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, Dart, and JavaScript parsers, which are enabled with --rust,
--ocaml, --dart, and --js 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.