Extract the non-magic parent path from a glob string.

var globParent = require('glob-parent');

globParent('path/to/*.js'); // 'path/to'
globParent('/root/path/to/*.js'); // '/root/path/to'
globParent('/*.js'); // '/'
globParent('*.js'); // '.'
globParent('**/*.js'); // '.'
globParent('path/{to,from}'); // 'path'
globParent('path/!(to|from)'); // 'path'
globParent('path/?(to|from)'); // 'path'
globParent('path/+(to|from)'); // 'path'
globParent('path/*(to|from)'); // 'path'
globParent('path/@(to|from)'); // 'path'
globParent('path/**/*'); // 'path'

// if provided a non-glob path, returns the nearest dir
globParent('path/foo/bar.js'); // 'path/foo'
globParent('path/foo/'); // 'path/foo'
globParent('path/foo'); // 'path' (see issue #3 for details)

Takes a string and returns the part of the path before the glob begins. Be aware of Escaping rules and Limitations below.

The following characters have special significance in glob patterns and must be escaped if you want them to be treated as regular path characters:

• ? (question mark) unless used as a path segment alone
• * (asterisk)
• | (pipe)
• ( (opening parenthesis)
• ) (closing parenthesis)
• { (opening curly brace)
• } (closing curly brace)
• [ (opening bracket)
• ] (closing bracket)

Example

globParent('foo/[bar]/') // 'foo'
globParent('foo/\\[bar]/') // 'foo/[bar]'

This library attempts a quick and imperfect method of determining which path parts have glob magic without fully parsing/lexing the pattern. There are some advanced use cases that can trip it up, such as nested braces where the outer pair is escaped and the inner one contains a path separator. If you find yourself in the unlikely circumstance of being affected by this or need to ensure higher-fidelity glob handling in your library, it is recommended that you pre-process your input with expand-braces and/or expand-brackets.

Backslashes are not valid path separators for globs. If a path with backslashes is provided anyway, for simple cases, glob-parent will replace the path separator for you and return the non-glob parent path (now with forward-slashes, which are still valid as Windows path separators).

This cannot be used in conjunction with escape characters.

// BAD
globParent('C:\\Program Files \\(x86\\)\\*.ext') // 'C:/Program Files /(x86/)'

// GOOD
globParent('C:/Program Files\\(x86\\)/*.ext') // 'C:/Program Files (x86)'

If you are using escape characters for a pattern without path parts (i.e. relative to cwd), prefix with ./ to avoid confusing glob-parent.

// BAD
globParent('foo \\[bar]') // 'foo '
globParent('foo \\[bar]*') // 'foo '

// GOOD
globParent('./foo \\[bar]') // 'foo [bar]'
globParent('./foo \\[bar]*') // '.'

ISC