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ripgrep (rg) — Fast Recursive Search

Modern grep replacement written in Rust. Respects .gitignore, searches hidden files optionally, supports PCRE2, and is significantly faster on large codebases.

ripgrep rg grep search text-processing cli rust Apr 24, 2026

4 min read 11 snippets 2d ago quick read

ripgrep (rg) — Fast Recursive Search#

Installation#

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install ripgrep

# Fedora/RHEL
sudo dnf install ripgrep

# macOS
brew install ripgrep

# cargo
cargo install ripgrep

Basic usage#

rg pattern                    # search cwd recursively
rg pattern file.txt           # search a single file
rg pattern src/ tests/        # search specific directories
rg -e pattern1 -e pattern2    # multiple patterns (OR)

Common flags#

Flag	Meaning
`-i`	Case-insensitive
`-v`	Invert match
`-n`	Line numbers (on by default)
`-l`	Filenames only
`-c`	Count per file
`-w`	Whole word
`-x`	Whole line
`-o`	Only matching part
`-A N`	N lines after
`-B N`	N lines before
`-C N`	N lines context
`-m N`	Max N matches
`-q`	Quiet (exit code only)
`--no-filename` / `-I`	Suppress filenames

File filtering#

rg pattern -g "*.py"              # glob: only .py files
rg pattern -g "!*.min.js"         # glob: exclude minified
rg pattern -g "src/**/*.ts"       # glob: nested path
rg pattern -t py                  # by type alias
rg pattern -t-py                  # exclude a type
rg --type-list                    # list all known type aliases

rg pattern --hidden               # include hidden files (.dotfiles)
rg pattern --no-ignore            # ignore .gitignore
rg pattern --no-ignore-vcs        # ignore only VCS ignores
rg pattern -u                     # unrestricted (= --no-ignore)
rg pattern -uu                    # + include hidden files
rg pattern -uuu                   # + search binary files

Regex (Rust regex by default)#

rg '\b\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}\b'       # date pattern
rg '(?i)error'                    # inline case-insensitive flag
rg '^import\s'  --type ts         # TS import lines

# PCRE2 (lookahead, lookbehind, backreferences)
rg -P '(?<=href=")[^"]*'          # PCRE2 lookbehind
rg -P '\w+(?=\.log)'              # lookahead

Fixed strings#

rg -F 'function(x, y)'    # treat pattern as literal string
rg -F '$.prototype'        # special chars safe

Output formatting#

rg pattern --no-heading          # flat output, one match per line
rg pattern --heading             # group by file (default)
rg pattern --json                # machine-readable JSON
rg pattern --color never         # disable colour
rg pattern --column              # show column number
rg pattern --line-number         # redundant (on by default), explicit
rg pattern --pretty              # force colour + headings in pipe

Replace (display only — does not modify files)#

rg pattern -r replacement          # show lines with substitution applied
rg 'foo(\w+)' -r 'bar$1'          # with capture group

Searching compressed files#

rg -z pattern file.gz              # decompress on the fly
rg -z pattern logs/                # recursively in .gz/.xz/.bz2

Config file `~/.config/ripgrep/ripgreprc`#

# Ignore node_modules globally
--glob=!node_modules

# Default type filters
--type-add=web:*.{html,css,js,ts,tsx}

# Always show line numbers
--line-number

# Use PCRE2 by default
--engine=pcre2

# Point to a custom config
RIPGREP_CONFIG_PATH=~/.ripgreprc rg pattern

Practical examples#

# Find all TODO/FIXME comments in a codebase
rg '(TODO|FIXME|HACK|XXX)' --type py --type ts

# Search for a function definition
rg 'def\s+authenticate' -t py

# Find files importing a specific module
rg '^import.*from.*lodash' -t ts -l

# Extract all email addresses
rg -oP '[a-zA-Z0-9._%+\-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9.\-]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,}' --no-filename | sort -u

# Find duplicate lines within a file
rg '^(.+)$' file.txt --no-filename | sort | uniq -d

# Count lines matching pattern across all .log files
rg -c 'ERROR' -g "*.log" | awk -F: '{s+=$2} END {print s}'

# Live search a growing log file
tail -f /var/log/syslog | rg --passthru 'error|warn'

# Replace preview (what sed -i would change)
rg 'oldname' -r 'newname' --passthru src/

rg vs grep equivalents#

grep	rg
`grep -r pattern .`	`rg pattern`
`grep -rn pattern .`	`rg pattern` (numbers default)
`grep -rl pattern .`	`rg -l pattern`
`grep -ri pattern .`	`rg -i pattern`
`grep --include="*.py"`	`rg -t py` or `rg -g "*.py"`
`grep -rP pattern .`	`rg -P pattern`

[!TIP] rg --files lists every file rg would search (respecting ignores) without actually searching. Useful for debugging why a file is included or excluded.