Question: Plans for limiting search to file types?

[stephenmckinney]

Similar to ack, e.g. limit to Ruby files:

ag "layout" --rb

[stevenharman]

This would be most welcome! This morning I started an experiment - replacing ack with ag (both in my shell and in Vim via ack.vim) and I already miss being able to only search certain file types. Especially when I can categorize kinds of files:

# ~/.ackrc
--type-add=ruby=.haml,.rake,.builder
--type-add=html=.erb,.haml,.slim
--type-add=css=.scss,.sass,.less
--type-set=sass=.scss,.sass

Allowing for ack foobar --css to only search CSS-like files (.css, .scss, .sass, and .less in this case).

[stephenmckinney]

While using Ack, I thought I was using the file type switch simply to speed things up, now that I'm using ag I find I need it to narrow results. Even if those results are returned much faster.

[ggreer]

I never used this feature in Ack, which is why I didn't write it in Ag. I'd like for it to exist, but I'm not sure of the best way to go about it yet. Adding search by file-type would be a pretty big change. While Ag has plenty of code for blacklisting/ignoring, it doesn't have much whitelisting. I'll give this problem some more thought.

One more thing: I'm going on vacation for the next couple of weeks. I doubt I'll be online much.

[stevenharman]

@ggreer

I never used this feature in Ack, which is why I didn't write it in Ag.

That's certainly fair. I wish I could be of more help with implementing a feature like this, but it's been a long time since I last flexed by C muscles.

Have a great holiday!

[dave1010]

For now, I'm using bash globbing with ag, which I presume is going to be much slower. E.g:

shopt -s globstar
ag main-menu **/*css

[silouanwright]

Yeah this is sort of a deal breaker for me. When you said "replacement" for grep & ack but no mention of file types... (I had to really search for this issue), I wouldn't say it's a replacement, definitely a fast alternative though.

[acook]

Yeah, I use this feature. My .ackrc (which was partially borrowed from alindeman) contains additional filetypes that I want to search either generally or specifically - otherwise ack will ignore them if it doesn't know what they are.

[kergoth]

For basic extension-based type stuff, I've been using aliases with -G, personally. E.g.:

alias bbag="ag -G '\.(bb|bbappend|inc|conf)$'"

Not ideal, but it gets the job done for now, until ag gets better file type support.

[atropo]

I agree I've got many customs file types in my .ackrc. This is a feature I'm missing in Ag.

[beaumartinez]

+1, this feature is essential when dealing with larger codebases.

[brondsem]

Looks like #283 has implemented this.

[stevenharman]

Perhaps someone who know how it work could document this feature in the README, or perhaps in the Wiki?

[beaumartinez]

Good shout @brondsem!

@stevenharman I've just upgraded my version of ag, and it now emulates the way ack works. So you can do—

ag --python tweets

To search for tweets in Python files only.

[kevinburke]

I'm on it

[kevinburke]

Docs here: https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher/pull/327

Kevin Burke | Twilio phone: 925.271.7005 | kev.inburke.com

On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 5:26 PM, Beau notifications@github.com wrote:

Good shout @brondsem https://github.com/brondsem!

@stevenharman https://github.com/stevenharman I've just upgraded my version of ag, and it now emulates the way ack works. So you can do—

ag --python tweets

To search for tweets in Python files only.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher/issues/128#issuecomment-32985043 .

[macarthy]

This is great. Only thing is I can't find a method to add your own mapping ? E.g search only logs

[matthewrankin]

Is there a way to print the list of filetypes? I know that we can view the source to see the list in the lang.c file; however, it would be nice to have the equivalent of ack --help=types.

[mcphail]

I could have a look at listing the file types this evening if I get a chance. Should be quite a simple patch.

[mcphail]

Have a look at PR #332 and tell me what you think.

[matthewrankin]

@mcphail PR #332 looks great. Many thanks!

[ches]

This issue seems closable in light of #283.

[ggreer]

Oh yeah, totally implemented.

[zx1986]

ag --list-file-types