Class WildcardCompiler

Source: WildcardCompiler.ts

Compiles shell-style wildcard patterns into RegExp pattern strings or RegExp objects. Use it when you want * and ? wildcard matching without hand-writing regular expressions.

Import

import { WildcardCompiler } from '@litert/utils-string';

Constructor

new WildcardCompiler(options?: IWildcardCompilerOptions)

Parameters

• Parameter options?: IWildcardCompilerOptions

  Optional compiler settings. See IWildcardCompilerOptions.

Properties

Name	Type	Description
disableQuestionMark	boolean	When true, ? is treated as a literal character instead of a single-character wildcard.

Instance Methods

compile

compile(pattern: string): RegExp;

Compiles pattern into a RegExp instance.

Parameters

• Parameter pattern: string

  A wildcard pattern where * matches zero or more characters, and ? matches one character unless disableQuestionMark is enabled.

Return Value

A RegExp instance created from compileToString(). The result is anchored at the start and end unless the wildcard pattern begins or ends with *.

compileToString

compileToString(pattern: string): string;

Compiles pattern into a RegExp pattern string.

Parameters

• Parameter pattern: string

  A wildcard pattern to convert.

Return Value

A RegExp pattern string that can be passed to new RegExp(...). Literal text is escaped with regexpEscape, consecutive * wildcards collapse into one .*, and consecutive ? wildcards collapse into a quantified .{n} segment.

Scoped Types

Interface IWildcardCompilerOptions

Source: WildcardCompiler.ts

import type { IWildcardCompilerOptions } from '@litert/utils-string';

Configuration options for WildcardCompiler.

Property	Type	Required	Default	Description
disableQuestionMark	boolean?	No	false	Treats ? as a literal question mark instead of a single-character wildcard.

Examples

Match a filename pattern

import { WildcardCompiler } from '@litert/utils-string';

const compiler = new WildcardCompiler();
const matcher = compiler.compile('src/*.test.?s');

matcher.test('src/string.test.ts');  // true
matcher.test('src/string.test.js');  // true
matcher.test('src/string.test.mts'); // false

Treat ? as a literal character

const compiler = new WildcardCompiler({ disableQuestionMark: true });
const matcher = compiler.compile('config?.json');

matcher.test('config?.json'); // true
matcher.test('config1.json'); // false

Reuse the compiled pattern string

const compiler = new WildcardCompiler();
const pattern = compiler.compileToString('*report-2026?.txt');

new RegExp(pattern).test('monthly-report-2026a.txt'); // true
new RegExp(pattern).test('report-2026.txt');          // false