DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages
AG(1) AG(1)
NAME
ag - The Silver Searcher. Like ack, but faster.
SYNOPSIS
ag [file-type] [options] PATTERN [PATH]
DESCRIPTION
Recursively search for PATTERN in PATH. Like grep or ack, but faster.
OPTIONS
--ackmate
Output results in a format parseable by AckMate
https://github.com/protocool/AckMate.
-a --all-types
Search all files. This doesn't include hidden files, and doesn't
respect any ignore files.
-A --after [LINES]
Print lines after match. Defaults to 2.
-B --before [LINES]
Print lines before match. Defaults to 2.
--[no]break
Print a newline between matches in different files. Enabled by
default.
-c --count
Only print the number of matches in each file. Note: This is the
number of matches, not the number of matching lines. Pipe output
to wc -l if you want the number of matching lines.
--[no]color
Print color codes in results. Enabled by default.
--color-line-number
Color codes for line numbers. Defaults to 1;33.
--color-match
Color codes for result match numbers. Defaults to 30;43.
--color-path
Color codes for path names. Defaults to 1;32.
--column
Print column numbers in results.
-C --context [LINES]
Print lines before and after matches. Defaults to 2.
-D --debug
Output ridiculous amounts of debugging info. Probably not
useful.
--depth NUM
Search up to NUM directories deep, -1 for unlimited. Default is
25.
--[no]filename
Print file names. Enabled by default, except when searching a
single file.
-f --follow
Follow symlinks.
-F --fixed-strings
Alias for --literal for compatibility with grep.
--[no]group
The default, --group, lumps multiple matches in the same file
together, and presents them under a single occurrence of the
filename. --nogroup refrains from this, and instead places the
filename at the start of each match line.
-g PATTERN
Print filenames matching PATTERN.
-G --file-search-regex PATTERN
Only search files whose names match PATTERN.
-H --[no]heading
Print filenames above matching contents.
--hidden
Search hidden files. This option obeys ignored files.
--ignore PATTERN
Ignore files/directories whose names match this pattern. Literal
file and directory names are also allowed.
--ignore-dir NAME
Alias for --ignore for compatibility with ack.
-i --ignore-case
Match case-insensitively.
-l --files-with-matches
Only print the names of files containing matches, not the
matching lines. An empty query will print all files that would
be searched.
-L --files-without-matches
Only print the names of files that don't contain matches.
--list-file-types
See FILE TYPES below.
-m --max-count NUM
Skip the rest of a file after NUM matches. Default is 0, which
never skips.
--[no]numbers
Print line numbers. Default is to omit line numbers when
searching streams.
-o --only-matching
Print only the matching part of the lines.
-p --path-to-agignore STRING
Provide a path to a specific .agignore file.
--pager COMMAND
Use a pager such as less. Use --nopager to override. This option
is also ignored if output is piped to another program.
--print-long-lines
Print matches on very long lines (> 2k characters by default).
--passthrough
When searching a stream, print all lines even if they don't
match.
-Q --literal
Do not parse PATTERN as a regular expression. Try to match it
literally.
-s --case-sensitive
Match case-sensitively.
-S --smart-case
Match case-sensitively if there are any uppercase letters in
PATTERN, case-insensitively otherwise. Enabled by default.
--search-binary
Search binary files for matches.
--silent
Suppress all log messages, including errors.
--stats
Print stats (files scanned, time taken, etc).
-t --all-text
Search all text files. This doesn't include hidden files.
-u --unrestricted
Search all files. This ignores .agignore, .gitignore, etc. It
searches binary and hidden files as well.
-U --skip-vcs-ignores
Ignore VCS ignore files (.gitignore, .hgignore, svn:ignore), but
still use .agignore.
-v --invert-match
Match every line not containing the specified pattern.
--vimgrep
Output results like vim's :vimgrep /pattern/g would (it reports
every match on the line).
Here's a ~/.vimrc configuration example:
set grepprg=ag\ --vimgrep\ $*
set grepformat=%f:%l:%c:%m
Then use :grep to grep for something.
Then use :copen, :cn, :cp, etc. to navigate through the matches.
-w --word-regexp
Only match whole words.
-z --search-zip
Search contents of compressed files.
-0 --null --print0
Separate the filenames with \0, rather than \n: this allows
xargs -0 <command> to correctly process filenames containing
spaces or newlines.
FILE TYPES
It is possible to restrict the types of files searched. For example,
passing --html as the file-types parameter will search only files with
the extensions htm, html, shtml or xhtml. For a list of supported
file-types run ag --list-file-types.
IGNORING FILES
By default, ag will ignore files whose names match patterns in
.gitignore, .hgignore, or .agignore. These files can be anywhere in the
directories being searched. Ag also ignores files matched by the
svn:ignore property if svn --version is 1.6 or older. Finally, ag looks
in $HOME/.agignore for ignore patterns. Binary files are ignored by
default as well.
If you want to ignore .gitignore, .hgignore, and svn:ignore, but still
take .agignore into account, use -U.
Use the -t option to search all text files; -a to search all files; and
-u to search all, including hidden files.
EXAMPLES
ag printf: Find matches for "printf" in the current directory.
ag foo /bar/: Find matches for "foo" in path /bar/.
SEE ALSO
grep(1)
February 2015 AG(1)