A simple and surprisingly effective way to select ordered collections of strings using a combination of greedy glob expressions and a non-greedy catch-all.

Let's say we want to fetch data from a columns of a table (these columns are from Canadian Federal Election Results)

var cols = [
  "election_id",
  "event_number",
  "electoral_district_number_numéro_de_circonscription",
  "polling_station_number_numéro_du_bureau_de_scrutin",
  "polling_station_name_nom_du_bureau_de_scrutin",
  "poll_type",
  "electors_for_polling_station_électeurs_du_bureau",
  "urban_rural_indicator",
  "void_poll_indicator_indicateur_de_bureau_supprimé",
  "no_poll_held_indicator_indicateur_de_bureau_sans_scrutin",
  "split_indicator",
  "merge_indicator",
  "merge_with_fusionné_avec",
  "advance_poll_indicator",
  "mobile_poll_indicator",
]

Select strings allows us to craft specific ordered sets of these cumbersome columns very easily. For example, to select id columns followed by poll... columns:

var ss = require('qb-select-strings')

ss(['*id', 'poll*'], cols)

> [ 'election_id',
>   'polling_station_number_numéro_du_bureau_de_scrutin',
>   'polling_station_name_nom_du_bureau_de_scrutin',
>   'poll_type' ]

To select id columns, then polling columns, then indicators, then any other columns:

ss(['*id', 'poll*', '*indicator*', '*'], cols))

> [ 'election_id',
>   'polling_station_number_numéro_du_bureau_de_scrutin',
>   'polling_station_name_nom_du_bureau_de_scrutin',
>   'poll_type',
>   'urban_rural_indicator',
>   'void_poll_indicator_indicateur_de_bureau_supprimé',
>   'no_poll_held_indicator_indicateur_de_bureau_sans_scrutin',
>   'split_indicator',
>   'merge_indicator',
>   'advance_poll_indicator',
>   'mobile_poll_indicator',
>   'event_number',
>   'electoral_district_number_numéro_de_circonscription',
>   'electors_for_polling_station_électeurs_du_bureau',
>   'merge_with_fusionné_avec' ]

Complies with the 100% test coverage and minimum dependency requirements of qb-standard .

install

npm install qb-select-strings

qb-select-strings

Selects arrays of strings from a source array using simple glob (*) expressions.

var sm = require('qb-select-strings')

sm.select(['b'],     ['a','b','c'])
['b']

sm.select('b*', ['ab','bb','cb'])
['bb']

sm.select('*b', ['ab','bb','cb'])
['ab','bb','cb']

'*' by itself has special meaning and matches all strings not matched by the other expressions (non-greedy collector of all remaining strings).

// move 'b' to the front
sm.select(['b','*'], ['a','b','c'])   
['b','a','c']

// move 'b' to the back
sm.select(['*','b'], ['a','b','c'])
['a','c','b']