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doc: add "grep replacement" question to FAQ
I am tired of being throwing "but ripgrep is marketed as a grep replacement" in my face. Let's answer it once and for all.
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FAQ.md
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FAQ.md
@ -20,6 +20,7 @@
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* [How do I create an alias for ripgrep on Windows?](#rg-alias-windows)
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* [How do I create a PowerShell profile?](#powershell-profile)
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* [How do I pipe non-ASCII content to ripgrep on Windows?](#pipe-non-ascii-windows)
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* [Can ripgrep replace grep?](#posix4ever)
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<h3 name="config">
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@ -466,3 +467,66 @@ that the console will use for printing to UTF-8 with
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`[System.Console]::OutputEncoding = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8`. This
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will also reset when PowerShell is restarted, so you can add that line
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to your profile as well if you want to make the setting permanent.
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<h3 name="posix4ever">
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Can ripgrep replace grep?
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</h3>
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Yes and no.
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If, upon hearing that "ripgrep can replace grep," you *actually* hear, "ripgrep
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can be used in every instance grep can be used, in exactly the same way, for
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the same use cases, with exactly the same bug-for-bug behavior," then no,
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ripgrep trivially *cannot* replace grep. Moreover, ripgrep will *never* replace
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grep.
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If, upon hearing that "ripgrep can replace grep," you *actually* hear, "ripgrep
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can replace grep in some cases and not in other use cases," then yes, that is
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indeed true!
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Let's go over some of those use cases in favor of ripgrep. Some of these may
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not apply to you. That's OK. There may be other use cases not listed here that
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do apply to you. That's OK too.
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(For all claims related to performance in the following words, see my
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[blog post](https://blog.burntsushi.net/ripgrep/)
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introducing ripgrep.)
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* Are you frequently searching a repository of code? If so, ripgrep might be a
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good choice since there's likely a good chunk of your repository that you
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don't want to search. grep, can, of course, be made to filter files using
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recursive search, and if you don't mind writing out the requisite `--exclude`
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rules or writing wrapper scripts, then grep might be sufficient. (I'm not
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kidding, I myself did this with grep for almost a decade before writing
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ripgrep.) But if you instead enjoy having a search tool respect your
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`.gitignore`, then ripgrep might be perfect for you!
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* Are you frequently searching non-ASCII text that is UTF-8 encoded? One of
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ripgrep's key features is that it can handle Unicode features in your
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patterns in a way that tends to be faster than GNU grep. Unicode features
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in ripgrep are enabled by default; there is no need to configure your locale
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settings to use ripgrep properly because ripgrep doesn't respect your locale
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settings.
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* Do you need to search UTF-16 files and you don't want to bother explicitly
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transcoding them? Great. ripgrep does this for you automatically. No need
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to enable it.
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* Do you need to search a large directory of large files? ripgrep uses
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parallelism by default, which tends to make it faster than a standard
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`grep -r` search. However, if you're OK writing the occasional
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`find ./ -print0 | xargs -P8 -0 grep` command, then maybe grep is good
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enough.
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Here are some cases where you might *not* want to use ripgrep. The same caveats
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for the previous section apply.
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* Are you writing portable shell scripts intended to work in a variety of
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environments? Great, probably not a good idea to use ripgrep! ripgrep is has
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nowhere near the ubquity of grep, so if you do use ripgrep, you might need
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to futz with the installation process more than you would with grep.
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* Do you care about POSIX compatibility? If so, then you can't use ripgrep
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because it never was, isn't and never will be POSIX compatible.
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* Do you hate tools that try to do something smart? If so, ripgrep is all about
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being smart, so you might prefer to just stick with grep.
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* Is there a particular feature of grep you rely on that ripgrep either doesn't
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have or never will have? If the former, file a bug report, maybe ripgrep can
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do it! If the latter, well, then, just use grep.
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@ -85,9 +85,9 @@ increases the times to `2.640s` for ripgrep and `10.277s` for GNU grep.
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### Why should I use ripgrep?
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* It can replace both The Silver Searcher and GNU grep because it is generally
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faster than both. (N.B. It is not, strictly speaking, a "drop-in" replacement
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for both, but the feature sets are far more similar than different.)
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* It can replace many use cases served by both The Silver Searcher and GNU grep
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because it is generally faster than both. (See [the FAQ](FAQ.md#posix4ever)
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for more details on whether ripgrep can truly replace grep.)
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* Like The Silver Searcher, ripgrep defaults to recursive directory search
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and won't search files ignored by your `.gitignore` files. It also ignores
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hidden and binary files by default. ripgrep also implements full support
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