Matchstick

A utility for turning string patterns into a regular expressions. Also tokenizes a string and can perform replacement. Useful for matching URLs to routes.

Installation

$ npm install matchstick

Usage

Require matchstick at the top of your script.

var matchstick = require("matchstick");

Matchstick is a constructor that returns a fresh instance so you don't need the new keyword. It takes three arguments:

• pattern is a string representing a search
• mode is a string that tells matchstick how to interpret the pattern
  • strict: Exact match
  • static: Exact match with optional trailing slash
  • wildcard: Asterisks match any character(s) e.g. /path/*/
  • template: Curly brace tokens match any character(s) e.g. /path/{token}/
  • colon: Ruby-style tokens with leading colons match any character(s) e.g. /path/:token/
  • regexp: Convert into a true RegExp Object e.g. ^\/path\/$
• modifiers is a string containing one (or none) of any of the following characters
  • i: Case insensitive
  • g: Global match
  • m: Multiline matching

Example

> matchstick('/project/{projectid}/task/{taskid}', 'template');

Returns:

{
	pattern : '/project/{projectid}/task/{taskid}',
	mode : 'template',
	tokens : [
		'projectid',
		'taskid'
	],
	regexp : /^\/project\/(.*)\/task\/(.*)$/
	replace : function() {}
	test : function() {}
}

Set it to a variable and use the test method to return true or false

var ms = matchstick('/path', 'static');
ms.test('/path/');

Returns: true

...or evaluate it directly.

var path = '/path/';
if( matchstick('/path', 'static', 'i').test(str) ) {
	// Do something
}

Examples

Regexp property

All patterns result in a regexp property which you can access directly.

matchstick('^\/path\/$', 'regexp', 'ig').regexp;

Returns: /^/path/$/gi

test() method

Static mode

matchstick('/path/', 'static').test('/PATH/');

Returns: true

Wildcard mode

matchstick('/path/*/', 'wildcard').test('/path/something/');

Returns: true

Regexp mode

matchstick('^\/path\/$', 'regexp').test('/path/');

Returns: true

replace() method

template mode

var ms = matchstick('/project/{projectid}/task/{taskid}', 'pattern');
ms.replace({
	projectid : '123', 
	taskid : 'abc'
});

Returns: /project/123/task/abc

colon mode

var ms = matchstick('/project/:pid/task/:tid/action/:aid', 'pattern');
ms.replace({
	projectid : '123', 
	taskid : 'abc'
});

Returns: /project/123/task/abc/action/ (unused tokens are removed)

Tests

Install the global dependancies with sudo permissions.

$ sudo npm install -g mocha
$ sudo npm install -g should

Run mocha directly to see the test results.

$ cd matchstick
$ mocha