Using ripgrep in Emacs using helm-ag (Spacemacs)

ripgrep-in-emacs.md

Why

Ripgrep is a fast search tool like grep. It's mostly a drop-in replacement for ag, also know as the Silver Searcher.

helm-ag is a fantastic package for Emacs that allows you to display search results in a buffer. You can also jump to locations of matches. Despite the name, helm-ag works with ripgrep (rg) as well as with ag.

How

1. Install ripgrep

2. Make Spacemacs use helm-project-do-ag directly when pressing SPC / without preselecting the symbol under the cursor.

   Type SPC f e d to bring up ~/.spacemacs.

   (defun dotspacemacs/user-config ()
     ;; ....
     (evil-leader/set-key "/" 'spacemacs/helm-project-do-ag))
   

3. Force ripgrep as search tool

   SPC SPC customize-set-variable

   Select variable helm-ag-base-command

   Set value to rg --vimgrep --no-heading --smart-case

Usage

SPC / should allow you to search in the current project.

You can prefix patterns with options

-G*.cljs -w time - search for the word "time" in all .cljs files

-tclojure time - search for "time" in all .{clj,cljs,cljc} files

uno\ due\ tre - search for the string "uno duo tre"

-C5 foo - search for "foo" but show 5 lines of context before and after the match

(?:^|[^\w-])time(?:[^\w-]|$) - search for lisp-word "time", i.e. search for the full word "time" while considering "-" to be a word characer

This is very useful, thanks!

One note - for anyone using helm-projectile, if you switch to ripgrep, you may see the following errors when running helm-projectile-ag (C-c p s s)

.#*: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.o: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*~: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.bin: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.lbin: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.so: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.a: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.ln: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.blg: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.bbl: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.elc: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.lof: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.glo: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.idx: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.lot: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.fmt: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.tfm: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.class: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.fas: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.lib: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.mem: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.x86f: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.sparcf: No such file or directory (os error 2)
*.dfsl: No such file or directory (os error 2)

The issue is that helm-projectile automatically adds options like --ignore *.o to ag. When it tries to send the same options to rg (which doesn't have an --ignore option), you get the following errors. This behavior currently is not configurable.

A workaround is to create a wrapper script that removes these options, named rg-wrapper

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

newargs="$(echo "$@" | sed 's/\-\-ignore .* //')"
rg $newargs

Make sure that file is in your path, then change helm-ag-base-command to rg-wrapper --vimgrep --no-heading --smart-case

Hi there, 👋

Thanks for sharing this info (I really appreciate it). So, I was trying to set this up by myself but, as a brand new to spacemacs (and lisp) I'm still struggling hard with all those things in the .spacemacs file (This is my 2nd day with spacemacs/emacs). Hope any of you can give me a hand.

(defun dotspacemacs/user-config ()
  ;; ....
  (evil-leader/set-key "/" 'spacemacs/helm-project-do-ag))

later, when I run SPC SPC customize-set-variable and search for helm-ag-base-command, it doesn't exist (should it exist?).

Could you point me what I'm doing wrong? Thanks in advance for your help! 🙏

Info-Versions

• Spacemacs: master - Latest commit: 2018-03-04
• Emacs: 25.3.2

Ok, quick update
Looks like I have been using counsel-grep so my approach was this

1. put:

   (defun dotspacemacs/user-config ()
     ;; ....
     (evil-leader/set-key "/" 'counsel-grep))
   

2. run: SPC SPC customize-set-variable
3. search: counsel-grep-base-command
4. put: rg --vimgrep --no-heading --smart-case %s

It works, although it's too verbose. (: thanks folks!

My solution was simpler, although it probably works because counsel got some upgrade since the last post.

(defun dotspacemacs/user-config ()
  ;; ....
  (evil-leader/set-key "/" 'counsel-rg))

Works like a charm.

Having issue similar to https://gist.github.com/pesterhazy/fabd629fbb89a6cd3d3b92246ff29779#gistcomment-2397946 but not using counsel-grep. When trying set the helm-ag-base-command not finding anything.

This is how I am confirming I am using helm-ag.

Following up here is what I did to fix it. Add the following to .spacemacs files in user-config section.

(defun dotspacemacs/user-config ()
  ;; ....
  (evil-leader/set-key "/" 'spacemacs/helm-project-do-ag)
  (setq helm-ag-base-command "rg -S --no-heading")
)

I still don't know why it won't show up when using the customize-set-variable.

This looks like a sleeker approach then my current deadgrep approach. Would you happen to have instructions on how to set this up from a non-spacemacs configuration?

@jokem59, at this point I'm not using the hack anymore. I've also switched away from Spacemacs because problems like this were too hard to fix for me in Spacemacs.

helm-ag (or helm-projectile-ag, I forget which) has support for rg in its own right. There's also helm-rg, confusingly :-)

Thanks @pesterhazy! Out of curiosity, how do use rg with emacs now?

@jokem59, helm-ag: https://github.com/pesterhazy/emacs.d/blob/master/init.el#L100

Gentlemen, how can I reduce my search with SPC-/ to the current directory in Treemacs only - no the entire project?

Does anyone know if there's a way to specify the rg [PATH ...] segment? I work on a lot of projects where directories outside the current project are useful to search in addition to the project and have not been able to find anything.

Gentlemen, how can I reduce my search with SPC-/ to the current directory in Treemacs only - no the entire project?

SPC-s-f

If I restart spacemacs, I have to re-run step 3. I tried putting (setq helm-ag-base-command "rg --vimgrep --no-heading --smart-case") in my dotspacemacs/user-config() in .spacemacs, but that does not help. What can I do to set the variable helm-ag-base-command to the desired value automatically upon restarting spacemacs?

Why would you replace ag with rg?

Hello,
Is there a trick from Helm prompt to use option -g/--glob so to filtered out some globs ?
Something is misinterpreted when I try this:

and with pattern:

Value of my variable helm-do-ag--commands is:
(("rg" "--smart-case" "--no-heading" "--color=never" "--line-number" "--max-columns=512" "--ignore=.#" "--ignore=.o" ...some ignore entries skipped... "--ignore={arch}"))

Thank you for your answers!

In order to use flags, appending = to the flag works for me. For example, to search for a term only in *.js files:

foo -g=*.js

or

foo --type=js

@apmiller108 , thank you for your reply. This is good to know!

Also, regarding my previous question, the trick is that simple quotes were useless: foo -g!ut/ will exclude all paths with ut/ and does the job !
But your proposal works as well: -g=!ut/.

Thanks again!