Glob Expressions

Several Flow commands accept simple glob expressions for matching names, such as the --trace option.

Unlike regular expressions, Flow globs support only a small number of operators, making them fast and easy to understand.

Pattern	Description
`*`	Matches zero or more characters.
`+pattern`	Explicitly includes matching names. (Equivalent to `pattern`.)
`-pattern`	Excludes matching names.
`pattern1 pattern2`	Multiple patterns separated by spaces. A match against any positive pattern is accepted unless later excluded by a negative pattern.

Examples

APP*

Matches:

APP
APPinstall
APPserver

APP* -APPtest*

Matches everything beginning with APP except names beginning with APPtest.

APP* TEST*

Matches anything beginning with either APP or TEST.

Limitations

Flow glob expressions are not regular expressions. The following features are not supported:

? (single-character wildcard)
Character classes ([abc])
Character ranges ([A-Z])
Regular expression operators (|, (), +, etc.)

Only the * wildcard is recognized.

I think it's worth trying to make Flow really deliberately simple. Some developers get very excited about regular expressions - those arcane bug prone complex matching things. I think I will be happy to consider removing those exciting capacities including the string matching library in Lua - or may be I will keep those - only 600 lines of code. I want to understand everything so if I can remove things I will.