How to debug .npmignore?

Question

How can package files (these to be published) be listed to debug records in .npmignore?

I'm looking for something like equivalent of git ls-files for .gitignore.

The only way I have found so far is to pack the package and then list the archive which I find a bit clumsy:

npm pack
tar -tzf <package-id>.tgz

Answer 1

As Mike 'Pomax' Kamermans mentioned in comment the fact that .npmignore and .gitignore use the same syntax can be leveraged:

git ls-files -co --exclude-per-directory=.npmignore

The command above lists exactly files that are not npm-ignored according to .npmignore file. (On top of that npm automatically ignores some other entries like node_modules.)

Git ls-files command generally lists combinations of files in working directory and index.

• -c option says show cached files
• -o show 'other', i.e. untracked files
• --exclude-per-directory=.npmignore use .npmignore as name of files of ignore entries

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EDIT: Since the approach above has bunch of exceptions - files that will never or always included regardless of content of the .npmignore - I find it unreliable. Following command is heavyweight but reliable:

file_name=$(npm pack) && tar -ztf $file_name && rm $file_name

It packages the project, lists package files and at the end removes created package.