igrep (Interactive grep)

A small tool to find a string in a directory interactively

Prerequisites

• Python 3
• Linux
• vim

Why?

Finding some string in a set of files/directories is a common task. It's trivial to achieve everything using recursive grep. In fact, this tool uses the same old dependable grep tool. However, most of the times we search these words in order to see the context in which they are being used (not a single line of context).

Most of the times, I ended up copy-pasting the filename and opening the file and searching for the word. If I am interested in the word appearing in 4 files, I ended up opening 4 files by copy-pasting the path and searching for the word within the file (using vim search). So, why not automate the task when we know what repeats! That's all this tool does but interactively. Nothing more nothing less. It's the same old grep with a wrapper.

How to use?

Basic usage

Results

Usage checks

Options

$ ./igrep --help
usage: igrep [-h] -s SEARCH_TERM [-I INCLUDE] [-d DIRECTORY] [-w] [-i] [-v]

optional arguments:
  -I INCLUDE, --include INCLUDE
                        Comma separated file extensions to include
  -d DIRECTORY, --directory DIRECTORY
                        Directory to search                        
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -w, --whole-word      Search whole words only
  -i, --ignore-case     Ignore case in search
  -v, --version         show program\'s version number and exit

required named arguments:
  -s SEARCH_TERM, --search-term SEARCH_TERM
                        Term to search

Examples

# Search in files with extensions '.c' or '.h' or '.cpp'
$ ./igrep -I "c,h,cpp" -s search_term -d search_directory

# Search a term in current directory
# Default search directory is current directory
$ ./igrep -s search_term

# Search a term ignoring the case
$ ./igrep -i -s search_term -d search_directory

# Search a term where the whole term appears
$ ./igrep -w -s search_term -d search_directory

Installation

No installation, just download the script or clone the repository. Provide execute permissions to the script. The simplest way to use is by adding your igrep tool path to your $PATH. For example, if you've cloned the repository to /home/<username>/Downloads/igrep

# Provide execute permissions
$ chmod +x /home<username>/Downloads/igrep/igrep

# Add the script path to the environment paths
# Add the below line to your ~/.bashrc if you wish to presist the changes on restart
$ export PATH:$PATH:/home/<username>/Downloads/igrep

FYI

The tool excludes .svn, .git, BUILD directories and *.swp and *.o files from search results by default. Additional option to exclude directories will be added in future

FAQ

[Q] But we already have these tools, why reinvent the wheel?
[A] Cool, create an issue and let me know the tool

[Q] I can accomplish the same using the readily available find, grep, xyz etc. There was no need to create this. It's redundant, bulky and not useful
[A] It's useful to me

[Q] There's already another igrep repository which does much more
[A] That's not a question. Feel free to use it though

[Q] Why don't you upload it to PyPi?
[A] Let's not make this whole thing unnecessarily bulky. Just download the script and use it