sg

sg (syntax-aware grep) is a grep-like code search tool that allows searching in identifiers and keywords, string literals, comments, or a combination of them. For example, the following command searches for 'test' in string literals and comments in Rust files:

sg --rust test -k string,comment

By default (without -k or --kind, or with -k identifier) sg searches in identifiers and keywords, ignoring string literals and comments.

sg aims to be a drop-in replacement for ag, though a lot of flags are currently missing.

Under the hood sg uses tree-sitter parsers. Currently sg comes with Rust, OCaml, and Dart parsers, which are enabled with --rust, --ocaml, and --dart flags, respectively.

(For languages that are not built-in to sg we could implement loading parsers from shared libraries, but that's currently not implemented)

Here are some example uses:

• Search for "fun" in Rust files, ignoring comments and string literals, case sensitively:

  sg fun --rust -s
  

• Search for "fun" in OCaml comments and strings, case insensitively:

  sg fun --ocaml -S -k comment,string
  

See also sg --help.

sg does not try to be perfect. I haven't benchmarked, but it should be slower than ag, rg, ack, or grep. tree-sitter can parse incomplete programs, but not perfectly. Still, I found sg to be useful when a searched word occurs in comments and strings but I'm only interested in uses in identifiers.