💕 Match filenames against a set of .gitignore like patternfiles

... for Android, BSDs, Linux, macOS, SunOS, Windows (MinGW, WSL)

mulle-match is the backbone of the mulle-sde reflection mechanism. It matches filenames against a set of .gitignore like patternfiles to categorize and type files according to their filenames and location. Its like a marriage of find and .gitignore.

Release Version	Release Notes
	RELEASENOTES

Executable	Description
mulle-match	Match filename according to .gitignore like patternfiles
mulle-match-to-cmake	Use mulle-match to create cmake files
mulle-match-to-c	Create include files for public headers

Commands

init

Initialize the current directory with some patternfiles to match C/ObjC files for demo purposes or as a starting point:

mulle-match init

Would produce in a folder my-project a structure like this:

my-project
└── .mulle
    └── etc
        └── match
            └── match.d
                ├── 50-source--private-headers
                ├── 60-source--public-headers
                └── 70-source--sources

patternfile

A patternfile is made up of one or more patterns. It is quite like a .gitignore file, with the same semantics for negation.

Example:

# match .c .h and .cpp files
*.c
*.h
*.cpp

# ignore backup files though
!*~.*

A patternfile resides in either the ignore.d folder or the match.d folder. Its filename is composed of three segments: priority-type--category.

The first digits-only segment is there to prioritize patternfiles. Lower numbers are matched before higher numbers (ls sorting). The second segment gives the type of the file. And the last segment is the category of the file. A type is required, a category is optional.

If a patternfile of the ignore.d folder matches, the matching has failed. On the other hand, if a patternfile of the match.d folder matches, the matching has succeeded. patternfiles are matched in sort order of their filename.

The Wiki explains this in more detail.

Add a patternfile to select PNG files. We give it a type "hello":

echo "*.svg" > pattern.txt
mulle-match patternfile add hello pattern.txt

This will result in this change in the match.d folder.

├── .mulle
│   └── etc
│       └── match
│           └── match.d
│               ├── 50-hello--all
│               ├── 50-source--private-headers
│               ├── 60-source--public-headers
│               └── 70-source--sources

You could optionally specify a category for the patternfile:

mulle-match patternfile add --category special hello pattern.txt

It may be useful, especially in conjunction with mulle-match find, that large and changing folders like .git and build are ignored. Install the following patternfile into the ignore.d folder with -i:

echo ".git/" > pattern.txt
echo "build/" >> pattern.txt
mulle-match patternfile install -i folders pattern.txt

But see Environment for an even better and more efficient way of ignoring files and subdirectories.

Remove a patternfile:

mulle-match patternfile remove hello

List all patternfiles:

mulle-match patternfile list

and see their contents with

mulle-match patternfile cat

filename

To test your installed patternfile you can use mulle-match filename. It will output the patternfile name if one matches.

mulle-match filename pix/foo.svg

To test a specific patternfile use the --pattern-file option. This will work for both ignored.d and match.d patternfiles:

mulle-match filename --pattern-file '20-ignored--none' pix/foo.svg

You can test individual patterns using the --pattern option:

mulle-match filename --pattern '*.svg' pix/foo.svg

list

This command lists the filenames that match patternfiles. You can decide which patternfile should be used by supplying an optional filter.

This example lists all the files, that pass through patternfiles of type "hello":

mulle-match list --match-filter "hello"

The speed of the list command is highly dependent on a reduction of the search space with the environment variables MULLE_MATCH_FILENAMES, MULLE_MATCH_IGNORE_PATH, MULLE_MATCH_PATH.

Environment

Variable	Description
MULLE_MATCH_FILENAMES	Filename wildcards separated by ':'. Only files matching these wildcards will be considered for. e.g. .c:.m:*.cmake. These values are evaluated with find's -name. The default value is *
MULLE_MATCH_IGNORE_PATH	Locations to ignore separated by ':'. These values are evaluated with find's -path and then pruned. The default value is addiction:build:dependency:stash:include:lib:libexec:.git
MULLE_MATCH_PATH	Locations to search for separated by ':'. These values are passed to find as search starts. The default value is .mulle/etc/sourcetree/config:src

Install

See mulle-sde-developer how to install mulle-sde, which will also install mulle-match with required dependencies.

The command to install only the latest mulle-match into /usr/local (with sudo) is:

curl -L 'https://github.com/mulle-sde/mulle-match/archive/latest.tar.gz' \
 | tar xfz - && cd 'mulle-match-latest' && sudo ./bin/installer /usr/local

Author

Nat! for Mulle kybernetiK