Prefer literal search when possible
Use fixed strings for maximum speed.
bashANYripgrepperformanceliteral
bash
rg -F 'Content-Type:' .Notes
Literal search avoids regex overhead and is ideal for exact tokens.
Performance, Debugging, and Multiline Search
Understand ripgrep defaults, debug missing results, and use PCRE2 or multiline search when required.
Export
Copy the compact sheet, download it, or print it.
Download
`D` dense toggle · `C` copy all
Performance patterns
Keep searches fast while still finding what you need.
Reduce search scope with types
Search fewer files for faster results.
bashANYripgrepperformancetypes
bash
rg -t py 'dataclass' .Notes
Targeting the right file types can cut search time dramatically in large monorepos.
Stop after a few matches
Limit results to inspect representative hits.
bashANYripgrepperformancemax-count
bash
rg -m 1 'deprecated' src/Notes
When you only need confirmation, early cutoff saves time.
bash
rg --one-file-system 'backup' /Notes
Useful in server environments with mounted volumes or network filesystems.
bash
rg -j 4 'TODO' .Notes
ripgrep auto-detects threads well, but manual tuning can help in constrained environments.
Debug missing or surprising results
Figure out why ripgrep did or did not return a match.
Inspect filtering decisions
Show diagnostics about ignores, globs, and traversal.
bashANYripgrepdebug
bash
rg --debug 'docker' .Notes
This reveals whether a path was skipped because of hidden-file, ignore, or glob rules.
Use trace logging for deeper internals
Emit more verbose debugging than `--debug`.
bashANYripgreptrace
bash
rg --trace 'TODO' .Notes
Trace mode is noisier but can be useful when diagnosing regex, ignore, or performance issues.
See what happens with binary detection
Override binary skipping during diagnosis.
bashANYripgrepbinarydebug
bash
rg -a 'PNG' asset.binNotes
Binary detection can hide expected matches in mixed-content files.
bash
rg '(?<=id=)\d+' file.txt && rg -P '(?<=id=)\d+' file.txtNotes
If the default engine fails on look-around or backreferences, switch to PCRE2.
Audit ignore-file influence
Run without ignore support to compare results.
bashANYripgrepignoredebug
bash
rg --no-ignore 'generated' .Notes
A before/after comparison often immediately explains missing hits.
Multiline and structured-text searches
Handle patterns that span lines or depend on block structure.
bash
rg -U 'first_name
last_name' sample.txtNotes
Use this for YAML, stack traces, templates, or prose blocks.
bash
rg -Pzo '(?s)BEGIN.*?END' file.txtNotes
`(?s)` makes dot match newlines; `-z` turns NUL into the record separator for multi-line output.
Search a YAML block
Look for a key followed later by another key in the same block.
bashANYripgrepyamlmultiline
bash
rg -U 'image: .*
(?:.*
){0,5}pullPolicy:' deploy.yamlNotes
Multiline search can quickly inspect structured config without a parser.
bash
rg -U '"error"\s*:\s*true.*
.*"retry"' data.jsonNotes
For more precision on JSON, consider `jq`, but multiline rg is good for exploration.
bash
rg -Pzo '(?s)<script.*?</script>' index.htmlNotes
This is useful for quick extraction or audits before using a proper parser.
More in ripgrep
Real-World Code Search Recipes
High-value ripgrep recipes for refactors, security scans, framework audits, logs, and docs.
Config and Shell Integration
Persist preferred flags, create custom types, and combine ripgrep with fd, fzf, git, and editors.
Replace, Preprocess, and Encodings
Preview replacements, search transformed files, and handle compressed or non-UTF8 data.
Output, Context, and Reporting
Control headings, context lines, counts, paths, columns, and machine-readable output.
Globs, Types, and Ignore Rules
Control what ripgrep searches with globs, type filters, hidden files, and ignore behavior.
Regex and Fixed Strings
Use basic regex, PCRE2, word boundaries, alternation, and literal searches with ripgrep.