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3 > Bash-like brace expansion, implemented in JavaScript. Safer than other brace expansion libs, with complete support for the Bash 4.3 braces specification, without sacrificing speed.
5 Please consider following this project's author, [Jon Schlinkert](https://github.com/jonschlinkert), and consider starring the project to show your :heart: and support.
9 Install with [npm](https://www.npmjs.com/):
12 $ npm install --save braces
17 See the [changelog](CHANGELOG.md) for details.
21 Brace patterns make globs more powerful by adding the ability to match specific ranges and sequences of characters.
23 * **Accurate** - complete support for the [Bash 4.3 Brace Expansion](www.gnu.org/software/bash/) specification (passes all of the Bash braces tests)
24 * **[fast and performant](#benchmarks)** - Starts fast, runs fast and [scales well](#performance) as patterns increase in complexity.
25 * **Organized code base** - The parser and compiler are easy to maintain and update when edge cases crop up.
26 * **Well-tested** - Thousands of test assertions, and passes all of the Bash, minimatch, and [brace-expansion](https://github.com/juliangruber/brace-expansion) unit tests (as of the date this was written).
27 * **Safer** - You shouldn't have to worry about users defining aggressive or malicious brace patterns that can break your application. Braces takes measures to prevent malicious regex that can be used for DDoS attacks (see [catastrophic backtracking](https://www.regular-expressions.info/catastrophic.html)).
28 * [Supports lists](#lists) - (aka "sets") `a/{b,c}/d` => `['a/b/d', 'a/c/d']`
29 * [Supports sequences](#sequences) - (aka "ranges") `{01..03}` => `['01', '02', '03']`
30 * [Supports steps](#steps) - (aka "increments") `{2..10..2}` => `['2', '4', '6', '8', '10']`
31 * [Supports escaping](#escaping) - To prevent evaluation of special characters.
35 The main export is a function that takes one or more brace `patterns` and `options`.
38 const braces = require('braces');
39 // braces(patterns[, options]);
41 console.log(braces(['{01..05}', '{a..e}']));
42 //=> ['(0[1-5])', '([a-e])']
44 console.log(braces(['{01..05}', '{a..e}'], { expand: true }));
45 //=> ['01', '02', '03', '04', '05', 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e']
48 ### Brace Expansion vs. Compilation
50 By default, brace patterns are compiled into strings that are optimized for creating regular expressions and matching.
55 console.log(braces('a/{x,y,z}/b'));
57 console.log(braces(['a/{01..20}/b', 'a/{1..5}/b']));
58 //=> [ 'a/(0[1-9]|1[0-9]|20)/b', 'a/([1-5])/b' ]
63 Enable brace expansion by setting the `expand` option to true, or by using [braces.expand()](#expand) (returns an array similar to what you'd expect from Bash, or `echo {1..5}`, or [minimatch](https://github.com/isaacs/minimatch)):
66 console.log(braces('a/{x,y,z}/b', { expand: true }));
67 //=> ['a/x/b', 'a/y/b', 'a/z/b']
69 console.log(braces.expand('{01..10}'));
70 //=> ['01','02','03','04','05','06','07','08','09','10']
75 Expand lists (like Bash "sets"):
78 console.log(braces('a/{foo,bar,baz}/*.js'));
79 //=> ['a/(foo|bar|baz)/*.js']
81 console.log(braces.expand('a/{foo,bar,baz}/*.js'));
82 //=> ['a/foo/*.js', 'a/bar/*.js', 'a/baz/*.js']
87 Expand ranges of characters (like Bash "sequences"):
90 console.log(braces.expand('{1..3}')); // ['1', '2', '3']
91 console.log(braces.expand('a/{1..3}/b')); // ['a/1/b', 'a/2/b', 'a/3/b']
92 console.log(braces('{a..c}', { expand: true })); // ['a', 'b', 'c']
93 console.log(braces('foo/{a..c}', { expand: true })); // ['foo/a', 'foo/b', 'foo/c']
95 // supports zero-padded ranges
96 console.log(braces('a/{01..03}/b')); //=> ['a/(0[1-3])/b']
97 console.log(braces('a/{001..300}/b')); //=> ['a/(0{2}[1-9]|0[1-9][0-9]|[12][0-9]{2}|300)/b']
100 See [fill-range](https://github.com/jonschlinkert/fill-range) for all available range-expansion options.
104 Steps, or increments, may be used with ranges:
107 console.log(braces.expand('{2..10..2}'));
108 //=> ['2', '4', '6', '8', '10']
110 console.log(braces('{2..10..2}'));
111 //=> ['(2|4|6|8|10)']
114 When the [.optimize](#optimize) method is used, or [options.optimize](#optionsoptimize) is set to true, sequences are passed to [to-regex-range](https://github.com/jonschlinkert/to-regex-range) for expansion.
118 Brace patterns may be nested. The results of each expanded string are not sorted, and left to right order is preserved.
120 **"Expanded" braces**
123 console.log(braces.expand('a{b,c,/{x,y}}/e'));
124 //=> ['ab/e', 'ac/e', 'a/x/e', 'a/y/e']
126 console.log(braces.expand('a/{x,{1..5},y}/c'));
127 //=> ['a/x/c', 'a/1/c', 'a/2/c', 'a/3/c', 'a/4/c', 'a/5/c', 'a/y/c']
130 **"Optimized" braces**
133 console.log(braces('a{b,c,/{x,y}}/e'));
134 //=> ['a(b|c|/(x|y))/e']
136 console.log(braces('a/{x,{1..5},y}/c'));
137 //=> ['a/(x|([1-5])|y)/c']
144 A brace pattern will not be expanded or evaluted if _either the opening or closing brace is escaped_:
147 console.log(braces.expand('a\\{d,c,b}e'));
150 console.log(braces.expand('a{d,c,b\\}e'));
156 Commas inside braces may also be escaped:
159 console.log(braces.expand('a{b\\,c}d'));
162 console.log(braces.expand('a{d\\,c,b}e'));
163 //=> ['ad,ce', 'abe']
168 Following bash conventions, a brace pattern is also not expanded when it contains a single character:
171 console.log(braces.expand('a{b}c'));
177 ### options.maxLength
181 **Default**: `65,536`
183 **Description**: Limit the length of the input string. Useful when the input string is generated or your application allows users to pass a string, et cetera.
186 console.log(braces('a/{b,c}/d', { maxLength: 3 })); //=> throws an error
193 **Default**: `undefined`
195 **Description**: Generate an "expanded" brace pattern (alternatively you can use the `braces.expand()` method, which does the same thing).
198 console.log(braces('a/{b,c}/d', { expand: true }));
199 //=> [ 'a/b/d', 'a/c/d' ]
206 **Default**: `undefined`
208 **Description**: Remove duplicates from the returned array.
210 ### options.rangeLimit
216 **Description**: To prevent malicious patterns from being passed by users, an error is thrown when `braces.expand()` is used or `options.expand` is true and the generated range will exceed the `rangeLimit`.
218 You can customize `options.rangeLimit` or set it to `Inifinity` to disable this altogether.
223 // pattern exceeds the "rangeLimit", so it's optimized automatically
224 console.log(braces.expand('{1..1000}'));
225 //=> ['([1-9]|[1-9][0-9]{1,2}|1000)']
227 // pattern does not exceed "rangeLimit", so it's NOT optimized
228 console.log(braces.expand('{1..100}'));
229 //=> ['1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '10', '11', '12', '13', '14', '15', '16', '17', '18', '19', '20', '21', '22', '23', '24', '25', '26', '27', '28', '29', '30', '31', '32', '33', '34', '35', '36', '37', '38', '39', '40', '41', '42', '43', '44', '45', '46', '47', '48', '49', '50', '51', '52', '53', '54', '55', '56', '57', '58', '59', '60', '61', '62', '63', '64', '65', '66', '67', '68', '69', '70', '71', '72', '73', '74', '75', '76', '77', '78', '79', '80', '81', '82', '83', '84', '85', '86', '87', '88', '89', '90', '91', '92', '93', '94', '95', '96', '97', '98', '99', '100']
232 ### options.transform
236 **Default**: `undefined`
238 **Description**: Customize range expansion.
240 **Example: Transforming non-numeric values**
243 const alpha = braces.expand('x/{a..e}/y', {
244 transform(value, index) {
245 // When non-numeric values are passed, "value" is a character code.
246 return 'foo/' + String.fromCharCode(value) + '-' + index;
250 //=> [ 'x/foo/a-0/y', 'x/foo/b-1/y', 'x/foo/c-2/y', 'x/foo/d-3/y', 'x/foo/e-4/y' ]
253 **Example: Transforming numeric values**
256 const numeric = braces.expand('{1..5}', {
258 // when numeric values are passed, "value" is a number
259 return 'foo/' + value * 2;
262 console.log(numeric);
263 //=> [ 'foo/2', 'foo/4', 'foo/6', 'foo/8', 'foo/10' ]
266 ### options.quantifiers
270 **Default**: `undefined`
272 **Description**: In regular expressions, quanitifiers can be used to specify how many times a token can be repeated. For example, `a{1,3}` will match the letter `a` one to three times.
274 Unfortunately, regex quantifiers happen to share the same syntax as [Bash lists](#lists)
276 The `quantifiers` option tells braces to detect when [regex quantifiers](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/RegExp#quantifiers) are defined in the given pattern, and not to try to expand them as lists.
281 const braces = require('braces');
282 console.log(braces('a/b{1,3}/{x,y,z}'));
283 //=> [ 'a/b(1|3)/(x|y|z)' ]
284 console.log(braces('a/b{1,3}/{x,y,z}', {quantifiers: true}));
285 //=> [ 'a/b{1,3}/(x|y|z)' ]
286 console.log(braces('a/b{1,3}/{x,y,z}', {quantifiers: true, expand: true}));
287 //=> [ 'a/b{1,3}/x', 'a/b{1,3}/y', 'a/b{1,3}/z' ]
294 **Default**: `undefined`
296 **Description**: Strip backslashes that were used for escaping from the result.
298 ## What is "brace expansion"?
300 Brace expansion is a type of parameter expansion that was made popular by unix shells for generating lists of strings, as well as regex-like matching when used alongside wildcards (globs).
302 In addition to "expansion", braces are also used for matching. In other words:
304 * [brace expansion](#brace-expansion) is for generating new lists
305 * [brace matching](#brace-matching) is for filtering existing lists
308 <summary><strong>More about brace expansion</strong> (click to expand)</summary>
310 There are two main types of brace expansion:
312 1. **lists**: which are defined using comma-separated values inside curly braces: `{a,b,c}`
313 2. **sequences**: which are defined using a starting value and an ending value, separated by two dots: `a{1..3}b`. Optionally, a third argument may be passed to define a "step" or increment to use: `a{1..100..10}b`. These are also sometimes referred to as "ranges".
315 Here are some example brace patterns to illustrate how they work:
321 {a,b,c}{1,2} => a1 a2 b1 b2 c1 c2
327 {1..9} => 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
328 {4..-4} => 4 3 2 1 0 -1 -2 -3 -4
329 {1..20..3} => 1 4 7 10 13 16 19
330 {a..j} => a b c d e f g h i j
331 {j..a} => j i h g f e d c b a
332 {a..z..3} => a d g j m p s v y
337 Sets and sequences can be mixed together or used along with any other strings.
340 {a,b,c}{1..3} => a1 a2 a3 b1 b2 b3 c1 c2 c3
341 foo/{a,b,c}/bar => foo/a/bar foo/b/bar foo/c/bar
344 The fact that braces can be "expanded" from relatively simple patterns makes them ideal for quickly generating test fixtures, file paths, and similar use cases.
348 In addition to _expansion_, brace patterns are also useful for performing regular-expression-like matching.
350 For example, the pattern `foo/{1..3}/bar` would match any of following strings:
366 Braces can also be combined with [glob patterns](https://github.com/jonschlinkert/micromatch) to perform more advanced wildcard matching. For example, the pattern `*/{1..3}/*` would match any of following strings:
377 ## Brace matching pitfalls
379 Although brace patterns offer a user-friendly way of matching ranges or sets of strings, there are also some major disadvantages and potential risks you should be aware of.
385 * brace expansion can eat up a huge amount of processing resources
386 * as brace patterns increase _linearly in size_, the system resources required to expand the pattern increase exponentially
387 * users can accidentally (or intentially) exhaust your system's resources resulting in the equivalent of a DoS attack (bonus: no programming knowledge is required!)
389 For a more detailed explanation with examples, see the [geometric complexity](#geometric-complexity) section.
393 Jump to the [performance section](#performance) to see how Braces solves this problem in comparison to other libraries.
395 ### Geometric complexity
397 At minimum, brace patterns with sets limited to two elements have quadradic or `O(n^2)` complexity. But the complexity of the algorithm increases exponentially as the number of sets, _and elements per set_, increases, which is `O(n^c)`.
399 For example, the following sets demonstrate quadratic (`O(n^2)`) complexity:
402 {1,2}{3,4} => (2X2) => 13 14 23 24
403 {1,2}{3,4}{5,6} => (2X2X2) => 135 136 145 146 235 236 245 246
406 But add an element to a set, and we get a n-fold Cartesian product with `O(n^c)` complexity:
409 {1,2,3}{4,5,6}{7,8,9} => (3X3X3) => 147 148 149 157 158 159 167 168 169 247 248
410 249 257 258 259 267 268 269 347 348 349 357
414 Now, imagine how this complexity grows given that each element is a n-tuple:
417 {1..100}{1..100} => (100X100) => 10,000 elements (38.4 kB)
418 {1..100}{1..100}{1..100} => (100X100X100) => 1,000,000 elements (5.76 MB)
421 Although these examples are clearly contrived, they demonstrate how brace patterns can quickly grow out of control.
425 Interested in learning more about brace expansion?
427 * [linuxjournal/bash-brace-expansion](http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/bash-brace-expansion)
428 * [rosettacode/Brace_expansion](https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Brace_expansion)
429 * [cartesian product](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_product)
435 Braces is not only screaming fast, it's also more accurate the other brace expansion libraries.
437 ### Better algorithms
439 Fortunately there is a solution to the ["brace bomb" problem](#brace-matching-pitfalls): _don't expand brace patterns into an array when they're used for matching_.
441 Instead, convert the pattern into an optimized regular expression. This is easier said than done, and braces is the only library that does this currently.
443 **The proof is in the numbers**
445 Minimatch gets exponentially slower as patterns increase in complexity, braces does not. The following results were generated using `braces()` and `minimatch.braceExpand()`, respectively.
447 | **Pattern** | **braces** | **[minimatch][]** |
449 | `{1..9007199254740991}`[^1] | `298 B` (5ms 459μs)| N/A (freezes) |
450 | `{1..1000000000000000}` | `41 B` (1ms 15μs) | N/A (freezes) |
451 | `{1..100000000000000}` | `40 B` (890μs) | N/A (freezes) |
452 | `{1..10000000000000}` | `39 B` (2ms 49μs) | N/A (freezes) |
453 | `{1..1000000000000}` | `38 B` (608μs) | N/A (freezes) |
454 | `{1..100000000000}` | `37 B` (397μs) | N/A (freezes) |
455 | `{1..10000000000}` | `35 B` (983μs) | N/A (freezes) |
456 | `{1..1000000000}` | `34 B` (798μs) | N/A (freezes) |
457 | `{1..100000000}` | `33 B` (733μs) | N/A (freezes) |
458 | `{1..10000000}` | `32 B` (5ms 632μs) | `78.89 MB` (16s 388ms 569μs) |
459 | `{1..1000000}` | `31 B` (1ms 381μs) | `6.89 MB` (1s 496ms 887μs) |
460 | `{1..100000}` | `30 B` (950μs) | `588.89 kB` (146ms 921μs) |
461 | `{1..10000}` | `29 B` (1ms 114μs) | `48.89 kB` (14ms 187μs) |
462 | `{1..1000}` | `28 B` (760μs) | `3.89 kB` (1ms 453μs) |
463 | `{1..100}` | `22 B` (345μs) | `291 B` (196μs) |
464 | `{1..10}` | `10 B` (533μs) | `20 B` (37μs) |
465 | `{1..3}` | `7 B` (190μs) | `5 B` (27μs) |
467 ### Faster algorithms
469 When you need expansion, braces is still much faster.
471 _(the following results were generated using `braces.expand()` and `minimatch.braceExpand()`, respectively)_
473 | **Pattern** | **braces** | **[minimatch][]** |
475 | `{1..10000000}` | `78.89 MB` (2s 698ms 642μs) | `78.89 MB` (18s 601ms 974μs) |
476 | `{1..1000000}` | `6.89 MB` (458ms 576μs) | `6.89 MB` (1s 491ms 621μs) |
477 | `{1..100000}` | `588.89 kB` (20ms 728μs) | `588.89 kB` (156ms 919μs) |
478 | `{1..10000}` | `48.89 kB` (2ms 202μs) | `48.89 kB` (13ms 641μs) |
479 | `{1..1000}` | `3.89 kB` (1ms 796μs) | `3.89 kB` (1ms 958μs) |
480 | `{1..100}` | `291 B` (424μs) | `291 B` (211μs) |
481 | `{1..10}` | `20 B` (487μs) | `20 B` (72μs) |
482 | `{1..3}` | `5 B` (166μs) | `5 B` (27μs) |
484 If you'd like to run these comparisons yourself, see [test/support/generate.js](test/support/generate.js).
488 ### Running benchmarks
490 Install dev dependencies:
493 npm i -d && npm benchmark
498 Braces is more accurate, without sacrificing performance.
502 braces x 29,040 ops/sec ±3.69% (91 runs sampled))
503 minimatch x 4,735 ops/sec ±1.28% (90 runs sampled)
505 # range (optimized for regex)
506 braces x 382,878 ops/sec ±0.56% (94 runs sampled)
507 minimatch x 1,040 ops/sec ±0.44% (93 runs sampled)
509 # nested ranges (expanded)
510 braces x 19,744 ops/sec ±2.27% (92 runs sampled))
511 minimatch x 4,579 ops/sec ±0.50% (93 runs sampled)
513 # nested ranges (optimized for regex)
514 braces x 246,019 ops/sec ±2.02% (93 runs sampled)
515 minimatch x 1,028 ops/sec ±0.39% (94 runs sampled)
518 braces x 138,641 ops/sec ±0.53% (95 runs sampled)
519 minimatch x 219,582 ops/sec ±0.98% (94 runs sampled)
521 # set (optimized for regex)
522 braces x 388,408 ops/sec ±0.41% (95 runs sampled)
523 minimatch x 44,724 ops/sec ±0.91% (89 runs sampled)
525 # nested sets (expanded)
526 braces x 84,966 ops/sec ±0.48% (94 runs sampled)
527 minimatch x 140,720 ops/sec ±0.37% (95 runs sampled)
529 # nested sets (optimized for regex)
530 braces x 263,340 ops/sec ±2.06% (92 runs sampled)
531 minimatch x 28,714 ops/sec ±0.40% (90 runs sampled)
537 <summary><strong>Contributing</strong></summary>
539 Pull requests and stars are always welcome. For bugs and feature requests, [please create an issue](../../issues/new).
544 <summary><strong>Running Tests</strong></summary>
546 Running and reviewing unit tests is a great way to get familiarized with a library and its API. You can install dependencies and run tests with the following command:
549 $ npm install && npm test
555 <summary><strong>Building docs</strong></summary>
557 _(This project's readme.md is generated by [verb](https://github.com/verbose/verb-generate-readme), please don't edit the readme directly. Any changes to the readme must be made in the [.verb.md](.verb.md) readme template.)_
559 To generate the readme, run the following command:
562 $ npm install -g verbose/verb#dev verb-generate-readme && verb
569 | **Commits** | **Contributor** |
571 | 197 | [jonschlinkert](https://github.com/jonschlinkert) |
572 | 4 | [doowb](https://github.com/doowb) |
573 | 1 | [es128](https://github.com/es128) |
574 | 1 | [eush77](https://github.com/eush77) |
575 | 1 | [hemanth](https://github.com/hemanth) |
576 | 1 | [wtgtybhertgeghgtwtg](https://github.com/wtgtybhertgeghgtwtg) |
582 * [GitHub Profile](https://github.com/jonschlinkert)
583 * [Twitter Profile](https://twitter.com/jonschlinkert)
584 * [LinkedIn Profile](https://linkedin.com/in/jonschlinkert)
588 Copyright © 2019, [Jon Schlinkert](https://github.com/jonschlinkert).
589 Released under the [MIT License](LICENSE).
593 _This file was generated by [verb-generate-readme](https://github.com/verbose/verb-generate-readme), v0.8.0, on April 08, 2019._