SearchUp

SearchUp encapsulates an annoyingly common bit of code I keep writing for various projects (like Auster) -- recursively searching upward for a file or directory. We see this all the time in Ruby command-line tools, searching for a Gemfile or a Rakefile, and everybody implements it themselves. Nobody implements it the same way twice, either. So I decided to take my preferred implementation and gem it up.

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'search_up'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install search_up

You can get a good feel for this library through its test cases. The method signature, though, is as follows:

SearchUp.search(start_at, pattern, stop_at: nil, find_one: false, &predicate)

search returns either an Array of String (which may be empty) or a single String if find_one: true.

• start_at: The directory in which to start searching.
• pattern: Either a String (glob) or a Regexp against which to test directory entries.
• stop_at:: Optional parameter. If set, the search will stop after reaching this directory. Any entries found in this directory will be returned.
• find_one:: If true, returns only the first successful hit. Returns as a String rather than an array.
• &predicate: If a block (1-arity) is passed to this method, every file found by the pattern will be tested against it. Files for which this block returns false will be skipped.

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/eropple/search_up. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.