/ 
Regexp-Wildcards-0.02
River stage one • 2 direct dependents • 8 total dependents
/ Regexp::Wildcards

NAME

Regexp::Wildcards - Converts wildcards expressions to Perl regular expressions.

VERSION

Version 0.02

SYNOPSIS

use Regexp::Wildcards qw/wc2re/;

my $re;
$re = wc2re 'a{b.,c}*' => 'unix';   # Do it Unix style.
$re = wc2re 'a.,b*'    => 'win32';  # Do it Windows style.
$re = wc2re '*{x,y}.'  => 'jokers'; # Process the jokers & escape the rest.

DESCRIPTION

In many situations, users may want to specify patterns to match but don't need the full power of regexps. Wildcards make one of those sets of simplified rules. This module converts wildcards expressions to Perl regular expressions, so that you can use them for matching. It handles the * and ? jokers, as well as Unix bracketed alternatives {,}, and uses the backspace (\) as an escape character. Wrappers are provided to mimic the behaviour of Windows and Unix shells.

EXPORT

Four functions are exported only on request : wc2re, wc2re_unix, wc2re_win32 and wc2re_jokers.

FUNCTIONS

wc2re_unix

This function takes as its only argument the wildcard string to process, and returns the corresponding regular expression according to standard Unix wildcard rules. It successively escapes all unprotected regexp special characters that doesn't hold any meaning for wildcards, turns jokers into their regexp equivalents, and changes bracketed blocks into (?:|) alternations. If brackets are unbalanced, it will try to substitute as many of them as possible, and then escape the remaining { and }. Commas outside of any bracket-delimited block will also be escaped.

# This is a valid brackets expression which is correctly handled.
print 'ok' if wc2re_unix('{a{b,c}d,e}') eq '(?:a(?:b|c)d|e)';

Unbalanced bracket expressions can always be rescued, but it may change completely its meaning. For example :

# The first comma is replaced, and the remaining brackets and comma are
# escaped.
print 'ok' if wc2re_unix('{a\\{b,c}d,e}') eq '(?:a\\{b|c)d\\,e\\}';

# All the brackets and commas are escaped.
print 'ok' if wc2re_unix('{a{b,c\\}d,e}') eq '\\{a\\{b\\,c\\}d\\,e\\}';

wc2re_win32

Similar to the precedent, but for Windows wildcards. Bracketed blocks are no longer handled (which means that brackets will be escaped), but you can provide a comma-separated list of items.

# All the brackets are escaped, and commas are seen as list delimiters.
print 'ok' if wc2re_win32('{a{b,c}d,e}') eq '(?:\\{a\\{b|c\\}d|e\\})';

wc2re_jokers

This one only handles the ? and * jokers. All other unquoted regexp metacharacters will be escaped.

# Everything is escaped.
print 'ok' if wc2re_jokers('{a{b,c}d,e}') eq '\\{a\\{b\\,c\\}d\\,e\\}';

wc2re

A generic function that wraps around all the different rules. The first argument is the wildcard expression, and the second one is the type of rules to apply, currently either unix, win32 or jokers. If the type is undefined, it defaults to unix.

DEPENDENCIES

Text::Balanced, which is bundled with perl since version 5.7.3

SEE ALSO

Some modules provide incomplete alternatives as helper functions :

Net::FTPServer has a method for that. Only jokers are translated, and escaping won't preserve them.

File::Find::Match::Util has a wildcar function that compiles a matcher. Only handles *.

Text::Buffer has the convertWildcardToRegex class method that handles jokers.

AUTHOR

Vincent Pit, <perl at profvince.com>

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-regexp-wildcards at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Regexp-Wildcards. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

SUPPORT

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

perldoc Regexp::Wildcards

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

Copyright 2007 Vincent Pit, all rights reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.