Support '*' wildcards in --actions selectors as documented (#2224)

[ihistand]

Fixes #2224 — following up on #2224 (comment) ("Feel free to send a PR :)").

Problem

The --actions help text for run and compile says patterns "can include '*' wildcards", but matchPatterns in core/utils.ts does plain string equality only, so no wildcard pattern ever matches — dataform run --actions "*" reports No actions to run. even when the compiled graph has actions.

Fix

Wildcard patterns are compiled to an anchored RegExp:

• every non-* character matches literally (regex metacharacters are escaped, so . stays a literal dot);
• each * matches any run of characters (mrd* → /^mrd.*$/, *features* → /^.*features.*$/).

Scoping mirrors the existing exact-match branches: a pattern containing . matches against the fully-qualified action name; otherwise it matches against the unqualified last segment. Wildcard matches bypass the ambiguous-name error since selecting many actions is the intent. Exact (non-wildcard) selection behavior is completely unchanged.

Tests

Adds a matchPatterns suite to core/utils_test.ts (the function was previously untested) covering: exact unqualified/qualified selection, the ambiguity error, bare *, prefix and substring wildcards, qualified wildcards (schema.*), no-match returning empty, and the literal-dot escaping edge case.

Understood that GCP Dataform's hosted actions filter doesn't use this implementation — this change only brings the open-source CLI in line with its own documented behavior.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_0171FwKo8gRQQ35VoYDtSHNU

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[apilaskowski]

/gcbrun

[apilaskowski]

PTAL at following error: ERROR: /workspace/core/utils.ts:35:10 - Found non-literal argument to RegExp Constructor

[kolina]

Can you simplify this logic?

[ihistand]

Agreed, that was doing too much at once — escaping every metacharacter including *, then
un-escaping \* back into .*. You had to read both replaces together to see what it did.

Rewritten to split on the wildcards, escape the literal parts, and rejoin:

function globToRegExp(pattern: string): RegExp {
  const escapeLiteral = (literal: string) => literal.replace(/[.+?^${}()|[\]\\]/g, "\\$&");
  return new RegExp(`^${pattern.split("*").map(escapeLiteral).join(".*")}$`);
}

Behaviour is unchanged — the existing matchPatterns tests pass, and I diffed the two
implementations exhaustively over patterns covering every regex metacharacter plus ** and a**b.

[ihistand]

(note that this change isn't pushed yet, awaiting response)

[kolina]

sounds ok, but let's comment the choice of characters and why first replace is needed

[ihistand]

// Turns a selector pattern into an anchored RegExp in which "" is a wildcard and
// everything else is literal text, e.g. "mrd" -> /^mrd.$/ and
// "features" -> /^.features.$/.
//
// Splitting on "" first is what keeps the rest simple: every "" in a pattern is a
// wildcard by definition, so the pieces between them are pure literal text and can be
// escaped wholesale, then rejoined with ".".
//
// The escape is needed because an action name is not regex-safe. Names are
// dot-separated ("project.dataset.name"), and "." in a regex matches any character, so
// without escaping "schema." would also select "schemaXtable" — see the "literal dot"
// case in utils_test.ts. The set below is the usual list of JavaScript regex
// metacharacters with one deliberate omission: "", which is left out because the split
// above has already consumed every "*", so none can reach here. ("]" and "" carry
// backslashes for the character class's own syntax; "-" and "/" are not metacharacters
// outside a class and so need no escaping.)
function globToRegExp(pattern: string): RegExp {
const escapeLiteral = (literal: string) => literal.replace(/[.+?^${}()|[]\]/g, "\$&");
return new RegExp(^${pattern.split("*").map(escapeLiteral).join(".*")}$);
}

[kolina]

/gcbrun

[kolina]

Let's fix issues from #2234 (comment)

[kolina]

sounds ok, but let's comment the choice of characters and why first replace is needed

[apilaskowski]

/gcbrun

[kolina]

I don't have more comments, but #2234 (comment) still needs to be fixed