silver_searcher (ag) with multiple search expressions?

Question

Does silver_searcher support specifying multiple search expressions something like -e in grep?

I could not find any option in the document/help.

Materialize

Answer 1

According to the documentation, it doesn't support multiple search patterns. That said, it does support using parallel, so you can fire off multiple instances of ag for a multi-search:

echo "foo\nbar\nbaz" | parallel 'ag --parallel --color "{}" *' 

The output using the --parallel switch will be filename, linenumber and match. If that's too fancy, you can always use the OR operator in your pattern search:

ag --color "foo|bar|baz" * 

Lowerclassman

Answer 2

You might want to search with both Boolean operators:

• AND: ag -l pattern1 | xargs ag -l pattern2 | xargs ag 'pattern1|pattern2'
  • Add -d '\n' to xargs to handle spaces on filenames.
• OR: ag 'pattern1|pattern2'
• NOT: ag -v 'pattern'

From manual:

-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.

-v --invert-match: Match every line not containing the specified pattern.

Whirlpool

Add -d '\n' to xargs to handle spaces on filenames. That's a really useful tip. I usually try to mess with -0. What do you do if the path has parentheses or ~ in it? – Midden

Answer 3

Yes, you can search for multiple patterns by separating each pattern with a vertical line character (|):

ag 'pattern1|pattern2'

Sherysherye