###Globbing patterns

It is often impractical to specify all source filepaths individually, so Grunt supports filename expansion (also know as globbing) via the built-in node-glob and minimatch libraries.

While this isn’t a comprehensive tutorial on globbing patterns, know that in a filepath:

• * matches any number of characters, but not /
• ? matches a single character, but not /
• ** matches any number of characters, including /, as long as it’s the only thing in a path part
• {} allows for a comma-separated list of “or” expressions
• ! at the beginning of a pattern will negate the match All most people need to know is that foo/*.js will match all files ending with .js in the foo/ subdirectory, but foo/**/*.js will match all files ending with .js in the foo/ subdirectory and all of its subdirectories.

Also, in order to simplify otherwise complicated globbing patterns, Grunt allows arrays of file paths or globbing patterns to be specified. Patterns are processed in-order, with !-prefixed matches excluding matched files from the result set. The result set is uniqued.

For example:

// You can specify single files:
{src: 'foo/this.js', dest: ...}
// Or arrays of files:
{src: ['foo/this.js', 'foo/that.js', 'foo/the-other.js'], dest: ...}
// Or you can generalize with a glob pattern:
{src: 'foo/th*.js', dest: ...}

// This single node-glob pattern:
{src: 'foo/{a,b}*.js', dest: ...}
// Could also be written like this:
{src: ['foo/a*.js', 'foo/b*.js'], dest: ...}

// All .js files, in foo/, in alpha order:
{src: ['foo/*.js'], dest: ...}
// Here, bar.js is first, followed by the remaining files, in alpha order:
{src: ['foo/bar.js', 'foo/*.js'], dest: ...}

// All files except for bar.js, in alpha order:
{src: ['foo/*.js', '!foo/bar.js'], dest: ...}
// All files in alpha order, but with bar.js at the end.
{src: ['foo/*.js', '!foo/bar.js', 'foo/bar.js'], dest: ...}

// Templates may be used in filepaths or glob patterns:
{src: ['src/<%= basename %>.js'], dest: 'build/<%= basename %>.min.js'}
// But they may also reference file lists defined elsewhere in the config:
{src: ['foo/*.js', '<%= jshint.all.src %>'], dest: ...}