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regexag

ag: search exact string, not a pattern

My Problem

I'm searching for Application(service) in my files using ag. Since ag treats strings as regular expression patterns, I have to escape the parens and use:

ag 'Application\(service\)'

This is cumbersome and easy to miss, especially when there are multiple regex symbols in my search.

What have I tried

  • Search the manual
  • Escape the regex chars (works, but error-prone)

My Question

How can I instruct ag to treat the search term as a literal string, instead of a regex pattern?

Solution

  • The option you're looking for is

    -Q --literal: Do not parse PATTERN as a regular expression. Try to match it literally.

    @ https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher/blob/master/doc/ag.1.md: