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).

--stats-only
    Print stats (files scanned, time taken, etc) and nothing else.

-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)