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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | EXAMPLES | NOTES ON THREADS | CONFIGURATION | GIT | COLOPHON |
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GIT-GREP(1) Git Manual GIT-GREP(1)
git-grep - Print lines matching a pattern
git grep [-a | --text] [-I] [--textconv] [-i | --ignore-case] [-w | --word-regexp]
[-v | --invert-match] [-h|-H] [--full-name]
[-E | --extended-regexp] [-G | --basic-regexp]
[-P | --perl-regexp]
[-F | --fixed-strings] [-n | --line-number] [--column]
[-l | --files-with-matches] [-L | --files-without-match]
[(-O | --open-files-in-pager) [<pager>]]
[-z | --null]
[ -o | --only-matching ] [-c | --count] [--all-match] [-q | --quiet]
[--max-depth <depth>] [--[no-]recursive]
[--color[=<when>] | --no-color]
[--break] [--heading] [-p | --show-function]
[-A <post-context>] [-B <pre-context>] [-C <context>]
[-W | --function-context]
[(-m | --max-count) <num>]
[--threads <num>]
[-f <file>] [-e] <pattern>
[--and|--or|--not|(|)|-e <pattern>...]
[--recurse-submodules] [--parent-basename <basename>]
[ [--[no-]exclude-standard] [--cached | --untracked | --no-index] | <tree>...]
[--] [<pathspec>...]
Look for specified patterns in the tracked files in the work tree,
blobs registered in the index file, or blobs in given tree
objects. Patterns are lists of one or more search expressions
separated by newline characters. An empty string as search
expression matches all lines.
--cached
Instead of searching tracked files in the working tree, search
blobs registered in the index file.
--untracked
In addition to searching in the tracked files in the working
tree, search also in untracked files.
--no-index
Search files in the current directory that is not managed by
Git, or by ignoring that the current directory is managed by
Git. This is rather similar to running the regular grep(1)
utility with its -r option specified, but with some additional
benefits, such as using pathspec patterns to limit paths; see
the pathspec entry in gitglossary(7) for more information.
This option cannot be used together with --cached or
--untracked. See also grep.fallbackToNoIndex in CONFIGURATION
below.
--no-exclude-standard
Also search in ignored files by not honoring the .gitignore
mechanism. Only useful with --untracked.
--exclude-standard
Do not pay attention to ignored files specified via the
.gitignore mechanism. Only useful when searching files in the
current directory with --no-index.
--recurse-submodules
Recursively search in each submodule that is active and
checked out in the repository. When used in combination with
the <tree> option the prefix of all submodule output will be
the name of the parent project’s <tree> object. This option
cannot be used together with --untracked, and it has no effect
if --no-index is specified.
-a, --text
Process binary files as if they were text.
--textconv
Honor textconv filter settings.
--no-textconv
Do not honor textconv filter settings. This is the default.
-i, --ignore-case
Ignore case differences between the patterns and the files.
-I
Don’t match the pattern in binary files.
--max-depth <depth>
For each <pathspec> given on command line, descend at most
<depth> levels of directories. A value of -1 means no limit.
This option is ignored if <pathspec> contains active
wildcards. In other words if "a*" matches a directory named
"a*", "*" is matched literally so --max-depth is still
effective.
-r, --recursive
Same as --max-depth=-1; this is the default.
--no-recursive
Same as --max-depth=0.
-w, --word-regexp
Match the pattern only at word boundary (either begin at the
beginning of a line, or preceded by a non-word character; end
at the end of a line or followed by a non-word character).
-v, --invert-match
Select non-matching lines.
-h, -H
By default, the command shows the filename for each match. -h
option is used to suppress this output. -H is there for
completeness and does not do anything except it overrides -h
given earlier on the command line.
--full-name
When run from a subdirectory, the command usually outputs
paths relative to the current directory. This option forces
paths to be output relative to the project top directory.
-E, --extended-regexp, -G, --basic-regexp
Use POSIX extended/basic regexp for patterns. Default is to
use basic regexp.
-P, --perl-regexp
Use Perl-compatible regular expressions for patterns.
Support for these types of regular expressions is an optional
compile-time dependency. If Git wasn’t compiled with support
for them providing this option will cause it to die.
-F, --fixed-strings
Use fixed strings for patterns (don’t interpret pattern as a
regex).
-n, --line-number
Prefix the line number to matching lines.
--column
Prefix the 1-indexed byte-offset of the first match from the
start of the matching line.
-l, --files-with-matches, --name-only, -L, --files-without-match
Instead of showing every matched line, show only the names of
files that contain (or do not contain) matches. For better
compatibility with git diff, --name-only is a synonym for
--files-with-matches.
-O[<pager>], --open-files-in-pager[=<pager>]
Open the matching files in the pager (not the output of grep).
If the pager happens to be "less" or "vi", and the user
specified only one pattern, the first file is positioned at
the first match automatically. The pager argument is optional;
if specified, it must be stuck to the option without a space.
If pager is unspecified, the default pager will be used (see
core.pager in git-config(1)).
-z, --null
Use \0 as the delimiter for pathnames in the output, and print
them verbatim. Without this option, pathnames with "unusual"
characters are quoted as explained for the configuration
variable core.quotePath (see git-config(1)).
-o, --only-matching
Print only the matched (non-empty) parts of a matching line,
with each such part on a separate output line.
-c, --count
Instead of showing every matched line, show the number of
lines that match.
--color[=<when>]
Show colored matches. The value must be always (the default),
never, or auto.
--no-color
Turn off match highlighting, even when the configuration file
gives the default to color output. Same as --color=never.
--break
Print an empty line between matches from different files.
--heading
Show the filename above the matches in that file instead of at
the start of each shown line.
-p, --show-function
Show the preceding line that contains the function name of the
match, unless the matching line is a function name itself. The
name is determined in the same way as git diff works out patch
hunk headers (see Defining a custom hunk-header in
gitattributes(5)).
-<num>, -C <num>, --context <num>
Show <num> leading and trailing lines, and place a line
containing -- between contiguous groups of matches.
-A <num>, --after-context <num>
Show <num> trailing lines, and place a line containing --
between contiguous groups of matches.
-B <num>, --before-context <num>
Show <num> leading lines, and place a line containing --
between contiguous groups of matches.
-W, --function-context
Show the surrounding text from the previous line containing a
function name up to the one before the next function name,
effectively showing the whole function in which the match was
found. The function names are determined in the same way as
git diff works out patch hunk headers (see Defining a custom
hunk-header in gitattributes(5)).
-m <num>, --max-count <num>
Limit the amount of matches per file. When using the -v or
--invert-match option, the search stops after the specified
number of non-matches. A value of -1 will return unlimited
results (the default). A value of 0 will exit immediately with
a non-zero status.
--threads <num>
Number of grep worker threads to use. See NOTES ON THREADS and
grep.threads in CONFIGURATION for more information.
-f <file>
Read patterns from <file>, one per line.
Passing the pattern via <file> allows for providing a search
pattern containing a \0.
Not all pattern types support patterns containing \0. Git will
error out if a given pattern type can’t support such a
pattern. The --perl-regexp pattern type when compiled against
the PCRE v2 backend has the widest support for these types of
patterns.
In versions of Git before 2.23.0 patterns containing \0 would
be silently considered fixed. This was never documented, there
were also odd and undocumented interactions between e.g.
non-ASCII patterns containing \0 and --ignore-case.
In future versions we may learn to support patterns containing
\0 for more search backends, until then we’ll die when the
pattern type in question doesn’t support them.
-e
The next parameter is the pattern. This option has to be used
for patterns starting with - and should be used in scripts
passing user input to grep. Multiple patterns are combined by
or.
--and, --or, --not, ( ... )
Specify how multiple patterns are combined using Boolean
expressions. --or is the default operator. --and has higher
precedence than --or. -e has to be used for all patterns.
--all-match
When giving multiple pattern expressions combined with --or,
this flag is specified to limit the match to files that have
lines to match all of them.
-q, --quiet
Do not output matched lines; instead, exit with status 0 when
there is a match and with non-zero status when there isn’t.
<tree>...
Instead of searching tracked files in the working tree, search
blobs in the given trees.
--
Signals the end of options; the rest of the parameters are
<pathspec> limiters.
<pathspec>...
If given, limit the search to paths matching at least one
pattern. Both leading paths match and glob(7) patterns are
supported.
For more details about the <pathspec> syntax, see the pathspec
entry in gitglossary(7).
git grep 'time_t' -- '*.[ch]'
Looks for time_t in all tracked .c and .h files in the working
directory and its subdirectories.
git grep -e '#define' --and \( -e MAX_PATH -e PATH_MAX \)
Looks for a line that has #define and either MAX_PATH or
PATH_MAX.
git grep --all-match -e NODE -e Unexpected
Looks for a line that has NODE or Unexpected in files that
have lines that match both.
git grep solution -- :^Documentation
Looks for solution, excluding files in Documentation.
The --threads option (and the grep.threads configuration) will be
ignored when --open-files-in-pager is used, forcing a
single-threaded execution.
When grepping the object store (with --cached or giving tree
objects), running with multiple threads might perform slower than
single-threaded if --textconv is given and there are too many text
conversions. Thus, if low performance is experienced in this case,
it might be desirable to use --threads=1.
Everything below this line in this section is selectively included
from the git-config(1) documentation. The content is the same as
what’s found there:
grep.lineNumber
If set to true, enable -n option by default.
grep.column
If set to true, enable the --column option by default.
grep.patternType
Set the default matching behavior. Using a value of basic,
extended, fixed, or perl will enable the --basic-regexp,
--extended-regexp, --fixed-strings, or --perl-regexp option
accordingly, while the value default will use the
grep.extendedRegexp option to choose between basic and
extended.
grep.extendedRegexp
If set to true, enable --extended-regexp option by default.
This option is ignored when the grep.patternType option is set
to a value other than default.
grep.threads
Number of grep worker threads to use. If unset (or set to 0),
Git will use as many threads as the number of logical cores
available.
grep.fullName
If set to true, enable --full-name option by default.
grep.fallbackToNoIndex
If set to true, fall back to git grep --no-index if git grep
is executed outside of a git repository. Defaults to false.
Part of the git(1) suite
This page is part of the git (Git distributed version control
system) project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://git-scm.com/⟩. If you have a bug report for this manual
page, see ⟨http://git-scm.com/community⟩. This page was obtained
from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/git/git.git⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At that time,
the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-08-07.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
Git 2.51.0.rc1 2025-08-07 GIT-GREP(1)
Pages that refer to this page: git(1), gitweb.conf(5)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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