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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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Andrew Gallant 2018-02-12 17:54:12 -05:00
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64
FAQ.md
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@ -20,6 +20,7 @@
* [How do I create an alias for ripgrep on Windows?](#rg-alias-windows)
* [How do I create a PowerShell profile?](#powershell-profile)
* [How do I pipe non-ASCII content to ripgrep on Windows?](#pipe-non-ascii-windows)
* [Can ripgrep replace grep?](#posix4ever)
<h3 name="config">
@ -466,3 +467,66 @@ that the console will use for printing to UTF-8 with
`[System.Console]::OutputEncoding = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8`. This
will also reset when PowerShell is restarted, so you can add that line
to your profile as well if you want to make the setting permanent.
<h3 name="posix4ever">
Can ripgrep replace grep?
</h3>
Yes and no.
If, upon hearing that "ripgrep can replace grep," you *actually* hear, "ripgrep
can be used in every instance grep can be used, in exactly the same way, for
the same use cases, with exactly the same bug-for-bug behavior," then no,
ripgrep trivially *cannot* replace grep. Moreover, ripgrep will *never* replace
grep.
If, upon hearing that "ripgrep can replace grep," you *actually* hear, "ripgrep
can replace grep in some cases and not in other use cases," then yes, that is
indeed true!
Let's go over some of those use cases in favor of ripgrep. Some of these may
not apply to you. That's OK. There may be other use cases not listed here that
do apply to you. That's OK too.
(For all claims related to performance in the following words, see my
[blog post](https://blog.burntsushi.net/ripgrep/)
introducing ripgrep.)
* Are you frequently searching a repository of code? If so, ripgrep might be a
good choice since there's likely a good chunk of your repository that you
don't want to search. grep, can, of course, be made to filter files using
recursive search, and if you don't mind writing out the requisite `--exclude`
rules or writing wrapper scripts, then grep might be sufficient. (I'm not
kidding, I myself did this with grep for almost a decade before writing
ripgrep.) But if you instead enjoy having a search tool respect your
`.gitignore`, then ripgrep might be perfect for you!
* Are you frequently searching non-ASCII text that is UTF-8 encoded? One of
ripgrep's key features is that it can handle Unicode features in your
patterns in a way that tends to be faster than GNU grep. Unicode features
in ripgrep are enabled by default; there is no need to configure your locale
settings to use ripgrep properly because ripgrep doesn't respect your locale
settings.
* Do you need to search UTF-16 files and you don't want to bother explicitly
transcoding them? Great. ripgrep does this for you automatically. No need
to enable it.
* Do you need to search a large directory of large files? ripgrep uses
parallelism by default, which tends to make it faster than a standard
`grep -r` search. However, if you're OK writing the occasional
`find ./ -print0 | xargs -P8 -0 grep` command, then maybe grep is good
enough.
Here are some cases where you might *not* want to use ripgrep. The same caveats
for the previous section apply.
* Are you writing portable shell scripts intended to work in a variety of
environments? Great, probably not a good idea to use ripgrep! ripgrep is has
nowhere near the ubquity of grep, so if you do use ripgrep, you might need
to futz with the installation process more than you would with grep.
* Do you care about POSIX compatibility? If so, then you can't use ripgrep
because it never was, isn't and never will be POSIX compatible.
* Do you hate tools that try to do something smart? If so, ripgrep is all about
being smart, so you might prefer to just stick with grep.
* Is there a particular feature of grep you rely on that ripgrep either doesn't
have or never will have? If the former, file a bug report, maybe ripgrep can
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.
### Why should I use ripgrep?
* It can replace both The Silver Searcher and GNU grep because it is generally
faster than both. (N.B. It is not, strictly speaking, a "drop-in" replacement
for both, but the feature sets are far more similar than different.)
* It can replace many use cases served by both The Silver Searcher and GNU grep
because it is generally faster than both. (See [the FAQ](FAQ.md#posix4ever)
for more details on whether ripgrep can truly replace grep.)
* Like The Silver Searcher, ripgrep defaults to recursive directory search
and won't search files ignored by your `.gitignore` files. It also ignores
hidden and binary files by default. ripgrep also implements full support