] [\-B ] [\-C ]
[\-W | \-\-function\-context]
[\-\-threads ]
[\-f ] [\-e]
[\-\-and|\-\-or|\-\-not|(|)|\-e \&...]
[\-\-recurse\-submodules] [\-\-parent\-basename ]
[ [\-\-[no\-]exclude\-standard] [\-\-cached | \-\-no\-index | \-\-untracked] | \&...]
[\-\-] [\&...]
.fi
.sp
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.sp
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\&.
.SH "CONFIGURATION"
.PP
grep\&.lineNumber
.RS 4
If set to true, enable
\fB\-n\fR
option by default\&.
.RE
.PP
grep\&.column
.RS 4
If set to true, enable the
\fB\-\-column\fR
option by default\&.
.RE
.PP
grep\&.patternType
.RS 4
Set the default matching behavior\&. Using a value of
\fIbasic\fR,
\fIextended\fR,
\fIfixed\fR, or
\fIperl\fR
will enable the
\fB\-\-basic\-regexp\fR,
\fB\-\-extended\-regexp\fR,
\fB\-\-fixed\-strings\fR, or
\fB\-\-perl\-regexp\fR
option accordingly, while the value
\fIdefault\fR
will return to the default matching behavior\&.
.RE
.PP
grep\&.extendedRegexp
.RS 4
If set to true, enable
\fB\-\-extended\-regexp\fR
option by default\&. This option is ignored when the
\fBgrep\&.patternType\fR
option is set to a value other than
\fIdefault\fR\&.
.RE
.PP
grep\&.threads
.RS 4
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\&.
.RE
.PP
grep\&.fullName
.RS 4
If set to true, enable
\fB\-\-full\-name\fR
option by default\&.
.RE
.PP
grep\&.fallbackToNoIndex
.RS 4
If set to true, fall back to git grep \-\-no\-index if git grep is executed outside of a git repository\&. Defaults to false\&.
.RE
.SH "OPTIONS"
.PP
\-\-cached
.RS 4
Instead of searching tracked files in the working tree, search blobs registered in the index file\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-no\-index
.RS 4
Search files in the current directory that is not managed by Git\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-untracked
.RS 4
In addition to searching in the tracked files in the working tree, search also in untracked files\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-no\-exclude\-standard
.RS 4
Also search in ignored files by not honoring the
\fB\&.gitignore\fR
mechanism\&. Only useful with
\fB\-\-untracked\fR\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-exclude\-standard
.RS 4
Do not pay attention to ignored files specified via the
\fB\&.gitignore\fR
mechanism\&. Only useful when searching files in the current directory with
\fB\-\-no\-index\fR\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-recurse\-submodules
.RS 4
Recursively search in each submodule that is active and checked out in the repository\&. When used in combination with the option the prefix of all submodule output will be the name of the parent project\(cqs object\&. This option has no effect if
\fB\-\-no\-index\fR
is given\&.
.RE
.PP
\-a, \-\-text
.RS 4
Process binary files as if they were text\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-textconv
.RS 4
Honor textconv filter settings\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-no\-textconv
.RS 4
Do not honor textconv filter settings\&. This is the default\&.
.RE
.PP
\-i, \-\-ignore\-case
.RS 4
Ignore case differences between the patterns and the files\&.
.RE
.PP
\-I
.RS 4
Don\(cqt match the pattern in binary files\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-max\-depth
.RS 4
For each given on command line, descend at most levels of directories\&. A value of \-1 means no limit\&. This option is ignored if contains active wildcards\&. In other words if "a*" matches a directory named "a*", "*" is matched literally so \-\-max\-depth is still effective\&.
.RE
.PP
\-r, \-\-recursive
.RS 4
Same as
\fB\-\-max\-depth=\-1\fR; this is the default\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-no\-recursive
.RS 4
Same as
\fB\-\-max\-depth=0\fR\&.
.RE
.PP
\-w, \-\-word\-regexp
.RS 4
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)\&.
.RE
.PP
\-v, \-\-invert\-match
.RS 4
Select non\-matching lines\&.
.RE
.PP
\-h, \-H
.RS 4
By default, the command shows the filename for each match\&.
\fB\-h\fR
option is used to suppress this output\&.
\fB\-H\fR
is there for completeness and does not do anything except it overrides
\fB\-h\fR
given earlier on the command line\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-full\-name
.RS 4
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\&.
.RE
.PP
\-E, \-\-extended\-regexp, \-G, \-\-basic\-regexp
.RS 4
Use POSIX extended/basic regexp for patterns\&. Default is to use basic regexp\&.
.RE
.PP
\-P, \-\-perl\-regexp
.RS 4
Use Perl\-compatible regular expressions for patterns\&.
.sp
Support for these types of regular expressions is an optional compile\-time dependency\&. If Git wasn\(cqt compiled with support for them providing this option will cause it to die\&.
.RE
.PP
\-F, \-\-fixed\-strings
.RS 4
Use fixed strings for patterns (don\(cqt interpret pattern as a regex)\&.
.RE
.PP
\-n, \-\-line\-number
.RS 4
Prefix the line number to matching lines\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-column
.RS 4
Prefix the 1\-indexed byte\-offset of the first match from the start of the matching line\&.
.RE
.PP
\-l, \-\-files\-with\-matches, \-\-name\-only, \-L, \-\-files\-without\-match
.RS 4
Instead of showing every matched line, show only the names of files that contain (or do not contain) matches\&. For better compatibility with
\fIgit diff\fR,
\fB\-\-name\-only\fR
is a synonym for
\fB\-\-files\-with\-matches\fR\&.
.RE
.PP
\-O[], \-\-open\-files\-in\-pager[=]
.RS 4
Open the matching files in the pager (not the output of
\fIgrep\fR)\&. 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
\fBpager\fR
argument is optional; if specified, it must be stuck to the option without a space\&. If
\fBpager\fR
is unspecified, the default pager will be used (see
\fBcore\&.pager\fR
in
\fBgit-config\fR(1))\&.
.RE
.PP
\-z, \-\-null
.RS 4
Use \e0 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
\fBgit-config\fR(1))\&.
.RE
.PP
\-o, \-\-only\-matching
.RS 4
Print only the matched (non\-empty) parts of a matching line, with each such part on a separate output line\&.
.RE
.PP
\-c, \-\-count
.RS 4
Instead of showing every matched line, show the number of lines that match\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-color[=]
.RS 4
Show colored matches\&. The value must be always (the default), never, or auto\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-no\-color
.RS 4
Turn off match highlighting, even when the configuration file gives the default to color output\&. Same as
\fB\-\-color=never\fR\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-break
.RS 4
Print an empty line between matches from different files\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-heading
.RS 4
Show the filename above the matches in that file instead of at the start of each shown line\&.
.RE
.PP
\-p, \-\-show\-function
.RS 4
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
\fBgit diff\fR
works out patch hunk headers (see
\fIDefining a custom hunk\-header\fR
in
\fBgitattributes\fR(5))\&.
.RE
.PP
\-, \-C , \-\-context
.RS 4
Show leading and trailing lines, and place a line containing
\fB\-\-\fR
between contiguous groups of matches\&.
.RE
.PP
\-A , \-\-after\-context
.RS 4
Show trailing lines, and place a line containing
\fB\-\-\fR
between contiguous groups of matches\&.
.RE
.PP
\-B , \-\-before\-context
.RS 4
Show leading lines, and place a line containing
\fB\-\-\fR
between contiguous groups of matches\&.
.RE
.PP
\-W, \-\-function\-context
.RS 4
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
\fBgit diff\fR
works out patch hunk headers (see
\fIDefining a custom hunk\-header\fR
in
\fBgitattributes\fR(5))\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-threads
.RS 4
Number of grep worker threads to use\&. See
\fBgrep\&.threads\fR
in
\fICONFIGURATION\fR
for more information\&.
.RE
.PP
\-f
.RS 4
Read patterns from , one per line\&.
.sp
Passing the pattern via allows for providing a search pattern containing a \e0\&.
.sp
Not all pattern types support patterns containing \e0\&. Git will error out if a given pattern type can\(cqt support such a pattern\&. The
\fB\-\-perl\-regexp\fR
pattern type when compiled against the PCRE v2 backend has the widest support for these types of patterns\&.
.sp
In versions of Git before 2\&.23\&.0 patterns containing \e0 would be silently considered fixed\&. This was never documented, there were also odd and undocumented interactions between e\&.g\&. non\-ASCII patterns containing \e0 and
\fB\-\-ignore\-case\fR\&.
.sp
In future versions we may learn to support patterns containing \e0 for more search backends, until then we\(cqll die when the pattern type in question doesn\(cqt support them\&.
.RE
.PP
\-e
.RS 4
The next parameter is the pattern\&. This option has to be used for patterns starting with
\fB\-\fR
and should be used in scripts passing user input to grep\&. Multiple patterns are combined by
\fIor\fR\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-and, \-\-or, \-\-not, ( \&... )
.RS 4
Specify how multiple patterns are combined using Boolean expressions\&.
\fB\-\-or\fR
is the default operator\&.
\fB\-\-and\fR
has higher precedence than
\fB\-\-or\fR\&.
\fB\-e\fR
has to be used for all patterns\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-all\-match
.RS 4
When giving multiple pattern expressions combined with
\fB\-\-or\fR, this flag is specified to limit the match to files that have lines to match all of them\&.
.RE
.PP
\-q, \-\-quiet
.RS 4
Do not output matched lines; instead, exit with status 0 when there is a match and with non\-zero status when there isn\(cqt\&.
.RE
.PP
\&...
.RS 4
Instead of searching tracked files in the working tree, search blobs in the given trees\&.
.RE
.PP
\-\-
.RS 4
Signals the end of options; the rest of the parameters are limiters\&.
.RE
.PP
\&...
.RS 4
If given, limit the search to paths matching at least one pattern\&. Both leading paths match and glob(7) patterns are supported\&.
.sp
For more details about the syntax, see the
\fIpathspec\fR
entry in
\fBgitglossary\fR(7)\&.
.RE
.SH "EXAMPLES"
.PP
\fBgit grep \*(Aqtime_t\*(Aq \-\- \*(Aq*\&.[ch]\*(Aq\fR
.RS 4
Looks for
\fBtime_t\fR
in all tracked \&.c and \&.h files in the working directory and its subdirectories\&.
.RE
.PP
\fBgit grep \-e \*(Aq#define\*(Aq \-\-and \e( \-e MAX_PATH \-e PATH_MAX \e)\fR
.RS 4
Looks for a line that has
\fB#define\fR
and either
\fBMAX_PATH\fR
or
\fBPATH_MAX\fR\&.
.RE
.PP
\fBgit grep \-\-all\-match \-e NODE \-e Unexpected\fR
.RS 4
Looks for a line that has
\fBNODE\fR
or
\fBUnexpected\fR
in files that have lines that match both\&.
.RE
.PP
\fBgit grep solution \-\- :^Documentation\fR
.RS 4
Looks for
\fBsolution\fR, excluding files in
\fBDocumentation\fR\&.
.RE
.SH "NOTES ON THREADS"
.sp
The \fB\-\-threads\fR option (and the grep\&.threads configuration) will be ignored when \fB\-\-open\-files\-in\-pager\fR is used, forcing a single\-threaded execution\&.
.sp
When grepping the object store (with \fB\-\-cached\fR or giving tree objects), running with multiple threads might perform slower than single threaded if \fB\-\-textconv\fR is given and there\(cqre too many text conversions\&. So if you experience low performance in this case, it might be desirable to use \fB\-\-threads=1\fR\&.
.SH "GIT"
.sp
Part of the \fBgit\fR(1) suite