How do I check if a filename matches a wildcard pattern

Question

I've got a wildcard pattern, perhaps "*.txt" or "POS??.dat".

I also have list of filenames in memory that I need to compare to that pattern.

How would I do that, keeping in mind I need exactly the same semantics that IO.DirectoryInfo.GetFiles(pattern) uses.

EDIT: Blindly translating this into a regex will NOT work.

Answer 1

I have a complete answer in code for you that's 95% like FindFiles(string).

The 5% that isn't there is the short names/long names behavior in the second note on the MSDN documentation for this function.

If you would still like to get that behavior, you'll have to complete a computation of the short name of each string you have in the input array, and then add the long name to the collection of matches if either the long or short name matches the pattern.

Here is the code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

namespace FindFilesRegEx
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string[] names = { "hello.t", "HelLo.tx", "HeLLo.txt", "HeLLo.txtsjfhs", "HeLLo.tx.sdj", "hAlLo20984.txt" };
            string[] matches;
            matches = FindFilesEmulator("hello.tx", names);
            matches = FindFilesEmulator("H*o*.???", names);
            matches = FindFilesEmulator("hello.txt", names);
            matches = FindFilesEmulator("lskfjd30", names);
        }

        public string[] FindFilesEmulator(string pattern, string[] names)
        {
            List<string> matches = new List<string>();
            Regex regex = FindFilesPatternToRegex.Convert(pattern);
            foreach (string s in names)
            {
                if (regex.IsMatch(s))
                {
                    matches.Add(s);
                }
            }
            return matches.ToArray();
        }

        internal static class FindFilesPatternToRegex
        {
            private static Regex HasQuestionMarkRegEx   = new Regex(@"\?", RegexOptions.Compiled);
            private static Regex IllegalCharactersRegex  = new Regex("[" + @"\/:<>|" + "\"]", RegexOptions.Compiled);
            private static Regex CatchExtentionRegex    = new Regex(@"^\s*.+\.([^\.]+)\s*$", RegexOptions.Compiled);
            private static string NonDotCharacters      = @"[^.]*";
            public static Regex Convert(string pattern)
            {
                if (pattern == null)
                {
                    throw new ArgumentNullException();
                }
                pattern = pattern.Trim();
                if (pattern.Length == 0)
                {
                    throw new ArgumentException("Pattern is empty.");
                }
                if(IllegalCharactersRegex.IsMatch(pattern))
                {
                    throw new ArgumentException("Pattern contains illegal characters.");
                }
                bool hasExtension = CatchExtentionRegex.IsMatch(pattern);
                bool matchExact = false;
                if (HasQuestionMarkRegEx.IsMatch(pattern))
                {
                    matchExact = true;
                }
                else if(hasExtension)
                {
                    matchExact = CatchExtentionRegex.Match(pattern).Groups[1].Length != 3;
                }
                string regexString = Regex.Escape(pattern);
                regexString = "^" + Regex.Replace(regexString, @"\\\*", ".*");
                regexString = Regex.Replace(regexString, @"\\\?", ".");
                if(!matchExact && hasExtension)
                {
                    regexString += NonDotCharacters;
                }
                regexString += "$";
                Regex regex = new Regex(regexString, RegexOptions.Compiled | RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
                return regex;
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

You can simply do this. You do not need regular expressions.

using Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices;

if (Operators.LikeString("pos123.txt", "pos?23.*", CompareMethod.Text))
{
  Console.WriteLine("Filename matches pattern");
}

Or, in VB.Net,

If "pos123.txt" Like "pos?23.*" Then
  Console.WriteLine("Filename matches pattern")
End If

In c# you could simulate this with an extension method. It wouldn't be exactly like VB Like, but it would be like...very cool.

Answer 3

Just call the Windows API function PathMatchSpecExW().

[Flags]
public enum MatchPatternFlags : uint
{
    Normal          = 0x00000000,   // PMSF_NORMAL
    Multiple        = 0x00000001,   // PMSF_MULTIPLE
    DontStripSpaces = 0x00010000    // PMSF_DONT_STRIP_SPACES
}

class FileName
{
    [DllImport("Shlwapi.dll", SetLastError = false)]
    static extern int PathMatchSpecExW([MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] string file,
                                       [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] string spec,
                                       MatchPatternFlags flags);

    /*******************************************************************************
    * Function:     MatchPattern
    *
    * Description:  Matches a file name against one or more file name patterns.
    *
    * Arguments:    file - File name to check
    *               spec - Name pattern(s) to search foe
    *               flags - Flags to modify search condition (MatchPatternFlags)
    *
    * Return value: Returns true if name matches the pattern.
    *******************************************************************************/

    public static bool MatchPattern(string file, string spec, MatchPatternFlags flags)
    {
        if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(file))
            return false;

        if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(spec))
            return true;

        int result = PathMatchSpecExW(file, spec, flags);

        return (result == 0);
    }
}

Answer 4

You could translate the wildcards into a regular expression:

*.txt -> ^.+\.txt$

POS??.dat _> ^POS..\.dat$

Use the Regex.Escape method to escape the characters that are not wildcars into literal strings for the pattern (e.g. converting ".txt" to "\.txt").

The wildcard * translates into .+, and ? translates into .

Put ^ at the beginning of the pattern to match the beginning of the string, and $ at the end to match the end of the string.

Now you can use the Regex.IsMatch method to check if a file name matches the pattern.

Answer 5

For anyone who comes across this question now that it is years later, I found over at the MSDN social boards that the GetFiles() method will accept * and ? wildcard characters in the searchPattern parameter. (At least in .Net 3.5, 4.0, and 4.5)

Directory.GetFiles(string path, string searchPattern)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/wz42302f.aspx

Answer 6

Some kind of regex/glob is the way to go, but there are some subtleties; your question indicates you want identical semantics to IO.DirectoryInfo.GetFiles. That could be a challenge, because of the special cases involving 8.3 vs. long file names and the like. The whole story is on MSDN.

If you don't need an exact behavioral match, there are a couple of good SO questions:

glob pattern matching in .NET
How to implement glob in C#

Answer 7

Plz try the below code.

static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        string _wildCardPattern = "*.txt";

        List<string> _fileNames = new List<string>();
        _fileNames.Add("text_file.txt");
        _fileNames.Add("csv_file.csv");

        Console.WriteLine("\nFilenames that matches [{0}] pattern are : ", _wildCardPattern);
        foreach (string _fileName in _fileNames)
        {
            CustomWildCardPattern _patetrn = new CustomWildCardPattern(_wildCardPattern);
            if (_patetrn.IsMatch(_fileName))
            {
                Console.WriteLine("{0}", _fileName);
            }
        }

    }

public class CustomWildCardPattern : Regex
{
    public CustomWildCardPattern(string wildCardPattern)
        : base(WildcardPatternToRegex(wildCardPattern))
    {
    }

    public CustomWildCardPattern(string wildcardPattern, RegexOptions regexOptions)
        : base(WildcardPatternToRegex(wildcardPattern), regexOptions)
    {
    }

    private static string WildcardPatternToRegex(string wildcardPattern)
    {
        string patternWithWildcards = "^" + Regex.Escape(wildcardPattern).Replace("\\*", ".*");
        patternWithWildcards = patternWithWildcards.Replace("\\?", ".") + "$";
        return patternWithWildcards;
    }
}

Answer 8

For searching against a specific pattern, it might be worth using File Globbing which allows you to use search patterns like you would in a .gitignore file.

See here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/extensions/file-globbing

This allows you to add both inclusions & exclusions to your search.

Please see below the example code snippet from the Microsoft Source above:

Matcher matcher = new Matcher();
matcher.AddIncludePatterns(new[] { "*.txt" });

IEnumerable<string> matchingFiles = matcher.GetResultsInFullPath(filepath);

Answer 9

The use of RegexOptions.IgnoreCase will fix it.

public class WildcardPattern : Regex {
    public WildcardPattern(string wildCardPattern)
        : base(ConvertPatternToRegex(wildCardPattern), RegexOptions.IgnoreCase) {
    }

    public WildcardPattern(string wildcardPattern, RegexOptions regexOptions)
        : base(ConvertPatternToRegex(wildcardPattern), regexOptions) {
    }

    private static string ConvertPatternToRegex(string wildcardPattern) {
        string patternWithWildcards = Regex.Escape(wildcardPattern).Replace("\\*", ".*");
        patternWithWildcards = string.Concat("^", patternWithWildcards.Replace("\\?", "."), "$");
        return patternWithWildcards;
    }
}