Picomatch
Last updated
Last updated
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.
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.
Install with npm:
The main export is a function that takes a glob pattern and an options object and returns a function for matching strings.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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}
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
Create a regular expression from the given regex source string.
Params
source
{String}: Regular expression source string.
options
{Object}
returns
{RegExp}
Example
The following options may be used with the main picomatch()
function or any of the methods on the picomatch API.
In addition to the main picomatch options, the following options may also be used with the .scan method.
Example
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
Type: function
Default: undefined
Custom function for formatting strings before they're matched.
Example
Basic globbing (Wildcard matching)
Advanced globbing (extglobs, posix brackets, brace matching)
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
.
Examples
POSIX classes are disabled by default. Enable this feature by setting the posix
option to true.
Enable POSIX bracket support
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 [\\-!"#$%&\'()\\*+,./:;<=>?@[\\]^_
{|}~]`.
[:space:]
- Extended space characters, equivalent to [ \\t\\r\\n\\v\\f]
.
[:upper:]
- Uppercase letters, equivalent to [A-Z]
.
[:word:]
- Word characters (letters, numbers and underscores), equivalent to [A-Za-z0-9_]
.
[:xdigit:]
- Hexadecimal digits, equivalent to [A-Fa-f0-9]
.
See the Bash Reference Manual for more information.
Picomatch does not do brace expansion. For brace expansion and advanced matching with braces, use micromatch instead. Picomatch has very basic support for braces.
If you wish to match the following special characters in a filepath, and you want to use these characters in your glob pattern, they must be escaped with backslashes or quotes:
Special Characters
Some characters that are used for matching in regular expressions are also regarded as valid file path characters on some platforms.
To match any of the following characters as literals: `$^*+?()[]
Examples:
The following table shows which features are supported by minimatch, micromatch, picomatch, nanomatch, extglob, braces, and expand-brackets.
Performance comparison of picomatch and minimatch.
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.
Jon Schlinkert
Copyright © 2017-present, Jon Schlinkert. Released under the MIT License.
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
boolean
undefined
Regex flags to use in the generated regex. If defined, the nocase
option will be overridden.
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.
lookbehinds
boolean
true
Support regex positive and negative lookbehinds. Note that you must be using Node 8.1.10 or higher to enable regex lookbehinds.
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.
function
undefined
Function to be called on ignored items.
function
undefined
Function to be called on matched items.
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.
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
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 \\
on Windows) 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.
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
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
-
-
-
-
-
-
-