NAME

Regexp::Shellish - Shell-like regular expressions

SYNOPSIS

   use Regexp::Shellish qw( :all ) ;

   $re = compile_shellish( 'a/c*d' ) ;

   ## This next one's like 'a*d' except that it'll
   ## match 'a/d'.
   $re = compile_shellish( 'a**d' ) ;

   ## And here '**' won't match 'a/d', but behaves
   ## like 'a*d', except for the possibility of high
   ## cpu time consumption.
   $re = compile_shellish( 'a**d', { star_star => 0 } ) ;

   ## The next two result in identical $re1 and $re2.
   ## The second is a noop so that Regexp references can
   ## be easily accomodated.
   $re1 = compile_shellish( 'a{b,c}d' ) ;
   $re2 = compile_shellish( qr/\A(?:a(?:b|c)d)\Z/ ) ;

   @matches = shellish_glob( $re, @possibilities ) ;

DESCRIPTION

Provides shell-like regular expressions. The wildcards provided are ?, * and **, where ** is like * but matches /. See "compile_shellish" for details.

Case sensitivity and constructs like <**>, (a*b), and {a,b,c} can be disabled.

compile_shellish

Compiles a string containing a 'shellish' regular expression, returning a Regexp reference. Regexp references passed in are passed through unmolested.

Here are the transformation rules from shellish expression terms to perl regular expression terms:

   Shellish  Perl RE
   ========  =======
   *         [^/]*
   ?         .
   **        .*               ## unless { star_star   => 0 }
   ...       .*               ## unless { dot_dot_dot => 0 }

   (         (                ## unless { parens => 0 }
   )         )                ## unless { parens => 0 }

   {a,b,c}   (?:a|b|c)        ## unless { braces => 0 }

   \a        a                ## These are de-escaped and
   \*        \*               ## passed to quotemeta()

The wildcards treat newlines as normal characters.

Parens group in to $1..$n, since they are passed through unmolested (unless option parens => 0 is passed). This is useless when using glob_shellish(), though.

The final parameter can be a hash reference containing options:

   compile_shellish(
      '**',
      {
         anchors        => 0,   ## Doesn't put ^ and $ around the
                                ## resulting regexp
         case_sensitive => 0,   ## Make case insensitive
         dot_dot_dot    => 0,   ## '...' is now just three '.' chars
         star_star      => 0,   ## '**' is now two '*' wildcards
         parens         => 0,   ## '(', ')' are now regular chars
         braces         => 0,   ## '{', '}' are now regular chars
      }
   ) ;

No option affects Regexps passed through.

shellish_glob

Pass a regular expression and a list of possible values, get back a list of matching values.

   my @matches = shellish_glob( '*/*', @possibilities ) ;
   my @matches = shellish_glob( '*/*', @possibilities, \%options ) ;

AUTHOR

Barrie Slaymaker <barries@slaysys.com>