ripgrep/doc/rg.1.md

NAME

rg - recursively search current directory for lines matching a pattern

SYNOPSIS

rg [options] PATTERN [path ...]

rg [options] [-e PATTERN ...] [-f FILE ...] [path ...]

rg [options] --files [path ...]

rg [options] --type-list

rg [options] --help

rg [options] --version

DESCRIPTION

ripgrep (rg) combines the usability of The Silver Searcher (an ack clone) with the raw speed of grep.

ripgrep's regex engine uses finite automata and guarantees linear time searching. Because of this, features like backreferences and arbitrary lookaround are not supported.

Note that ripgrep may abort unexpectedly when using default settings if it searches a file that is simultaneously truncated. This behavior can be avoided by passing the --no-mmap flag.

Project home page: https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep

COMMON OPTIONS

-a, --text

Search binary files as if they were text.

-c, --count

Only show count of line matches for each file.

--color WHEN

Whether to use color in the output. Valid values are never, auto, always or ansi. The default is auto. When always is used, coloring is attempted based on your environment. When ansi is used, coloring is forcefully done using ANSI escape color codes.

-e, --regexp PATTERN ...

Use PATTERN to search. This option can be provided multiple times, where all patterns given are searched. This is also useful when searching for patterns that start with a dash.

-F, --fixed-strings

Treat the pattern as a literal string instead of a regular expression.

-g, --glob GLOB ...

Include or exclude files for searching that match the given glob. This always overrides any other ignore logic if there is a conflict, but is otherwise applied in addition to ignore files (e.g., .gitignore or .ignore). Multiple glob flags may be used. Globbing rules match .gitignore globs. Precede a glob with a '!' to exclude it.

The --glob flag subsumes the functionality of both the --include and --exclude flags commonly found in other tools.

Values given to -g must be quoted or your shell will expand them and result in unexpected behavior.

Combine with the --files flag to return matched filenames (i.e., to replicate ack/ag's -g flag). For example:

  rg -g '*.foo' --files

-h, --help

Show this usage message.

-i, --ignore-case

Case insensitive search. Overridden by --case-sensitive.

-n, --line-number

Show line numbers (1-based). This is enabled by default at a tty.

-N, --no-line-number

Suppress line numbers.

-q, --quiet

Do not print anything to stdout. If a match is found in a file, stop searching that file.

-t, --type TYPE ...

Only search files matching TYPE. Multiple type flags may be provided. Use the --type-list flag to list all available types.

-T, --type-not TYPE ...

Do not search files matching TYPE. Multiple not-type flags may be provided.

-u, --unrestricted ...

Reduce the level of 'smart' searching. A single -u doesn't respect .gitignore (etc.) files. Two -u flags will search hidden files and directories. Three -u flags will search binary files. -uu is equivalent to grep -r, and -uuu is equivalent to grep -a -r.

Note that the -u flags are convenient aliases for other combinations of flags. -u aliases --no-ignore. -uu aliases --no-ignore --hidden. -uuu aliases --no-ignore --hidden --text.

-v, --invert-match

Invert matching.

-w, --word-regexp

Only show matches surrounded by word boundaries. This is equivalent to putting \b before and after the search pattern.

-x, --line-regexp

Only show matches surrounded by line boundaries. This is equivalent to putting ^...$ around the search pattern.

LESS COMMON OPTIONS

-A, --after-context NUM

Show NUM lines after each match.

-B, --before-context NUM

Show NUM lines before each match.

-C, --context NUM

Show NUM lines before and after each match.

--colors SPEC ...

This flag specifies color settings for use in the output. This flag may be provided multiple times. Settings are applied iteratively. Colors are limited to one of eight choices: red, blue, green, cyan, magenta, yellow, white and black. Styles are limited to nobold, bold, nointense or intense.

The format of the flag is {type}:{attribute}:{value}. {type} should be one of path, line, column or match. {attribute} can be fg, bg or style. Value is either a color (for fg and bg) or a text style. A special format, {type}:none, will clear all color settings for {type}.

For example, the following command will change the match color to magenta and the background color for line numbers to yellow:

  rg --colors 'match:fg:magenta' --colors 'line:bg:yellow' foo.

--column

Show column numbers (1 based) in output. This only shows the column numbers for the first match on each line. Note that this doesn't try to account for Unicode. One byte is equal to one column. This implies --line-number.

--context-separator SEPARATOR

The string to use when separating non-continuous context lines. Escape sequences may be used. [default: --]

--debug

Show debug messages.

-E, --encoding ENCODING

Specify the text encoding that ripgrep will use on all files searched. The default value is 'auto', which will cause ripgrep to do a best effort automatic detection of encoding on a per-file basis. Other supported values can be found in the list of labels here: https://encoding.spec.whatwg.org/#concept-encoding-get

-f, --file FILE ...

Search for patterns from the given file, with one pattern per line. When this flag is used or multiple times or in combination with the -e/--regexp flag, then all patterns provided are searched. Empty pattern lines will match all input lines, and the newline is not counted as part of the pattern.

--files

Print each file that would be searched (but don't search).

Combine with the -g flag to return matched paths, for example:

  rg -g '*.foo' --files

-l, --files-with-matches

Only show path of each file with matches.

--files-without-match

Only show path of each file with no matches.

-H, --with-filename

Display the file name for matches. This is the default when more than one file is searched. If --heading is enabled, the file name will be shown above clusters of matches from each file; otherwise, the file name will be shown on each match.

--no-filename

Never show the filename for a match. This is the default when one file is searched.

--heading

Show the file name above clusters of matches from each file instead of showing the file name for every match. This is the default mode at a tty.

--no-heading

Don't group matches by each file. If -H/--with-filename is enabled, then file names will be shown for every line matched. This is the default mode when not at a tty.

--hidden

Search hidden directories and files. (Hidden directories and files are skipped by default.)

--iglob GLOB ...

Include or exclude files/directories case insensitively. This always overrides any other ignore logic if there is a conflict, but is otherwise applied in addition to ignore files (e.g., .gitignore or .ignore). Multiple glob flags may be used. Globbing rules match .gitignore globs. Precede a glob with a '!' to exclude it.

--ignore-file FILE ...

Specify additional ignore files for filtering file paths. Ignore files should be in the gitignore format and are matched relative to the current working directory. These ignore files have lower precedence than all other ignore files. When specifying multiple ignore files, earlier files have lower precedence than later files.

-L, --follow

Follow symlinks.

-M, --max-columns NUM

Don't print lines longer than this limit in bytes. Longer lines are omitted, and only the number of matches in that line is printed.

-m, --max-count NUM

Limit the number of matching lines per file searched to NUM.

--max-filesize NUM+SUFFIX?

Ignore files larger than NUM in size. Directories will never be ignored.

SUFFIX is optional and may be one of K, M or G. These correspond to kilobytes, megabytes and gigabytes respectively. If omitted the input is treated as bytes.

--maxdepth NUM

Descend at most NUM directories below the command line arguments. A value of zero searches only the starting-points themselves.

--mmap

Search using memory maps when possible. This is enabled by default when ripgrep thinks it will be faster. (Note that mmap searching doesn't currently support the various context related options.)

--no-messages

Suppress all error messages.

--no-mmap

Never use memory maps, even when they might be faster.

--no-ignore

Don't respect ignore files (.gitignore, .ignore, etc.) This implies --no-ignore-parent.

--no-ignore-parent

Don't respect ignore files in parent directories.

--no-ignore-vcs

Don't respect version control ignore files (e.g., .gitignore). Note that .ignore files will continue to be respected.

-0, --null

Whenever a file name is printed, follow it with a NUL byte. This includes printing filenames before matches, and when printing a list of matching files such as with --count, --files-with-matches and --files.

-o, --only-matching

Print only the matched (non-empty) parts of a matching line, with each such part on a separate output line.

--path-separator SEPARATOR

The path separator to use when printing file paths. This defaults to your platform's path separator, which is / on Unix and \ on Windows. This flag is intended for overriding the default when the environment demands it (e.g., cygwin). A path separator is limited to a single byte.

-p, --pretty

Alias for --color=always --heading --line-number.

-r, --replace ARG

Replace every match with the string given when printing search results. Neither this flag nor any other flag will modify your files.

Capture group indices (e.g., $5) and names (e.g., $foo) are supported in the replacement string.

Note that the replacement by default replaces each match, and NOT the entire line. To replace the entire line, you should match the entire line. For example, to emit only the first phone numbers in each line:

  rg '^.*([0-9]{3}-[0-9]{3}-[0-9]{4}).*$' --replace '$1'

-s, --case-sensitive

Search case sensitively (default). Overrides --ignore-case and --smart-case.

-S, --smart-case

Search case insensitively if the pattern is all lowercase. Search case sensitively otherwise. This is overridden by either --case-sensitive or --ignore-case.

--sort-files

Sort results by file path. Note that this currently disables all parallelism and runs search in a single thread.

-j, --threads ARG

The number of threads to use. 0 means use the number of logical CPUs (capped at 12). [default: 0]

--version

Show the version number of ripgrep and exit.

--vimgrep

Show results with every match on its own line, including line numbers and column numbers. With this option, a line with more than one match will be printed more than once.

Recommended .vimrc configuration:

    set grepprg=rg\ --vimgrep
    set grepformat^=%f:%l:%c:%m

Use :grep to grep for something, then :cn and :cp to navigate through the
matches.

FILE TYPE MANAGEMENT OPTIONS

--type-list

Show all supported file types and their associated globs.

--type-add ARG ...

Add a new glob for a particular file type. Only one glob can be added at a time. Multiple --type-add flags can be provided. Unless --type-clear is used, globs are added to any existing globs inside of ripgrep. Note that this must be passed to every invocation of rg. Type settings are NOT persisted. Example:

    rg --type-add 'foo:*.foo' -tfoo PATTERN

--type-add can also be used to include rules from other types
with the special include directive. The include directive
permits specifying one or more other type names (separated by a
comma) that have been defined and its rules will automatically
be imported into the type specified. For example, to create a
type called src that matches C++, Python and Markdown files, one
can use:

    --type-add 'src:include:cpp,py,md'

Additional glob rules can still be added to the src type by
using the --type-add flag again:

    --type-add 'src:include:cpp,py,md' --type-add 'src:*.foo'

Note that type names must consist only of Unicode letters or
numbers. Punctuation characters are not allowed.

--type-clear TYPE ...

Clear the file type globs previously defined for TYPE. This only clears the default type definitions that are found inside of ripgrep. Note that this must be passed to every invocation of rg.

SHELL COMPLETION

Shell completion files are included in the release tarball for Bash, Fish, Zsh and PowerShell.

For bash, move rg.bash-completion to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/bash_completion or /etc/bash_completion.d/.

For fish, move rg.fish to $HOME/.config/fish/completions.