README.md

grep

Plugin to integrate various grep like search tools with Vim.

The grep plugin integrates grep like utilities (grep, fgrep, egrep, agrep, findstr, silver searcher (ag), ripgrep, ack, git grep, sift and platinum searcher) with Vim and allows you to search for a pattern in one or more files and jump to them.

In Vim version 8.0 and above, the search command is run asynchronously in the background and the results are added to a quickfix list.

This plugin works only with Vim and not with neovim.

To use this plugin, you will need the grep like utilities in your system. If a particular utility is not present, then you cannot use the corresponding features, but you can still use the rest of the features supported by the plugin.

To use the this plugin with grep, you will need the grep, fgrep and egrep utilities. To recursively search for files using grep, you will need the find and xargs utilities. These tools are present in most of the Unix and MacOS installations. For MS-Windows systems, you can download the GNU grep and find utilities from the following sites:

http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/grep.htm
http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/findutils.htm

On MS-Windows, you can use the findstr utility to search for patterns. This is available by default on all MS-Windows systems.

If you want to use the agrep command with this plugin, then you can download the agrep utility from:

https://www.tgries.de/agrep/

If you want to use the Silver Searcher (ag) with this plugin, then you can download the Silver Searcher from:

https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher

If you want to use the ack utility with this plugin, then you can download the ack utility from:

https://beyondgrep.com/

If you want to use ripgrep (rg) with this plugin, then you can download the ripgrep utility from:

https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep

If you want to use sift with this plugin, then you can download the sift utility from:

https://sift-tool.org

If you want to use the platinum searcher (pt) with this plugin, then you can download the platinum searcher utility from:

https://github.com/monochromegane/the_platinum_searcher

The silver searcher, ripgrep, ack and platinum searcher utilities can search for a pattern recursively across directories without using any other additional utilities like find and xargs.