Searching Projectsλ︎
SPC / and SPC s p (spacemacs/helm-project-smart-do-search) enables a a fuzzy logic search through the content of all the files in the current project. A helm pop-up displays, typing a pattern shows matching lines from all the files in the project.
Use C-j and C-k to move down and up through the search results.
RET selects the search result and shows the file and line in the current buffer.
SPC s l will repeat the last search
M-n and M-p will scroll through the search patterns whenever the search pop-up window is open
Hint::Replacing text across a projectλ︎
Use search results to replace text across a project.
Open files from search resultsλ︎
With a search open, C-c C-f enables helm-follow. When moving through results with C-j and C-k the corresponding file is opened in the current buffer.
Set helm-follow-mode-persistent to true in .spacemacs to remember the use of C-c C-f follow mode for helm actions.
Search tool binaryλ︎
Searching requires an external tool to be available on your system PATH. Ripgrep is the recommended search tool, although silver searcher (ag) is a viable alternative. Using grep is noticeably slower and has fewer options for searching.
Ripgrep search tool optionsλ︎
Option flags can be passed to the search tool binary to tailor the results returned in the helm-ag pop-up window. The option flags can be used before or after the search pattern.
SPC h m rg shows the man page for ripgrep which explains the options of that search tool. Replace rg with the command line name of the search tool binary installed.
Including options without their correct argument will show a warning, e.g. the -g option without a glob pattern or -A without a number. Once the option has a valid value the error should be replaced by search results.
Searching specific filesλ︎
Include or exclude specific files by their names or filename extensions.
Use the -g option for a filename to search (globbing), or -g! for a filename to ignore.
-g*.clj map shows only results of searching for map from files ending in .clj
-g!*.md map will search for map for all files except those ending in .md
Showing more lines for each matchλ︎
-A option for ripgrep is used to show a number of lines after each match of the pattern. -A4 will show the 4 additional lines after the line containing a matching pattern.
If there are multiple pattern matches in the same file within the scope of extra lines, then contiguous lines are shown with 4 lines after the final pattern line.
SPC / with a pattern of -A4 layout will show each line containing the pattern layout and 4 lines after it.
This option can also be combined with the -g option above.
Example search patternsλ︎
Additional search patterns that work with ripgrep or ag.
-G*time - search for the word "time" in all files
-G*time -g*.clj - search for the word "time" in .clj files only
-tclojure time - search for "time" in all .{clj,cljs,cljc} files
uno\ duo\ 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 "time" even in kebab-case words. i.e. search for the full word "time" including "-" to be a word character
Ripgrep documentation has many regular expression examples
Searching hidden filesλ︎
Searching a project using SPC / and SPC s p will ignore hidden files, those that start with .
-- --hidden or -- -uu after the search pattern to include hidden files in the search
For example, to search for the pattern scissors
Hint::Searching hidden files may slow searchingλ︎
Ripgrep configuration and argumentsλ︎
Define an environment variable called RIPGREP_CONFIG_PATH set to the file name and path
| Argument | Description |
|---|---|
-u |
don't respect .gitignore or .ignore files |
-uu |
same as -u and show hidden files |
-uuu |
same as -uu and search binary files |
--max-columns |
Maximum number of columns (Spacemacs default: 150) |
--glob=!git/* |
glob patters, ! excluded |
--smart-case |
Ignore case |