(!(bar))')); // true

POSIX brackets

POSIX classes are disabled by default. Enable this feature by setting the posix option to true.

Enable POSIX bracket support

console.log(pm.makeRe('[[:word:]]+', { posix: true }));
//=> /^(?:(?=.)[A-Za-z0-9_]+\/?)$/

Supported POSIX classes

The following named POSIX bracket expressions are supported:

• [:alnum:] - Alphanumeric characters, equ [a-zA-Z0-9]
• [:alpha:] - Alphabetical characters, equivalent to [a-zA-Z].
• [:ascii:] - ASCII characters, equivalent to [\\x00-\\x7F].
• [:blank:] - Space and tab characters, equivalent to [ \\t].
• [:cntrl:] - Control characters, equivalent to [\\x00-\\x1F\\x7F].
• [:digit:] - Numerical digits, equivalent to [0-9].
• [:graph:] - Graph characters, equivalent to [\\x21-\\x7E].
• [:lower:] - Lowercase letters, equivalent to [a-z].
• [:print:] - Print characters, equivalent to [\\x20-\\x7E ].
• [:punct:] - Punctuation and symbols, equivalent to [\\-!"#$%&\'()\\*+,./:;<=>?@[\\]^_{|}~]`.
• [:space:] - Extended space characters, equivalent to [ \\t\\r\\n\\v\\f].
• [:upper:] - Uppercase letters, equivalent to [A-Z].
• [:word:] - Word characters (letters, numbers and underscores), equivalent to [A-Za-z0-9_].
• [:xdigit:] - Hexadecimal digits, equivalent to [A-Fa-f0-9].

See the Bash Reference Manual for more information.

Braces

Picomatch does not do brace expansion. For brace expansion and advanced matching with braces, use micromatch instead. Picomatch has very basic support for braces.

Matching special characters as literals

If you wish to match the following special characters in a filepath, and you want to use these characters in your glob pattern, they must be escaped with backslashes or quotes:

Special Characters

Some characters that are used for matching in regular expressions are also regarded as valid file path characters on some platforms.

To match any of the following characters as literals: `$^*+?()[]

Examples:

console.log(pm.makeRe('foo/bar \\(1\\)'));
console.log(pm.makeRe('foo/bar \\(1\\)'));

Library Comparisons

The following table shows which features are supported by minimatch, micromatch, picomatch, nanomatch, extglob, braces, and expand-brackets.

Feature	minimatch	micromatch	picomatch	nanomatch	extglob	braces	expand-brackets
Wildcard matching (*?+)	✔	✔	✔	✔	-	-	-
Advancing globbing	✔	✔	✔	-	-	-	-
Brace matching	✔	✔	✔	-	-	✔	-
Brace expansion	✔	✔	-	-	-	✔	-
Extglobs	partial	✔	✔	-	✔	-	-
Posix brackets	-	✔	✔	-	-	-	✔
Regular expression syntax	-	✔	✔	✔	✔	-	✔
File system operations	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Benchmarks

Performance comparison of picomatch and minimatch.

(Pay special attention to the last three benchmarks. Minimatch freezes on long ranges.)

# .makeRe star (*)
  picomatch x 4,449,159 ops/sec ±0.24% (97 runs sampled)
  minimatch x 632,772 ops/sec ±0.14% (98 runs sampled)

# .makeRe star; dot=true (*)
  picomatch x 3,500,079 ops/sec ±0.26% (99 runs sampled)
  minimatch x 564,916 ops/sec ±0.23% (96 runs sampled)

# .makeRe globstar (**)
  picomatch x 3,261,000 ops/sec ±0.27% (98 runs sampled)
  minimatch x 1,664,766 ops/sec ±0.20% (100 runs sampled)

# .makeRe globstars (**/**/**)
  picomatch x 3,284,469 ops/sec ±0.18% (97 runs sampled)
  minimatch x 1,435,880 ops/sec ±0.34% (95 runs sampled)

# .makeRe with leading star (*.txt)
  picomatch x 3,100,197 ops/sec ±0.35% (99 runs sampled)
  minimatch x 428,347 ops/sec ±0.42% (94 runs sampled)

# .makeRe - basic braces ({a,b,c}*.txt)
  picomatch x 443,578 ops/sec ±1.33% (89 runs sampled)
  minimatch x 107,143 ops/sec ±0.35% (94 runs sampled)

# .makeRe - short ranges ({a..z}*.txt)
  picomatch x 415,484 ops/sec ±0.76% (96 runs sampled)
  minimatch x 14,299 ops/sec ±0.26% (96 runs sampled)

# .makeRe - medium ranges ({1..100000}*.txt)
  picomatch x 395,020 ops/sec ±0.87% (89 runs sampled)
  minimatch x 2 ops/sec ±4.59% (10 runs sampled)

# .makeRe - long ranges ({1..10000000}*.txt)
  picomatch x 400,036 ops/sec ±0.83% (90 runs sampled)
  minimatch (FATAL ERROR: Ineffective mark-compacts near heap limit Allocation failed - JavaScript heap out of memory)

Philosophies

The goal of this library is to be blazing fast, without compromising on accuracy.

Accuracy

The number one of goal of this library is accuracy. However, it's not unusual for different glob implementations to have different rules for matching behavior, even with simple wildcard matching. It gets increasingly more complicated when combinations of different features are combined, like when extglobs are combined with globstars, braces, slashes, and so on: !(**/{a,b,*/c}).

Thus, given that there is no canonical glob specification to use as a single source of truth when differences of opinion arise regarding behavior, sometimes we have to implement our best judgement and rely on feedback from users to make improvements.

Performance

Although this library performs well in benchmarks, and in most cases it's faster than other popular libraries we benchmarked against, we will always choose accuracy over performance. It's not helpful to anyone if our library is faster at returning the wrong answer.

About

Contributing

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

Please read the contributing guide for advice on opening issues, pull requests, and coding standards.

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

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

Author

Jon Schlinkert

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License

Copyright © 2017-present, Jon Schlinkert. Released under the MIT License.