Ripgrep: Globs and filepath depth

[wcpines]

What version of ripgrep are you using?

ripgrep 11.0.2
-SIMD -AVX (compiled)
+SIMD +AVX (runtime)

How did you install ripgrep?

brew install ripgrep

What operating system are you using ripgrep on?

macos 10.5.1

Describe your question, feature request, or bug.

NB: There have been questions around this topic before, but I haven't been able to find the answer in past issues. Apologies if I missed something!

rg -g '*glob*' does not match against filespaths of any depth

In plain english, I want to search files whose path contains foo and whose content contains the pattern .*bar$

Expected behavior

My understanding is that I should be able to accomplish this with

rg -g '*foo*' .*bar$

As a concrete example (though I've removed the code and only returned result counts)

rg -g '*ulia*' titleize\|titlecase | wc -l
# => 0

^ I expect to get 3. I can achieve this with the following:

rg --files | rg ulia | xargs rg -l titleize\|titlecase | wc -l
# => 3

I think I expect the globbing to work somewhat similarly to the ag interface, e.g.
ag -G ulia "titleize|titlecase"

Perhaps I don't understand how unix globs work with nested file paths.

Thanks for your time!

[wcpines]

Possibly related: https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep/issues/1442

More details in the docs for globs would be great!

[BurntSushi]

Thanks for the report. Unfortunately, I don't think I see a reproducible test case here. Just trying in the ripgrep repo seems to work just fine:

$ rg fixed-strings -g '*args*'
src/args.rs
690:            if self.is_present("fixed-strings") {
1366:    /// Note that if -F/--fixed-strings is set, then all patterns will be
1420:    /// if -F/--fixed-strings is set.
1429:    /// if -F/--fixed-strings is set.
1456:    /// -F/--fixed-strings flag is set. Otherwise, the pattern is returned
1459:        if self.is_present("fixed-strings") {

[BurntSushi]

1442 is different. #1442 is providing a glob pattern that matches a directory which then expects ripgrep to match everything _inside_ that directory as well. But the glob pattern is also applied to everything inside the directory as-is, and it correctly doesn't match.

[wcpines]

I think what I'm looking for is directory matches as well. Using the source tree again:

( A )

==$ rg -l -g '*src*' LineIter | wc -l
       0

( B )

==$ rg --files | rg src | xargs rg -l LineIter | wc -l
       4

I think (A) is not how you intend rg to be used, or at least not in order to achieve (B). But I think this is a common mistake for folks coming from ag. I'm hoping to better understand how to achieve something like (B) with the -g flag.

[BurntSushi]

@wcpines Ah I see. The key thing you're missing is that, in globs, wildcards like * often do not match path separators such as /. You can see that grep behaves the same:

$ grep -r LineIter -l --include '*src*'
$

Usually, the way to do what you want is with recursive globs:

$ rg LineIter -l -g '**/src/**'
grep-printer/src/util.rs
grep-searcher/src/sink.rs
grep-searcher/src/lib.rs
grep-searcher/src/lines.rs

Where **/src/** basically says, "match any file path where src is a component in that path."

For ag, it uses regexes, which often do not have the same "wildcards do not match path separators" restriction. ripgrep does not support filtering files via regex. So if you want that, then you'll want to use xargs.

[wcpines]

If it's part of the path OR the filename, my understanding is to either

• pass multiple globs ( -g '*src*' -g '**/src/**')
• use the pipeline + xargs approach in (B)

Is this correct?

Also, thanks so much for your time and help here. (Feel free to close this issue out!)

[BurntSushi]

@wcpines Almost. Just -g '**/src/**' is enough, since that will match a file named src. The key is that **/src/** matches any path that has src as part of its name. If you want to write a glob that matches src literally anywhere, e.g., even in foo/foosrcfoo/foo, then I guess you would need **/*src*/**.

[wcpines]

Thanks again!

[balki]

@wcpines Almost. Just -g '**/src/**' is enough, since that will match a file named src. The key is that **/src/** matches any path that has src as part of its name.

@BurntSushi The glob works with -g but not when added as a type using --type-add. Is there a way to add as a type?

% mkdir -p foo/{src,test}
% echo "hello" > foo/src/main.c
% echo "hello" > foo/test/main.c
% rg -g "**/src/**" hello 
foo/src/main.c
1:hello
% rg hello 
foo/test/main.c
1:hello

foo/src/main.c
1:hello
% rg --type-add "src:**/src/**" -t src hello 
% 

[BurntSushi]

@balki Yes, that is intended behavior. "file types" don't apply to directories: https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep/blob/98de8d248a677bbdb5ab46f53a58ceabbc24a2df/ignore/src/types.rs#L503-L507