We often search our projects for specific text within Vim like so:
:grep sometext
However, we have a need for speed. How can we grep faster?
Override to use The Silver Searcher
grep is a built-in command of Vim. By default, it will use our system’s
grep command. We can overwrite it to use The Silver
Searcher’s ag command instead
by putting this in our
~/.vimrc:
" The Silver Searcher
if executable('ag')
" Use ag over grep
set grepprg=ag\ --nogroup\ --nocolor
" Use ag in CtrlP for listing files. Lightning fast and respects .gitignore
let g:ctrlp_user_command = 'ag %s -l --nocolor -g ""'
" ag is fast enough that CtrlP doesn't need to cache
let g:ctrlp_use_caching = 0
endif
Search for the word under the cursor
This searches for the text under the cursor and shows the results in a “quickfix” window:
" bind K to grep word under cursor
nnoremap K :grep! "\b<C-R><C-W>\b"<CR>:cw<CR>
It looks like this when we hit K with our cursor over SubscriptionMailer
in the Upcase repo:
Cursor over each search result, hit Enter, and the file will be opened.
Using ag arguments
This defines a new command Ag to search for the provided text and open a
“quickfix” window:
" bind \ (backward slash) to grep shortcut
command -nargs=+ -complete=file -bar Ag silent! grep! <args>|cwindow|redraw!
We can map it to any character, such as \:
nnoremap \ :Ag<SPACE>
When \ is pressed, Vim waits for our input:
:Ag
Standard ag arguments may be passed in at this point:
:Ag -i Stripe app/models
Hitting Enter results in:
What’s next
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