Minimatch is a minimalist matching utility used by npm internally. It utilizes glob expressions, converting them into JavaScript RegExp objects, to perform matching operations. This makes it an essential tool for a variety of tasks involving pattern matching in JavaScript.
To use minimatch in your JavaScript project, you first need to import it. You can either require the module or import it - both ways are supported. After importing, you call the minimatch function with two parameters - the string you want to test and the pattern you want to match against. For example:
const { minimatch } = require('minimatch');
console.log(minimatch('bar.foo', '*.foo')); // Outputs: true
console.log(minimatch('bar.foo', '*.bar')); // Outputs: false
console.log(minimatch('bar.foo', '*.+(bar|foo)', { debug: true })); // Outputs: true
As seen in the code block above, minimatch supports brace expansion, extended glob matching, Globstar '**' matching, and POSIX character classes - offering a wide variety of pattern matching options.
Now let's look at different operation you can perform. You can create a minimatch object using the minimatch.Minimatch class. For example:
var Minimatch = require('minimatch').Minimatch
var mm = new Minimatch(pattern, options)
The package also provides several functions to interact with pattern such as the filter(), makeRe(), escape(), unescape() and match() methods among others which can be used depending on your specific needs. For instance:
var isJS = minimatch(file, '*.js', { matchBase: true });
var javascripts = fileList.filter(minimatch.filter('*.js', { matchBase: true }));
var javascripts = minimatch.match(fileList, '*.js', { matchBase: true });
The documentation for the minimatch npm package can be found in the README file in its GitHub repository. The repository's URL is git://github.com/isaacs/minimatch.git. The README contains detailed information about usage, features, options and everything you need to effectively utilize the minimatch utility in your JavaScript projects.
