Issue 6868 - Enable capturing of surrounding wildcards for rewrite filters

lib/common.js

Index: lib/common.js
===================================================================
--- a/lib/common.js
+++ b/lib/common.js
@@ -27,42 +27,51 @@
   return text.replace(/[-/\\^$*+?.()|[\]{}]/g, "\\$&");
 }
 
 exports.textToRegExp = textToRegExp;
 
 /**
  * Converts filter text into regular expression string
  * @param {string} text as in Filter()
+ * @param {boolean} [optimize=true] whether to optimize the regular expression
  * @return {string} regular expression representation of filter text
  */
-function filterToRegExp(text)
+function filterToRegExp(text, optimize = true)
 {
+  if (optimize)
+  {
+    // remove multiple wildcards
+    text = text.replace(/\*+/g, "*");
+
+    // remove leading wildcard
+    if (text[0] == "*")
+      text = text.substring(1);
+
+    // remove trailing wildcard
+    if (text[text.length - 1] == "*")
+      text = text.substring(0, text.length - 1);
+  }
+
   return text
-    // remove multiple wildcards
-    .replace(/\*+/g, "*")
     // remove anchors following separator placeholder
     .replace(/\^\|$/, "^")
     // escape special symbols
     .replace(/\W/g, "\\$&")
     // replace wildcards by .*
     .replace(/\\\*/g, ".*")
     // process separator placeholders (all ANSI characters but alphanumeric
     // characters and _%.-)
     .replace(/\\\^/g, "(?:[\\x00-\\x24\\x26-\\x2C\\x2F\\x3A-\\x40\\x5B-\\x5E\\x60\\x7B-\\x7F]|$)")
     // process extended anchor at expression start
     .replace(/^\\\|\\\|/, "^[\\w\\-]+:\\/+(?!\\/)(?:[^\\/]+\\.)?")
     // process anchor at expression start
     .replace(/^\\\|/, "^")
     // process anchor at expression end
-    .replace(/\\\|$/, "$")
-    // remove leading wildcards
-    .replace(/^(\.\*)/, "")
-    // remove trailing wildcards
-    .replace(/(\.\*)$/, "");
+    .replace(/\\\|$/, "$");
 }
 
 exports.filterToRegExp = filterToRegExp;
 
 function splitSelector(selector)
 {
   if (!selector.includes(","))
     return [selector];