Shellish(3)

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>