Glassthought

Rg Ripgrep

1 min read

Tutorial

ripgrep (commonly known as rg) is a fast command-line search tool that is very similar to grep, but with more features and better performance. Here’s a basic tutorial to get you started with using rg.

Installation

Installation

MacOS

brew install ripgrep

Linux

sudo apt-get install ripgrep

Windows

You can download the executable from the ripgrep GitHub releases page and add it to your PATH.

Basic Usage

The most basic usage of rg is to search for a pattern in files. For example, to search for the word “example” in the current directory and its subdirectories:

rg example

2. Search in a Specific File Type

To search for a pattern in files of a specific type, you can use the -t option. For example, to search for “example” only in Python files:

rg -t py example

3. Search in a Specific Directory

To search in a specific directory, you can specify the directory path after the search pattern:

rg example /path/to/directory

4. Ignoring Case

To ignore case sensitivity in your search, use the -i option:

rg -i example

5. Show Line Numbers

To show line numbers in the search results, use the -n option:

rg -n example

6. Search for Exact Matches

To search for an exact match (whole words), use the -w option:

rg -w example

7. Display Context Lines

To display lines of context around matches, you can use the -C, -B, or -A options.

  • -C: Both before and after
  • -B: Before
  • -A: After

For example, to show 3 lines of context before and after each match:

rg -C 3 example

8. Excluding Files or Directories

To exclude files or directories from the search, use the --exclude option:

rg --exclude "*.log" example

To exclude a directory:

rg --exclude-dir node_modules example

9. Using Regular Expressions

rg supports regular expressions by default. For example, to search for lines that start with “example”:

rg "^example"

10. Counting Matches

To count the number of matches, use the -c option:

rg -c example

Summary

Here’s a quick reference for the options covered:

rg [options] PATTERN [PATH]
  • -t <type>: Search only in files of a specific type.
  • -i: Ignore case.
  • -n: Show line numbers.
  • -w: Search for exact matches.
  • -C <num>: Show lines of context.
  • --exclude <pattern>: Exclude files matching the pattern.
  • --exclude-dir <dir>: Exclude directories matching the pattern.
  • -c: Count the number of matches.

Example Commands

  1. Search for “test” in Python files ignoring case:

    rg -t py -i test

  2. Search for “TODO” in the current directory and show line numbers:

    rg -n TODO

  3. Search for “error” in logs directory excluding .log files:

    rg --exclude "*.log" error logs/

  4. Search for lines starting with “function” in JavaScript files:

    rg -t js "^function"

Additional Resources

This should give you a solid start with using ripgrep. Feel free to ask if you have any specific questions or need more advanced examples!

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Example with Find: find, piped to rg, piped to fzf

Command to reproduce:

gt.sandbox.checkout.commit e631ea5 \
&& cd "${GT_SANDBOX_REPO}/dir-with-files" \
&& cmd.run.announce "touch first_file && find . -mmin -10 -type f -print0 | xargs -0 rg . | fzf"
find . -mmin -10 -type f -print0 | xargs -0 rg . --hidden --with-filename --line-number --follow | fzf
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Ripgrep Types

Example

rg --type kotlin "fun kotlinFunc"
rg --type sh "shell_func"

Default types defined:

Default Types

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Graph View