Recursively searching files within a directory/repository using RipGrep.

So, recently amidst working with the julia language ecosystem under the domains of medical imaging and cross-platform binary packaging subecosystem pacakges, namely MedEye3d.jl and BinaryBuilder.jl, I encountered myself navigating back and forth between various files in order to look for a pattern or a piece of text that was a part of "n" number of files within a given directory, so in order to tweak and modify those files to account for troubleshooting practices. The overall process was cumbersome and an alternative way to search for files with a certain text in a given directory, became a quest for search.

RipGrep command line utility introduction

The ChatGPT indulgances deemed worthwhile, after it highlighted a command line utility to "grep" a list of files within a directory based on some passed certain text as an argument.

rg -l "Pice of text"

Apparent Usecases :

Working with BinaryBuilder.jl to build a build_tarballs.jl file for a C++ library, in order to generate and package it's cross-platform binaries in julia, relied heavily on ripgrep, considering that I had to refine multiple build_tarballs.jl for each platform after testing and had to make changes in multiple files based on some certain function name or variable.

Understanding and documenting MedEye3d.jl package as a Google Summer of Code 2024 student. Apart from building binaries and editing files, ripgrep deemed beneficial when trying to understand a package's codebase. Looking for files which handle keyboard inputs , display , visualizations , texture and state management was way easier with ripgrep than manually viewing each file in the editor.

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RipGrep Github repository