Pre-scan options

Quick reference

--ignore <pattern>

Ignore files matching <pattern>.

--include <pattern>

Include files matching <pattern>.

--facet <facet_pattern>

Here <facet_pattern> represents <facet>=<pattern>. Add the <facet> to files with a path matching <pattern>.

Sub-options:

  • --tallies-by-facet

--ignore <pattern>

In a scan, all files inside the directory specified as an input argument is scanned. But if there are some files which you don’t want to scan, the --ignore option can be used to do the same.

Example

scancode --ignore "*.java" samples samples.json

Here, ScanCode ignores files ending with .java, and continues with other files as usual.

More information on Glob Pattern Matching.

--include <pattern>

In a normal scan, all files inside the directory specified as an input argument is scanned. But if you want to run the scan on only some selective files, then --include option can be used to do the same.

Example

scancode --include "*.java" samples samples.json

Here, ScanCode selectively scans files that has names ending with .java, and ignores all other files. This is basically complementary in behavior to the --ignore option.

See also Glob Pattern Matching.

--classify

Sub-option

The options --license-clarity-score and --tallies-key-files are sub-options of --classify. --license-clarity-score and --tallies-key-files are Post-Scan Options.

Example

scancode -clpieu --json-pp sample_facet.json samples --classify

This option makes ScanCode further classify scanned files/directories, to determine whether they fall in these following categories

  • legal

  • readme

  • top-level

  • manifest

    A manifest file in computing is a file containing metadata for a group of accompanying files that are part of a set or coherent unit.

  • key-file

    A KEY file serves as a keystone element, containing essential information about a software package — such as its dependencies, versioning, licensing, and more. It often contains the primary-license or the overall license of the package, among other package metadata which are general or ecosystem specific.

As in, to the JSON object of each file scanned, these extra attributes are added.

{
  "is_legal": false,
  "is_manifest": false,
  "is_readme": true,
  "is_top_level": true,
  "is_key_file": true
}

--facet <facet>=<pattern>

Sub-option

The option --summary-by-facet is a sub-option of --facet. --summary-by-facet is a post-scan option.

Valid <facet> values are:

  • core,

  • dev,

  • tests,

  • docs,

  • data,

  • examples.

You can use the --facet option in the following manner

scancode -clpieu --json-pp sample_facet.json samples --facet dev="*.java" --facet dev="*.c"

This adds to the header object, the following attribute

"--facet": [
  "dev=*.java",
  "dev=*.c"
],

Here in this example, .java and .c files are marked as it belongs to facet dev.

As a result, .java file has the following attribute added

"facets": [
  "dev"
],

Note

All other files which are not dev are marked to be included in the facet core.

For each facet, the --facet option precedes the <facet>=<pattern> argument. For specifying multiple facets, this whole part is repeated, including the --facet option.

See Facets to learn more about what a facet is.

Glob Pattern Matching

All the pre-scan options use pattern matching, so the basics of Glob Pattern Matching is discussed briefly below.

Glob pattern matching is useful for matching a group of files, by using patterns in their names. Then using these patterns, files are grouped and treated differently as required.

Here are some rules from the Linux Manual on glob patterns. Refer the same for more detailed information.

A string is a wildcard pattern if it contains one of the characters ‘?’, ‘*’ or ‘[’. Globbing is the operation that expands a wildcard pattern into the list of pathnames matching the pattern. Matching is defined by:

  • A ‘?’ (not between brackets) matches any single character.

  • A ‘*’ (not between brackets) matches any string, including the empty string.

  • An expression “[…]” where the first character after the leading ‘[’ is not an ‘!’ matches a single character, namely any of the characters enclosed by the brackets.

  • There is one special convention: two characters separated by ‘-’ denote a range.

  • An expression “[!…]” matches a single character, namely any character that is not matched by the expression obtained by removing the first ‘!’ from it.

  • A ‘/’ in a pathname cannot be matched by a ‘?’ or ‘*’ wildcard, or by a range like “[.-0]”.

Note that wildcard patterns are not regular expressions, although they are a bit similar.

For more information on glob pattern matching refer these resources:

You can also import these Python Libraries to practice UNIX style pattern matching:

  • fnmatch for File Name matching

  • glob for File Path matching