add --list-target-files option

The version of ESLint you are using.

5.7.0

The problem you want to solve.

I’m working on https://awesomecode.io, our users may not use eslint directly on their shell, we have a requirement to list target files so that our users can add ignore patterns properly.

Your take on the correct solution to problem.

We can add prefix DEBUG=eslint:linter to get target files, but it’s very slow and its output contains too many verbose text.

My solution is to add --list-target-files option, then it gets all target files without parsing files, so it’s super fast. Its output is straightforward, only lists the target filenames.

[not-an-aardvark]

Have you tried using the CLIEngine#resolveFileGlobPatterns API. That should cover all of the ESLint-specific logic for resolving glob patterns, and then you would be able to use a general-purpose tool for resolving glob patterns to get a list of files.

At the moment, I’m not strongly opposed to adding an option, but I’m also not convinced that an option would be necessary/generally useful.

[not-an-aardvark]

Hi, thanks for creating an issue.

If I’m understanding correctly, the problem you’re trying to solve is to figure out how ESLint resolves your globs and lints your files, for debugging purposes. It’s already somewhat possible to do this with the DEBUG environment variable. For example, if I run something like this:

DEBUG=eslint:linter eslint tools/

Then ESLint generates output like this:

Output

  eslint:linter Linting code for /path/to/tools/eslint-fuzzer.js (pass 1) +0ms
  eslint:linter Generating fixed text for /path/to/tools/eslint-fuzzer.js (pass 1) +189ms
  eslint:linter Linting code for /path/to/tools/fuzzer-runner.js (pass 1) +1ms
  eslint:linter Generating fixed text for /path/to/tools/fuzzer-runner.js (pass 1) +30ms
  eslint:linter Linting code for /path/to/tools/internal-rules/consistent-docs-description.js (pass 1) +1ms
  eslint:linter Generating fixed text for /path/to/tools/internal-rules/consistent-docs-description.js (pass 1) +66ms
  eslint:linter Linting code for /path/to/tools/internal-rules/consistent-docs-url.js (pass 1) +1ms
  eslint:linter Generating fixed text for /path/to/tools/internal-rules/consistent-docs-url.js (pass 1) +36ms
  eslint:linter Linting code for /path/to/tools/internal-rules/consistent-meta-messages.js (pass 1) +0ms
  eslint:linter Generating fixed text for /path/to/tools/internal-rules/consistent-meta-messages.js (pass 1) +29ms
  eslint:linter Linting code for /path/to/tools/internal-rules/multiline-comment-style.js (pass 1) +0ms
  eslint:linter Generating fixed text for /path/to/tools/internal-rules/multiline-comment-style.js (pass 1) +16ms
  eslint:linter Linting code for /path/to/tools/internal-rules/no-invalid-meta.js (pass 1) +1ms
  eslint:linter Generating fixed text for /path/to/tools/internal-rules/no-invalid-meta.js (pass 1) +50ms
  eslint:linter Linting code for /path/to/tools/internal-rules/no-useless-catch.js (pass 1) +1ms
  eslint:linter Generating fixed text for /path/to/tools/internal-rules/no-useless-catch.js (pass 1) +21ms
  eslint:linter Linting code for /path/to/tools/internal-testers/event-generator-tester.js (pass 1) +0ms
  eslint:linter Generating fixed text for /path/to/tools/internal-testers/event-generator-tester.js (pass 1) +17ms
  eslint:linter Linting code for /path/to/tools/internal-testers/test-parser.js (pass 1) +0ms
  eslint:linter Generating fixed text for /path/to/tools/internal-testers/test-parser.js (pass 1) +31ms
  eslint:linter Linting code for /path/to/tools/update-unicode-utils.js (pass 1) +1ms
  eslint:linter Generating fixed text for /path/to/tools/update-unicode-utils.js (pass 1) +21ms

In other words, I’m not sure adding a new command-line flag is necessary given that there’s already a way to do this. Does the ability above satisfy your use case?