File Matching Patterns

File matching patterns are used in various configuration options including specifying hidden files and direct links. A file matching pattern is a path to a file or folder that may contain one or more of the following special expressions.

File matching patterns are case sensitive. This means that foo.txt and Foo.txt are not the same.

Matching Expressions

• ? matches any single character

• * matches zero or more characters excluding /

• ** matches zero or more characters including /

• [abc] matches a single character from the set (i.e. a, b or c)

• [a-c] matches a single character in the range (i.e. a, b or c)

• [^abc] matches any character not in the set (i.e. not a, b or c)

• [^a-c] matches any character not in the range (i.e. not a, b or c)

• {foo,bar,baz} matches any pattern in the set (i.e. foo, bar or baz)

Assertions

The following assertions can be used to assert that a path is followed by or not followed by another pattern.

• (=foo) matches any file name that also contains foo

• (!foo) matches any file name that does not also contain foo

Examples

foo Match the literal file or folder foo in the root folder

foo/bar Matches the literal file or folder bar in the foo folder

*.txt Matches any file or folder ending with .txt in the root folder

**/*.txt Matches any file or folder ending with .txt one or more folders deep (e.g. foo/bar.txt or foo/bar/baz.txt)

**.txt Matches any file or folder ending with .txt (e.g. foo.txt, foo/bar.txt, foo/bar/baz.txt, etc.)

foo/bar/*.txt Matches all .txt files or folders in the foo/bar folder

foo/bar/**.txt Matches all .txt files or folders in the foo/bar folder and sub-folders

file.{yml,yaml} Matches a file or folder named file.yml or file.yaml in the root folder

file.tar(!.{gz,xz}) Matches a file named file.tar or file.tar.bz but not file.tar.gz or file.tar.xz