Features

Active contributors: Andrew Gallant

This section walks through ripgrep's user-visible features end-to-end, with file pointers to the implementations. Each page traces a feature from CLI flag → high-level args → searcher/walker behaviour → output.

These are the features most often discussed in the README, GUIDE, FAQ, and bug reports.

Feature	Page	What it covers
Gitignore handling	gitignore-handling	.gitignore, .ignore, .rgignore, parent-directory rules, jujutsu, hidden files, --no-ignore-* ladder
File typing	file-typing	-t/-T, --type-list, --type-add, --type-clear, the default-types table
Decompression	decompression	-z/--search-zip, supported formats, --pre/--pre-glob preprocessors
PCRE2 support	pcre2-support	-P/--pcre2, --engine auto, look-around, backreferences, when to use it
CLI flags	cli-flags	The Flag trait pipeline, parsing, LowArgs → HiArgs, config files, completions, the man page

Why these and not others

ripgrep has dozens of flags but only a handful of distinct features in the architectural sense — major code paths that touch multiple crates. The five above are the ones where the implementation crosses crate boundaries enough to deserve a guided tour.

Single-flag knobs (--max-count, --sort, --passthru, --replace, --smart-case, ...) are documented in the man page, the GUIDE, and the inline doc strings on Flag impls in crates/core/flags/defs.rs.

Cross-cutting features

The user's CLI invocation routes through these stages, and most features are simply pieces of that flow:

graph LR
    Argv[argv] --> Flags[Flag::update]
    Flags --> LowArgs
    LowArgs --> HiArgs
    HiArgs --> Walker
    HiArgs --> Matcher
    HiArgs --> Searcher
    HiArgs --> Printer
    Walker --> Searcher
    Searcher --> Matcher
    Searcher --> Printer

Each feature below is essentially "what happens in the bottom row when a particular flag is set on the top row".