gripgrep

gripgrep is a small, themeable grep-like search tool written in Rust. The CLI binary is grgr.

It recursively searches from the current directory, prints matching file paths, line numbers, match positions, and highlighted matching text when color output is supported by the terminal.

I'm doing a major rewrite of an Elixir project in Rust, and this is my "get used to Rust again" project. There's also some ricing involved in regards to my motivation for this tool, plus a bit of Omarchy influence :).

Also it is opinionated in that it only tries to match in text files, see for example:

gripgrep/src/main.rs

Line 294 in 4313502

if prefix.contains(&0) {

I'll keep extending this to fit my scripting needs.

Install

Build from source:

cargo build --release

Run the binary from the build output:

./target/release/grgr "needle"

Or during development:

cargo run -- "needle"

Usage

grgr [OPTIONS] [PATTERN] [SEARCH_PATH]

PATTERN is a regular expression. SEARCH_PATH is an optional file or directory to search. When omitted, grgr searches the current directory.

Basic search from the current directory:

grgr "TODO"

Search with a regular expression:

grgr "fn [a-z_]+"

Search within a specific directory:

grgr "TODO" src

Search a single file:

grgr "TODO" src/main.rs

Disable color output:

grgr --no-color "needle"

Print full long lines instead of abbreviated matches:

grgr --no-abbrev "needle"

Respect local ignore files while searching:

grgr --respect-ignore "needle"

By default, grgr searches files even when they are matched by .ignore or .gitignore. --respect-ignore opts in to those project-local ignore files. Global git ignores and .git/info/exclude are not used.

List built-in themes:

grgr --themes-list

Use a built-in theme:

grgr --theme "tokyo night" "needle"

Themes

Currently available themes:

• tokyo night
• catppuccin
• ethereal
• osaka jade
• kanagawa
• nord
• miasma
• hackerman
• everforest
• gruvbox
• retro 82
• ristretto
• lumon
• matte black
• vantablack
• solitude
• last horizon
• flexoki light
• rose pine dawn
• catppuccin latte
• white

Use custom ANSI color codes:

grgr --colors "38;5;75:38;5;009:38;5;141:38;5;214:38;5;15" "needle"

The custom color fields are, in order:

path:line:position:matched-text:normal-text

Output

Example:

./src/main.rs
72:10: #[command(version, about = "A grep like tool")]

For lines with multiple matches, all match positions are printed before the line contents:

./repeat.txt
1:1:5:9: abc abc abc

Positions are 1-based character positions.

Color

Color output is automatically disabled when stdout is not a terminal, when NO_COLOR is set, when TERM=dumb, or when the terminal does not advertise 256-color or true-color support.

Use --no-color to force plain output.