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Last active July 19, 2024 16:05
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Using ripgrep in Emacs using helm-ag (Spacemacs)

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

@demalworkshop
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demalworkshop commented Feb 19, 2021

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?

@AtomicNess123
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Why would you replace ag with rg?

@fperies
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fperies commented Jul 5, 2023

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:
2023-07-05 14_06_34-sq50-05_78 (frperies) - TigerVNC
and with pattern:
2023-07-05 14_08_05-sq50-05_78 (frperies) - TigerVNC
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!

@apmiller108
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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

@fperies
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fperies commented Sep 20, 2023

@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!

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