---
title: match & imatch
category: Expression Terms
---

The `match` expression performs a glob-style match against the basename of the
file, evaluating true if the match is successful.

```json
["match", "*.txt"]
```

You may optionally provide a third argument to change the scope of the match
from the basename to the wholename of the file.

```json
["match", "*.txt", "basename"]
["match", "dir/*.txt", "wholename"]
```

### Case sensitivity

`match` is case sensitive; for case insensitive matching use `imatch` instead;
it behaves identically to `match` except that the match is performed ignoring
case.

_Since 2.9.9._

On systems where the watched root is a case insensitive filesystem (this is the
common case for macOS and Windows), `match` is equivalent to `imatch`.

_Since 4.7._

You can override the case sensitivity of all name matching operations used in
the query by setting the `case_sensitive` field in your query.

## wildmatch

_Since 3.7._

The `match` expression has been enhanced as described below. The
[capability](capabilities.md) name associated with this enhanced functionality
is `wildmatch`.

If you want to recursively match all files under a directory, use the `**` glob
operator along with the `wholename` scope:

```json
["match", "src/**/*.java", "wholename"]
```

By default, paths whose names start with `.` are not included. To change this
behavior, you may optionally provide a fourth argument containing a dictionary
of flags:

```json
["match", "*.txt", "basename", {"includedotfiles": true}]
```

By default, backslashes in the pattern escape the next character, so `\*`
matches a literal `*` character. To change this behavior so backslashes are
treated literally, set the `noescape` flag to `true` in the flags dictionary.
(Note that `\\` is a literal `\` in JSON notation):

```json
["match", "*\\*.txt", "filename", {"noescape": true}]
```

matches `a\b.txt`.
