Transform search patterns to regular expressions.

wildcards.js

// wildcards(pattern [, modifiers])
// ================================
//
// Transform search patterns with wildcards ('*' and '?')
// to suitable regular expresions.
//
// CAUTION: Pre-wrap with '*' (if needed).
//
// @@ Examples:                                                           @@ //
// @@ ---------                                                           @@ //
// @@ wildcards('list_*.htm*', 'i') // Generates /list_.*\.htm/i          @@ //
// @@ wildcards('mate? roca*', 'i') // Matches "mateu..." and "mateo..."  @@ //
// @@ wildcards(str+'*', 'i')       // Allow for incremental search.      @@ //
// @@ wildcards('*'str+'*', 'i')    // Get even partial matchings.        @@ //
//
function wildcards(pattern, modifiers) {//{{{
    const src = [...pattern].map(function(digit) {
        switch (digit) {
            case "*": return ".*";
            case "?": return ".";
            default:
                return (
                    digit.match(/[\w\s,]/) ? digit
                    : "\\"+digit
                );
        };
    });
    return new RegExp(
        ['^', ...src, '$'].join("")
        , modifiers
    );
};//}}}