Grep/Ack expression with parenthese and semicolon

Question

I'm using vim Ag.vim from Silver Searcher. I would like to search let(:application in my project.

If I do :Ag "let(:application" app/ I get

|| ERR: Bad regex! pcre_compile() failed at position 16: missing )
|| If you meant to search for a literal string, run ag with -Q

No result with Ag -Q "let(:application" app/

Any idea of the right pattern ?

`:Ag 'let\(.......' dir/` should work. `:Ag -Q "...."` works here too. — Kent, Dec 21 '15 at 14:56
Why don't you use `grep` with the parameter `-F` (as per Fixed strings, instead of Regex)? --> `grep -F "let(:application"` — fedorqui, Dec 21 '15 at 15:11
Posted a [wiki] answer so that it is clear what solved your problem. — fedorqui, Dec 21 '15 at 16:24

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 21 '15 at 16:24

2

You can either escape the (:

Ag 'let\(:application' app/

Or use grep with -F for fixed strings:

grep -F "let(:application" app/

answered Dec 21 '15 at 16:24

fedorqui

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Kent · Answer 2 · 2015-12-21T16:33:58.683

1

I guess you are confused by vim's magic pattern and ag's pattern:

The regex pattern parameter passed to ag does NOT follow your vim's magic setting. By default ag applies PCRE so you have to escape ( to let ag knows that you want to match literal (. Or you give -Q option to achieve the same goal.

edited Dec 21 '15 at 16:33

answered Dec 21 '15 at 16:31

Kent

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Grep/Ack expression with parenthese and semicolon

2 Answers2