wild2wild_matcher v0.5.4

wild2wild_matcher

A function to match two wildcard strings to each other. Supported wild cards: * - Zero or more characters ? - Exactly one character

This is actually a subset of a regular expression partial match. Both of which are not available OOB in JS.

A use case example:

When only part of the input is available and there is a need to understand whether this input may potentially be completed to match a desired pattern (described with wildcards) in order to show a notification to the user. Appending the partial input with * and matching it with the desired pattern will reveal if the input can be completed to match the pattern.

Examples:

const {w2match} = require('wild2wild_matcher');

console.log(w2match('hello\*world', 'hello\*'));           // => true
console.log(w2match('hello\*world', 'hello\*jimbo'));      // => false
console.log(w2match('h?llo?wor?d', '??llo w?rld'));        // => true
console.log(w2match('he??o?world', 'he\*d'));              // => true
console.log(w2match('he??o?world', 'helo world\*'));       // => false

Efficiency

This recursive algorithm is not the most efficient one. A more efficient (but less elegant) algorithm can be written by separating to several cases. For example, noticing that if there is at least one in the middle of each string, there is only a need to compare the prefixes (before the first s) and the suffixes (after the last s). Another case is when only one string has s in the middle. Then there is a need to check each substring delimited by s for containment in the other string and also check the order. Other cases include when the s are in the beginning and end of the strings.