minimatch

A minimal matching utility.

This is the matching library used internally by npm.

Eventually, it will replace the C binding in node-glob.

It works by converting glob expressions into JavaScript RegExp objects.

Usage

var minimatch = require("minimatch")

minimatch("bar.foo", "*.foo") // true!
minimatch("bar.foo", "*.bar") // false!

Features

Supports all glob features.

See:

• man sh
• man fnmatch
• man 5 gitignore

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, and are intentional.

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. Note that this is different from the way that ** is implemented in ruby's Dir class.

If an escaped pattern has no matches, and the null flag is not 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?".

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.

Functions

minimatch(path, pattern, options)

Main export. Tests a path against the pattern using the options.

minimatch.filter(pattern, options)

Returns a function that tests its supplied argument, suitable for use with Array.filter.

minimatch.match(list, pattern, options)

Match against the list of files, in the style of fnmatch or glob. If nothing is matched, then return the pattern (unless { null: true } in the options.)

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.

null

Return an empty list from minimatch.match, instead of a list containing the pattern itself.

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/abc/123.

nocomment

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.