The Amazing Mustermann

Make sure you view the correct docs: latest release, master.

• mustermann: Your personal string matching expert. This is probably what you're looking for.
• mustermann-everything: A meta gem depending on all other official mustermann gems.
• mustermann-fileutils: Efficient file system operations using Mustermann patterns.
• mustermann-strscan: A version of Ruby's StringScanner made for pattern objects.
• mustermann-visualizer: Syntax highlighting and tree visualization for patterns.
• A selection of pattern types for mustermann, each as their own little library, see below.

Welcome to Mustermann. Mustermann is your personal string matching expert. As an expert in the field of strings and patterns, Mustermann keeps its runtime dependencies to a minimum and is fully covered with specs and documentation.

Given a string pattern, Mustermann will turn it into an object that behaves like a regular expression and has comparable performance characteristics.

if '/foo/bar' =~ Mustermann.new('/foo/*')
  puts 'it works!'
end

case 'something.png'
when Mustermann.new('foo/*') then puts "prefixed with foo"
when Mustermann.new('*.pdf') then puts "it's a PDF"
when Mustermann.new('*.png') then puts "it's an image"
end

pattern = Mustermann.new('/:prefix/*.*')
pattern.params('/a/b.c') # => { "prefix" => "a", splat => ["b", "c"] }

• Pattern Types: Mustermann supports a wide variety of different pattern types, making it compatible with a large variety of existing software.
• Fine Grained Control: You can easily adjust matching behavior and add constraints to the placeholders and capture groups.
• Binary Operators: Patterns can be combined into composite patterns using binary operators.
• Regexp Look Alike: Mustermann patterns can be used as a replacement for regular expressions.
• Parameter Parsing: Mustermann can parse matched parameters into a Sinatra-style "params" hash, including type casting.
• Peeking: Lets you check if the beginning of a string matches a pattern.
• Expanding: Besides parsing a parameters from an input string, a pattern object can also be used to generate a string from a set of parameters.
• Generating Templates: This comes in handy when wanting to hand on patterns rather than fully expanded strings as part of an external API.
• Proc Look Alike: Pass on a pattern instead of a block.
• Duck Typing: You can create your own pattern-like objects by implementing to_pattern.
• Performance: Patterns are implemented with both performance and a low memory footprint in mind.

These features are included in the library, but not loaded by default

• String Scanner: It comes with a version of Ruby's StringScanner made for pattern objects.
• Mapper: A simple tool for mapping one string to another based on patterns.
• Routers: Model execution flow based on pattern matching. Comes with a simple Rack router.
• Sinatra Integration: Mustermann can be used as a Sinatra extension. Sinatra 2.0 and beyond will use Mustermann by default.

• Requirements: Mustermann currently requires Ruby 2.0 or later.
• Release History: See what's new.

Mustermann support multiple pattern types. A pattern type defines the syntax, matching semantics and whether certain features, like expanding and generating templates, are available.

You can create a pattern of a certain type by passing type option to Mustermann.new:

require 'mustermann'
pattern = Mustermann.new('/*/**', type: :shell)

Note that this will use the type as suggestion: When passing in a string argument, it will create a pattern of the given type, but it might choose a different type for other objects (a regular expression argument will always result in a regexp pattern, a symbol always in a sinatra pattern, etc).

Alternatively, you can also load and instantiate the pattern type directly:

require 'mustermann/shell'
pattern = Mustermann::Shell.new('/*/**')

<tr>
  <th><a href="#-pattern-details-cake"><tt>cake</tt></a></th>
  <td><tt>/:prefix/**</tt></td>
  <td><a href="http://cakephp.org/">CakePHP</a></td>
  <td></td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <th><a href="#-pattern-details-express"><tt>express</tt></a></th>
  <td><tt>/:prefix+/:id(\d+)</tt></td>
  <td>
    <a href="http://expressjs.com/">Express</a>,
    <a href="https://pillarjs.github.io/">pillar.js</a>
  </td>
  <td></td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <th><a href="#-pattern-details-flask"><tt>flask</tt></a></th>
  <td><tt>/&lt;prefix&gt;/&lt;int:id&gt;</tt></td>
  <td>
    <a href="http://flask.pocoo.org/">Flask</a>,
    <a href="http://werkzeug.pocoo.org/">Werkzeug</a>,
    <a href="http://bottlepy.org/docs/dev/index.html">Bottle</a>
  </td>
  <td></td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <th><a href="#-pattern-details-identity"><tt>identity</tt></a></th>
  <td><tt>/image.png</tt></td>
  <td>any software using strings</td>
  <td>
    Exact string matching (no parameter parsing).
  </td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <th><a href="#-pattern-details-pyramid"><tt>pyramid</tt></a></th>
  <td><tt>/{prefix:.*}/{id}</tt></td>
  <td>
    <a href="http://www.pylonsproject.org/projects/pyramid/about">Pyramid</a>,
    <a href="http://www.pylonsproject.org/projects/pylons-framework/about">Pylons</a>
  </td>
  <td></td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <th><a href="#-pattern-details-rails"><tt>rails</tt></a></th>
  <td><tt>/:slug(.:ext)</tt></td>
  <td>
    <a href="http://rubyonrails.org/">Ruby on Rails</a>,
    <a href="https://github.com/joshbuddy/http_router">HTTP Router</a>,
    <a href="http://lotusrb.org/">Lotus</a>,
    <a href="http://www.scalatra.org/">Scalatra</a> (if <a href="http://www.scalatra.org/2.3/guides/http/routes.html#toc_248">configured</a>)</td>
  <td></td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <th><a href="#-pattern-details-regexp"><tt>regexp</tt></a></th>
  <td><tt>/(?&lt;slug&gt;[^\/]+)</tt></td>
  <td>
    <a href="http://www.geocities.jp/kosako3/oniguruma/">Oniguruma</a>,
    <a href="https://github.com/k-takata/Onigmo">Onigmo<a>,
    regular expressions
  </td>
  <td>
    Created when you pass a regexp to <tt>Mustermann.new</tt>.<br>
    Does not support expanding or generating templates.
  </td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <th><a href="#-pattern-details-shell"><tt>shell</tt></a></th>
  <td><tt>/*.{png,jpg}</tt></td>
  <td>Unix Shell (bash, zsh)</td>
  <td>Does not support expanding or generating templates.</td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <th><a href="#-pattern-details-simple"><tt>simple</tt></a></th>
  <td><tt>/:slug.:ext</tt></td>
  <td>
    <a href="http://www.sinatrarb.com/">Sinatra</a> (1.x),
    <a href="http://www.scalatra.org/">Scalatra</a>,
    <a href="http://perldancer.org/">Dancer</a>
  </td>
  <td>
    Implementation is a direct copy from Sinatra 1.3.<br>
    Does not support expanding or generating templates.
  </td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <th><a href="#-pattern-details-sinatra"><tt>sinatra</tt></a></th>
  <td><tt>/:slug(.:ext)?</tt></td>
  <td>
    <a href="http://www.sinatrarb.com/">Sinatra</a> (2.x),
    <a href="http://www.padrinorb.com/">Padrino</a> (>= 0.13.0),
    <a href="https://github.com/namusyaka/pendragon">Pendragon</a>,
    <a href="https://github.com/kenichi/angelo">Angelo</a>
  </td>
  <td>
    <u>This is the default</u> and the only type "invented here".<br>
    It is a superset of <tt>simple</tt> and has a common subset with
    <tt>template</tt> (and others).
  </td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <th><a href="#-pattern-details-sinatra"><tt>template</tt></a></th>
  <td><tt>/{+pre}/{page}{?q}</tt></td>
  <td>
    <a href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6570">RFC 6570</a>,
    <a href="http://jsonapi.org/">JSON API</a>,
    <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-nottingham-json-home-02">JSON Home Documents</a>
    and <a href="https://code.google.com/p/uri-templates/wiki/Implementations">many more</a>
  </td>
  <td>Standardized URI templates, can be <a href="#-generating-templates">generated</a> from most other types.</td>
</tr>

Any software using Mustermann is obviously compatible with at least one of the above.

Short answer: Why not?

You are probably concerned about one of these issues:

• Code base complexity: Most of these pattern implementations are very short and simple. The cake definition is two lines long, the rails implementation four lines.
• Memory cost: If you don't explicitly load one of these implementations and don't create any patterns of that type, the implementation itself will not be loaded. The only memory it uses it one more entry in the list of available pattern types.

Patterns can be combined via binary operators. These are:

• | (or): Resulting pattern matches if at least one of the input pattern matches.
• & (and): Resulting pattern matches if all input patterns match.
• ^ (xor): Resulting pattern matches if exactly one of the input pattern matches.

require 'mustermann'

first  = Mustermann.new('/foo/:input')
second = Mustermann.new('/:input/bar')

first | second === "/foo/foo" # => true
first | second === "/foo/bar" # => true

first & second === "/foo/foo" # => false
first & second === "/foo/bar" # => true

first ^ second === "/foo/foo" # => true
first ^ second === "/foo/bar" # => false

These resulting objects are fully functional pattern objects, allowing you to call methods like params or to_proc on them. Moreover, or patterns created solely from expandable patterns will also be expandable. The same logic also applies to generating templates from or patterns.

Pattern objects mimic Ruby's Regexp class by implementing match, =~, ===, names and named_captures.

require 'mustermann'

pattern = Mustermann.new('/:page')
pattern.match('/')     # => nil
pattern.match('/home') # => #<MatchData "/home" page:"home">
pattern =~ '/home'     # => 0
pattern === '/home'    # => true (this allows using it in case statements)
pattern.names          # => ['page']
pattern.names          # => {"page"=>[1]}

pattern = Mustermann.new('/home', type: :identity)
pattern.match('/')     # => nil
pattern.match('/home') # => #<Mustermann::SimpleMatch "/home">
pattern =~ '/home'     # => 0
pattern === '/home'    # => true (this allows using it in case statements)
pattern.names          # => []
pattern.names          # => {}

Moreover, patterns based on regular expressions (all but identity and shell) automatically convert to regular expressions when needed:

require 'mustermann'

pattern = Mustermann.new('/:page')
union   = Regexp.union(pattern, /^$/)

union =~ "/foo" # => 0
union =~ ""     # => 0

Regexp.try_convert(pattern) # => /.../

This way, unless some code explicitly checks the class for a regular expression, you should be able to pass in a pattern object instead even if the code in question was not written with Mustermann in mind.

Besides being a Regexp look-alike, Mustermann also adds a params method, that will give you a Sinatra-style hash:

require 'mustermann'

pattern = Mustermann.new('/:prefix/*.*')
pattern.params('/a/b.c') # => { "prefix" => "a", splat => ["b", "c"] }

For patterns with typed captures, it will also automatically convert them:

require 'mustermann'

pattern = Mustermann.new('/<prefix>/<int:id>', type: :flask)
pattern.params('/page/10') # => { "prefix" => "page", "id" => 10 }

Peeking gives the option to match a pattern against the beginning of a string rather the full string. Patterns come with four methods for peeking:

• peek returns the matching substring.
• peek_size returns the number of characters matching.
• peek_match will return a MatchData or Mustermann::SimpleMatch (just like match does for the full string)
• peek_params will return the params hash parsed from the substring and the number of characters.

All of the above will turn nil if there was no match.

require 'mustermann'

pattern = Mustermann.new('/:prefix')
pattern.peek('/foo/bar')      # => '/foo'
pattern.peek_size('/foo/bar') # => 4

path_info    = '/foo/bar'
params, size = patter.peek_params(path_info)  # params == { "prefix" => "foo" }
rest         = path_info[size..-1]            # => "/bar"

Similarly to parsing, it is also possible to generate a string from a pattern by expanding it with a hash. For simple expansions, you can use Pattern#expand.

pattern = Mustermann.new('/:file(.:ext)?')
pattern.expand(file: 'pony')             # => "/pony"
pattern.expand(file: 'pony', ext: 'jpg') # => "/pony.jpg"
pattern.expand(ext: 'jpg')               # raises Mustermann::ExpandError

Expanding can be useful for instance when implementing link helpers.

To get fine-grained control over expansion, you can use Mustermann::Expander directly.

You can create an expander object directly from a string:

require 'mustermann/expander'
expander = Mustermann::Expander("/:file.jpg")
expander.expand(file: 'pony') # => "/pony.jpg"

expander = Mustermann::Expander(":file(.:ext)", type: :rails)
expander.expand(file: 'pony', ext: 'jpg') # => "/pony.jpg"

Or you can pass it a pattern instance:

require 'mustermann'
pattern = Mustermann.new("/:file")

require 'mustermann/expander'
expander = Mustermann::Expander.new(pattern)

You can add patterns to an expander object via <<:

require 'mustermann'

expander = Mustermann::Expander.new
expander << "/users/:user_id"
expander << "/pages/:page_id"

expander.expand(user_id: 15) # => "/users/15"
expander.expand(page_id: 58) # => "/pages/58"

You can set pattern options when creating the expander:

require 'mustermann'

expander = Mustermann::Expander.new(type: :template)
expander << "/users/{user_id}"
expander << "/pages/{page_id}"

Additionally, it is possible to combine patterns of different types:

require 'mustermann'

expander = Mustermann::Expander.new
expander << Mustermann.new("/users/{user_id}", type: :template)
expander << Mustermann.new("/pages/:page_id",  type: :rails)

The handling of additional values passed in to expand can be changed by setting the additional_values option:

require 'mustermann'

expander = Mustermann::Expander.new("/:slug", additional_values: :raise)
expander.expand(slug: "foo", value: "bar") # raises Mustermann::ExpandError

expander = Mustermann::Expander.new("/:slug", additional_values: :ignore)
expander.expand(slug: "foo", value: "bar") # => "/foo"

expander = Mustermann::Expander.new("/:slug", additional_values: :append)
expander.expand(slug: "foo", value: "bar") # => "/foo?value=bar"

It is also possible to pass this directly to the expand call:

require 'mustermann'

pattern = Mustermann.new('/:slug')
pattern.expan(:append, slug: "foo", value: "bar") # => "/foo?value=bar"

... TODO ...

Patterns implement to_proc:

require 'mustermann'
pattern  = Mustermann.new('/foo')
callback = pattern.to_proc # => #<Proc>

callback.call('/foo') # => true
callback.call('/bar') # => false

They can therefore be easily passed to methods expecting a block:

require 'mustermann'

list    = ["foo", "example@email.com", "bar"]
pattern = Mustermann.new(":name@:domain.:tld")
email   = list.detect(&pattern) # => "example@email.com"

... TODO ...

You can use a mapper to transform strings according to two or more mappings:

require 'mustermann/mapper'

mapper = Mustermann::Mapper.new("/:page(.:format)?" => ["/:page/view.:format", "/:page/view.html"])
mapper['/foo']     # => "/foo/view.html"
mapper['/foo.xml'] # => "/foo/view.xml"
mapper['/foo/bar'] # => "/foo/bar"

Mustermann comes with basic router implementations that will call certain callbacks depending on the input.

The simple router chooses callbacks based on an input string.

require 'mustermann/router/simple'

router = Mustermann::Router::Simple.new(default: 42)
router.on(':name', capture: :digit) { |string| string.to_i }
router.call("23")      # => 23
router.call("example") # => 42

This is not a full replacement for Rails, Sinatra, Cuba, etc, as it only cares about path based routing.

require 'mustermann/router/rack'

router = Mustermann::Router::Rack.new do
  on '/' do |env|
    [200, {'Content-Type' => 'text/plain'}, ['Hello World!']]
  end

  on '/:name' do |env|
    name = env['mustermann.params']['name']
    [200, {'Content-Type' => 'text/plain'}, ["Hello #{name}!"]]
  end

  on '/something/*', call: SomeApp
end

# in a config.ru
run router

All patterns implement match, which means they can be dropped into Sinatra and other Rack routers:

require 'sinatra'
require 'mustermann'

get Mustermann.new('/:foo') do
  params[:foo]
end

In fact, since using this with Sinatra is the main use case, it comes with a build-in extension for Sinatra 1.x.

require 'sinatra'
require 'mustermann'

register Mustermann

# this will use Mustermann rather than the built-in pattern matching
get '/:slug(.ext)?' do
  params[:slug]
end

You can change what pattern type you want to use for your app via the pattern option:

require 'sinatra/base'
require 'mustermann'

class MyApp < Sinatra::Base
  register Mustermann
  set :pattern, type: :shell

  get '/images/*.png' do
    send_file request.path_info
  end

  get '/index{.htm,.html,}' do
    erb :index
  end
end

You can use the same setting for options:

require 'sinatra'
require 'mustermann'

register Mustermann
set :pattern, capture: { ext: %w[png jpg html txt] }

get '/:slug(.:ext)?' do
  # slug will be 'foo' for '/foo.png'
  # slug will be 'foo.bar' for '/foo.bar'
  # slug will be 'foo.bar' for '/foo.bar.html'
  params[:slug]
end

It is also possible to pass in options to a specific route:

require 'sinatra'
require 'mustermann'

register Mustermann

get '/:slug(.:ext)?', pattern: { greedy: false } do
  # slug will be 'foo' for '/foo.png'
  # slug will be 'foo' for '/foo.bar'
  # slug will be 'foo' for '/foo.bar.html'
  params[:slug]
end

Of course, all of the above can be combined. Moreover, the capture and the except option can be passed to route directly. And yes, this also works with before and after filters.

require 'sinatra/base'
require 'sinatra/respond_with'
require 'mustermann'

class MyApp < Sinatra::Base
  register Mustermann, Sinatra::RespondWith
  set :pattern, capture: { id: /\d+/ } # id will only match digits

  # only capture extensions known to Rack
  before '*:ext', capture: Rack::Mime::MIME_TYPES.keys do
    content_type params[:ext]                 # set Content-Type
    request.path_info = params[:splat].first  # drop the extension
  end

  get '/:id' do
    not_found unless page = Page.find params[:id]
    respond_with(page)
  end
end

• It gives you fine grained control over the pattern matching
• Allows you to use different pattern styles in your app
• The default is more robust and powerful than the built-in patterns
• Sinatra 2.0 will use Mustermann internally
• Better exceptions for broken route syntax

• It would introduce breaking changes, even though these would be minor
• Like Sinatra 2.0, Mustermann requires Ruby 2.0 or newer

All methods converting string input to pattern objects will also accept any arbitrary object that implements to_pattern:

require 'mustermann'

class MyObject
  def to_pattern(**options)
    Mustermann.new("/foo", **options)
  end
end

object = MyObject.new
Mustermann.new(object, type: :rails) # => #<Mustermann::Rails:"/foo">

It might also be that you want to call to_pattern yourself instead of Mustermann.new. You can load mustermann/to_pattern to implement this method for strings, regular expressions and pattern objects:

require 'mustermann/to_pattern'

"/foo".to_pattern               # => #<Mustermann::Sinatra:"/foo">
"/foo".to_pattern(type: :rails) # => #<Mustermann::Rails:"/foo">
%r{/foo}.to_pattern             # => #<Mustermann::Regular:"\\/foo">
"/foo".to_pattern.to_pattern    # => #<Mustermann::Sinatra:"/foo">

You can also use the Mustermann::ToPattern mixin to easily add to_pattern to your own objects:

require 'mustermann/to_pattern'

class MyObject
  include Mustermann::ToPattern

  def to_s
    "/foo"
  end
end

MyObject.new.to_pattern # => #<Mustermann::Sinatra:"/foo">

You can and should use respond_to? to check if a pattern supports certain features.

require 'mustermann'
pattern = Mustermann.new("/")

puts "supports expanding"             if pattern.respond_to? :expand
puts "supports generating templates"  if pattern.respond_to? :to_templates

Alternatively, you can handle a NotImplementedError raised from such a method.

require 'mustermann'
pattern = Mustermann.new("/")

begin
  p pattern.to_templates
rescue NotImplementedError
  puts "does not support generating templates"
end

This behavior corresponds to what Ruby does, for instance for fork.

Supported by: All types except identity, shell and simple patterns.

Most pattern types support changing the strings named captures will match via the capture options.

Possible values for a capture:

# String: Matches the given string (or any URI encoded version of it)
Mustermann.new('/index.:ext', capture: 'png')

# Regexp: Matches the Regular expression
Mustermann.new('/:id', capture: /\d+/)

# Symbol: Matches POSIX character class
Mustermann.new('/:id', capture: :digit)

# Array of the above: Matches anything in the array
Mustermann.new('/:id_or_slug', capture: [/\d+/, :word])

# Hash of the above: Looks up the hash entry by capture name and uses value for matching
Mustermann.new('/:id.:ext', capture: { id: /\d+/, ext: ['png', 'jpg'] })

Available POSIX character classes are: :alnum, :alpha, :blank, :cntrl, :digit, :graph, :lower, :print, :punct, :space, :upper, :xdigit, :word and :ascii.

Supported by: All types except identity, shell and simple patterns.

Given you supply a second pattern via the except option. Any string that would match the primary pattern but also matches the except pattern will not result in a successful match. Feel free to read that again. Or just take a look at this example:

pattern = Mustermann.new('/auth/*', except: '/auth/login')
pattern === '/auth/dunno' # => true
pattern === '/auth/login' # => false

Now, as said above, except treats the value as a pattern:

pattern = Mustermann.new('/*anything', type: :rails, except: '/*anything.png')
pattern === '/foo.jpg' # => true
pattern === '/foo.png' # => false

Supported by: All types except identity and shell patterns. Default value: true

Simple patterns are greedy, meaning that for the pattern :foo:bar?, everything will be captured as foo, bar will always be nil. By setting greedy to false, foo will capture as little as possible (which in this case would only be the first letter), leaving the rest to bar.

All other supported patterns are semi-greedy. This means :foo(.:bar)? (:foo(.:bar) for Rails patterns) will capture everything before the last dot as foo. For these two pattern types, you can switch into non-greedy mode by setting the greedy option to false. In that case foo will only capture the part before the first dot.

Semi-greedy behavior is not specific to dots, it works with all characters or strings. For instance, :a(foo:b) will capture everything before the last foo as a, and :foo(bar)? will not capture a bar at the end.

pattern = Mustermann.new(':a.:b', greedy: true)
pattern.match('a.b.c.d') # => #<MatchData a:"a.b.c" b:"d">

pattern = Mustermann.new(':a.:b', greedy: false)
pattern.match('a.b.c.d') # => #<MatchData a:"a" b:"b.c.d">

Supported by: All types except identity, regexp and shell patterns. Default value: true

Most pattern types will by default also match a plus sign for a space in the pattern:

Mustermann.new('a b') === 'a+b' # => true

You can disable this behavior via space_matches_plus:

Mustermann.new('a b', space_matches_plus: false) === 'a+b' # => false

Important: This setting has no effect on captures, captures will always keep plus signs as plus sings and spaces as spaces:

pattern = Mustermann.new(':x')
pattern.match('a b')[:x] # => 'a b'
pattern.match('a+b')[:x] # => 'a+b'

Supported by all pattern types. Default value: true

Usually, characters in the pattern will also match the URI encoded version of these characters:

Mustermann.new('a b') === 'a b'   # => true
Mustermann.new('a b') === 'a%20b' # => true

You can avoid this by setting uri_decode to false:

Mustermann.new('a b', uri_decode: false) === 'a b'   # => true
Mustermann.new('a b', uri_decode: false) === 'a%20b' # => false

Supported by flask patterns. Default value: {}

Flask patterns support registering custom converters.

A converter object may implement any of the following methods:

• convert: Should return a block converting a string value to whatever value should end up in the params hash.
• constraint: Should return a regular expression limiting which input string will match the capture.
• new: Returns an object that may respond to convert and/or constraint as described above. Any arguments used for the converter inside the pattern will be passed to new.

require 'mustermann'

SimpleConverter = Struct.new(:constraint, :convert)
id_converter    = SimpleConverter.new(/\d/, -> s { s.to_i })

class NumConverter
  def initialize(base: 10)
    @base = Integer(base)
  end

  def convert
    -> s { s.to_i(@base) }
  end

  def constraint
    @base > 10 ? /[\da-#{(@base-1).to_s(@base)}]/ : /[0-#{@base-1}]/
  end
end

pattern = Mustermann.new('/<id:id>/<num(base=8):oct>/<num(base=16):hex>',
  type: :flask, converters: { id: id_converter, num: NumConverter})

pattern.params('/10/12/f1') # => {"id"=>10, "oct"=>10, "hex"=>241}

Supported by all patterns. Default value: false

If you pass an option in that is not supported by the specific pattern type, Mustermann will raise an ArgumentError. By setting ignore_unknown_options to true, it will happily ignore the option.

It's generally a good idea to reuse pattern objects, since as much computation as possible is happening during object creation, so that the actual matching or expanding is quite fast.

Pattern objects should be treated as immutable. Their internals have been designed for both performance and low memory usage. To reduce pattern compilation, Mustermann.new and Mustermann::Pattern.new might return the same instance when given the same arguments, if that instance has not yet been garbage collected. However, this is not guaranteed, so do not rely on object identity.

When using a pattern instead of a regular expression for string matching, performance will usually be comparable.

In certain cases, Mustermann might outperform naive, equivalent regular expressions. It achieves this by using look-ahead and atomic groups in ways that work well with a backtracking, NFA-based regular expression engine (such as the Oniguruma/Onigmo engine used by Ruby). It can be difficult and error prone to construct complex regular expressions using these techniques by hand. This only applies to patterns generating an AST internally (all but identity, shell, simple and regexp patterns).

When using a Mustermann pattern as a direct Regexp replacement (ie, via methods like =~, match or ===), the overhead will be a single method dispatch, which some Ruby implementations might even eliminate with method inlining. This only applies to patterns using a regular expression internally (all but identity and shell patterns).

Pattern expansion significantly outperforms other, widely used Ruby tools for generating URLs from URL patterns in most use cases.

This comes with a few trade-offs:

• As with pattern compilation, as much computation as possible has been shifted to compiling expansion rules. This will add compilation overhead, which is why patterns only generate these rules on the first invocation to Mustermann::Pattern#expand. Create a Mustermann::Expander instance yourself to get better control over the point in time this computation should happen.
• Memory is sacrificed in favor of performance: The size of the expander object will grow linear with the number of possible combination for expansion keys ("/:foo/:bar" has one such combination, but "/(:foo/)?:bar?" has four)
• Parsing a params hash from a string generated from another params hash might not result in two identical hashes, and vice versa. Specifically, expanding ignores capture constraints, type casting and greediness.
• Partial expansion is (currently) not supported.

Supported options: capture, except, greedy, space_matches_plus, uri_decode, ignore_unknown_options.

External documentation: CakePHP 2.0 Routing, CakePHP 3.0 Routing

Supported options: capture, except, greedy, space_matches_plus, uri_decode, ignore_unknown_options.

External documentation: path-to-regexp, live demo

Supported options: capture, except, greedy, space_matches_plus, uri_decode, converters, ignore_unknown_options.

External documentation: Werkzeug: URL Routing

Supported options: uri_decode, ignore_unknown_options.

Supported options: capture, except, greedy, space_matches_plus, uri_decode, ignore_unknown_options.

Supported options: capture, except, greedy, space_matches_plus, uri_decode, ignore_unknown_options.

Supported options: capture, except, greedy, space_matches_plus, uri_decode, ignore_unknown_options.

Supported options: uri_decode, ignore_unknown_options.

Supported options: uri_decode, ignore_unknown_options.

Supported options: greedy, space_matches_plus, uri_decode, ignore_unknown_options.

Supported options: capture, except, greedy, space_matches_plus, uri_decode, ignore_unknown_options.

Supported options: capture, except, greedy, space_matches_plus, uri_decode, ignore_unknown_options.

The operators + and # will always match non-greedy, whereas all other operators match semi-greedy by default. All modifiers and operators are supported. However, it does not parse lists as single values without the explode modifier (aka star). Parametric operators (;, ? and &) currently only match parameters in given order.

Please keep the following in mind:

"Some URI Templates can be used in reverse for the purpose of variable matching: comparing the template to a fully formed URI in order to extract the variable parts from that URI and assign them to the named variables. Variable matching only works well if the template expressions are delimited by the beginning or end of the URI or by characters that cannot be part of the expansion, such as reserved characters surrounding a simple string expression. In general, regular expression languages are better suited for variable matching." — RFC 6570, Sec 1.5: "Limitations"

Note that it differs from URI templates in that it takes the unescaped version of special character instead of the escaped version.

If you reuse the exact same templates and expose them via an external API meant for expansion, you should set uri_decode to false in order to conform with the specification.

If you are looking for an alternative implementation that also supports expanding, check out addressable.

Mustermann depends on tool (which has been extracted from Mustermann and Sinatra 2.0), and a Ruby 2.0 compatible Ruby implementation.

It is known to work on MRI 2.0 and 2.1.

JRuby is not yet fully supported. It is possible to run parts of Mustermann by passing in --2.0 -X-C, but as of JRuby 1.7, we would recommend waiting for proper Ruby 2.0 support to land in JRuby. The same goes for Rubinius.

If you need Ruby 1.9 support, you might be able to use the unofficial mustermann19 gem based on namusyaka's fork.

Mustermann follows Semantic Versioning 2.0. Anything documented in the README or via YARD and not declared private is part of the public API.

There have been no stable releases yet. The code base is considered solid but I only know of a small number of actual production usage. As there has been no stable release yet, the API might still change, though I consider this unlikely.

• Mustermann 0.3.1 (2014-09-12)
  • More Infos: RubyGems.org, RubyDoc.info, GitHub.com
  • Speed up pattern generation and matching (thanks Daniel Mendler)
  • Small change so Mustermann === Mustermann.new('...') returns true.
• Mustermann 0.3.0 (2014-08-18)
  • More Infos: RubyGems.org, RubyDoc.info, GitHub.com
  • Add regexp pattern.
  • Add named splats to Sinatra patterns.
  • Add Mustermann::Mapper.
  • Improve duck typing support.
  • Improve documentation.
• Mustermann 0.2.0 (2013-08-24)
  • More Infos: RubyGems.org, RubyDoc.info, GitHub.com
  • Add first class expander objects.
  • Add params casting for expander.
  • Add simple router and rack router.
  • Add weak equality map to significantly improve performance.
  • Fix Ruby warnings.
  • Improve documentation.
  • Refactor pattern validation, AST transformations.
  • Increase test coverage (from 100%+ to 100%++).
  • Improve JRuby compatibility.
  • Work around bug in 2.0.0-p0.
• Mustermann 0.1.0 (2013-05-12)
  • More Infos: RubyGems.org, RubyDoc.info, GitHub.com
  • Add Pattern#expand for generating strings from patterns.
  • Add better internal API for working with the AST.
  • Improved documentation.
  • Avoids parsing the path twice when used as Sinatra extension.
  • Better exceptions for unknown pattern types.
  • Better handling of edge cases around extend.
  • More specs to ensure API stability.
  • Largely rework internals of Sinatra, Rails and Template patterns.
• Mustermann 0.0.1 (2013-04-27)
  • More Infos: RubyGems.org, RubyDoc.info, GitHub.com
  • Initial Release.

• Mustermann 0.4.0 (next release with new features)
  • Add Pattern#to_proc.
  • Add Pattern#|, Pattern#& and Pattern#^.
  • Add Pattern#peek, Pattern#peek_size, Pattern#peek_match and Pattern#peek_params.
  • Add Mustermann::StringScanner.
  • Add Pattern#to_templates.
  • Add | syntax to sinatra templates.
  • Add template style placeholders to sinatra templates.
  • Add cake, express, flask and pyramid patterns.
  • Allow passing in additional value behavior directly to Pattern#expand.
• Mustermann 1.0.0 (before Sinatra 2.0)
  • First stable release.