Find And Replace plugin for neovim
Grug find! Grug replace! Grug happy!
- Search using the full power of
rg
orast-grep
- Replace using almost the full power of
rg
orast-grep
. For example, forrg
, some flags such as--binary
and--json
, etc. are blacklisted in order to prevent unexpected output. The UI will warn you and prevent replace when using such flags. - Automatic debounced search or manual search on leaving insert mode (and normal mode changes)
- Open search results in quickfix list
- Goto file/line/column of match when pressing
<Enter>
in normal mode on lines in the results output (keybind configurable). - Inline edit result lines and sync them back to their originating file locations using a configurable keybinding.
- Manual/auto-save search history and reload
- Syntax highlighted search results
- Search results folding
- Multiline search & replace
- "Preview" result source while "scrolling" through results
- Replace using lua interpreted replacement for each match
- strives for reduced mental overhead. All actions you can take and as much help as possible is in your face (some configurable). Grug often forget how to do capture groups or which flag does what.
- transparency. Does not try to hide away the underlying tool. For instance, error messages from
rg
are shown as they are actually quite friendly when you mess up your regex. You can gradually learnrg
orast-grep
flags or use existing knowledge from running it in the CLI. You can even input the--help
flag to see the fullrg
help or the--debug-query=ast
flag to debug yourast-grep
query. Grug like! - reuse muscle memory. Does not try to block any type of buffer edits, such as deleting lines, etc. It's very easy to get such things wrong and when you do, Grug becomes unable to modify text in the middle of writing a large regex. Grug mad!! Only ensures graceful recovery in order to preserve basic UI integrity (possible due to the magic of extmarks). Recovery should be simple undo away.
- uniformity. only uses one tool for both search and applying replace to keep things consistent. For example, does not combine
rg
with other tools likesed
, even thoughrg
does not support replacement directly. One should not have to worry about compatibility differences when writing regexes. Additionally it opens the door to use many fancyrg
flags such as different regex engine that would not be possible in a mixed environment. There is currently one small exception for this due to the fact thatast-grep
does not currently support something like a--glob
flag, so we have to filter files throughrg
, but hopefully that can be rectified in the future.
- Neovim >= 0.10.0
- BurntSushi/ripgrep >= 14 recommended
- a Nerd Font (optional)
- ast-grep (optional) if you would like to use the
ast-grep
search engine. Version >=0.25.7
if you would like context lines flags to work. Version >=0.28.0
recommended for better performance as it has builtin--globs
support. - either nvim-web-devicons or mini.icons for file icons support (optional)
Run :checkhealth grug-far
if you see unexpected issues.
Using lazy.nvim:
{
'MagicDuck/grug-far.nvim',
config = function()
require('grug-far').setup({
-- options, see Configuration section below
-- there are no required options atm
-- engine = 'ripgrep' is default, but 'astgrep' can be specified
});
end
},
grug-far.nvim comes with the following:
Note on the key mappings: By default, grug-far, will use <localleader>
for it's keymaps as that is the vim
recommended way for plugins. See https://learnvimscriptthehardway.stevelosh.com/chapters/11.html#local-leader
So to use that, make sure you have <localleader>
configured. For example, to use ,
as the local leader:
vim.g.maplocalleader = ','
You can open a new grug-far.nvim vertical split buffer with the :GrugFar
command.
Note that command supports the typical command-modifiers
like botright
, aboveleft
, etc. and visual ranges.
In visual mode, the command will pre-fill the search string with the current visual selection.
Possibly best to map a keybind to it for easy triggering.
Since it's just a buffer, you can edit in it as you see fit. The UI will try to guide
you along and recover gracefully if you do things like ggVGd
(delete all lines).
Ultimately it leaves the power in your hands, and in any case recovery is just a few u
taps away.
You can create multiple such buffers with potentially different searches, which will reflect in each buffer's title (configurable). The buffers should be visible in the buffers list if you need to toggle to them.
Search and replace is accomplished by simply typing text on appropriately marked lines. Search will happen in a debounced manner as you type. In the options, you can also specify a minimum number of characters that one has to enter before search is triggered. You can also specify a files filter to narrow down your search and more ripgrep flags to refine it further. Error messages from ripgrep when entering invalid flags and so on are displayed to guide you along.
Note: When replacing matches with the empty string, you will be prompted to confirm, as the change is not
visible in the results area due to UI considering it just a search. If you
would like to see the actual replacement in the results area, add --replace=
to the flags.
Some situations require the power of arbitrary code executed for each search to determine the proper replacements.
In those cases, you can use the Swap Replacement Interpreter
action to switch to a desired replacement interpreter,
such as lua
or vimscript
.
For example with the lua
interpreter, this will allow you to write multi-line lua code, essentially the body of a lua function,
in the Replace:
input.
You can use match
to refer to each match and need to return
the value you want to be the replacement.
In the case of the astgrep
engine, you will also have access to the meta variables by accessing them through the
vars
table. ex: $A
is referred to by vars.A
, $$$ARGS
is referred to by vars.ARGS
.
It is a similar situation for the vimscript
interpreter.
It is possible to sync the text of the lines in the results area back to their originating files. There are 3 types of actions that can accomplish this operation:
Sync Line
- syncs current lineSync All
- syncs all linesApply Next
/Apply Prev
- syncs current line/diff and smartly deletes it from the result buffer
A sync will happen only if a line has changed in some way compared to the source file, so if there's either a replacement taking place or you have manually edited it.
Deleting result lines will cause them to be excluded from being synced by Sync All
action.
This can be a nice way to refine a replacement in some situations if you want to exclude a particular file
or some particular matches.
Note: sync is only supported by ripgrep
engine. The following explanation is ripgrep
engine specific:
If you don't edit the results list, Sync All
and Replace
have equivalent outcomes, except for one case.
When you do multi-line replace with --multiline
and --multiline-dot-all
flags, sync won't work so you
have to use replace. Essentially the difference it that Replace
runs rg --replace=... --passthrough
on
each file and does not depend at all on what's in the results area. Sync All
does a line by line
sync based on what's in the results area.
Note: changing the <line-number>:<column>:
prefix of result lines will disable sync for that line
Note: sync is disabled when doing multiline replacement (--multiline
flag)
Note: if you would like sync to work when doing a replacement with empty string, please add --replace=
to the flags.
When the cursor is placed on a result file path, you can go to that file by pressing <enter>
in normal mode (Goto
action default keybind).
When it's placed over a result match line, you will be taken to the file/line/column of the match. By default, the file buffer
is opened in the last window you were in before opening grug-far, which is typically the other vertical split.
If you would like to do the same thing, but have the cursor stay in place, you can use the Open
action instead.
Note: for both Goto
and Open
actions, if a <count>
is entered beforehand, the location corresponding to <count>
result line is used instead of the current cursor line. You can set the option resultLocation.showNumberLabel = true
if you would like to have a visual indication of the <count>
.
In order to smoothly Open
each result location in sequence, you can use the Open Next
and Open Prev
actions.
If you would like to keep the buffers layout, you can use the Preview
action instead, which will open location in a floating window.
Result lines can be opened in the quickfix list. Deleting result lines will cause them not to be included.
Note: changing the <line-number>:<column>:
prefix of result lines will remove lines from consideration
Note: quickfix list is disabled when doing multiline replacement (--multiline
flag)
grug-far can keep track of your search history. This is done either by manually adding a history entry with
History Add
action or automatically on certain successful actions like Replace
and Sync All
.
When you would like to pick one of your history entries to reuse, you can use the History Open
action to
open the search history as a buffer. From there you can pick an entry that will be auto-filled in.
Note that you can edit the history buffer and save just like any other buffer if you need to do some cleanup. The format of a history entry is:
<optional comment, ex: My special search>
Engine: <astgrep|ripgrep>(|lua)?
Search: <text>
Replace: <text>
Files Filter: <text>
Flags: <text>
where <text>
can span multiple line with the aid of a "continuation prefix" (|
). ex:
Replace: something
| additional replace text
| more replace text
History entries are separated by one or more empty lines.
Note: grug-far will ignore lines that do not start with the prefixes above
Sometimes, mostly for debug purposes, it's useful to see the full rg
command that gets executed on search. You
can toggle that on with the Toggle Show rg Command
action, and the command will appear as the first thing in the
search results area.
The command is shell-escaped, so you can copy and execute it in a shell manually if you need to.
If you inadvertently launched a wrong search/sync/replace, you can abort early using the Abort
action.
You can swap search engines with the Swap Engine
action. Currently ripgrep
(default) and astgrep
are supported.
When you are done, it is recommended to close the buffer with the configured keybinding
(see Configuration section above) or just :bd
in order to save on resources as some search results
can be quite beefy in size. The advantage of using the Close
action as opposed to just :bd
is that it
will ask you to confirm if there is a replace/sync in progress, as those would be aborted.
Note that grug-far.nvim buffers will have filetype=grug-far
, history buffers will have filetype=grug-far-history
and help will have filetype=grug-far-help
if you need filter/exclude them in any situations.
Excluding seems to be necessary with copilot at the time of writing this.
For more control, you can programmatically open a grug-far buffer like so:
require('grug-far').open(opts)
If the above is called while in visual mode, it will pre-fill current visual selection as search text.
(note, this will also set --fixed-strings
flag as selection can contain special characters)
Note that if you want to pre-fill current visual selection from command mode, you would have to use:
:lua require('grug-far').with_visual_selection(opts)
(command mode is the only case where this is necessary in order to force using the visual selection)
where opts
will be merged with and override the global plugin options configured at setup time.
See here for all the available options
For more API, see docs
:lua require('grug-far').open({ prefills = { search = vim.fn.expand("<cword>") } })
:lua require('grug-far').open({ engine = 'astgrep' })
:lua require('grug-far').open({ transient = true })
:lua require('grug-far').open({ prefills = { paths = vim.fn.expand("%") } })
:<C-u>lua require('grug-far').with_visual_selection({ prefills = { paths = vim.fn.expand("%") } })
:lua require('grug-far').toggle_instance({ instanceName="far", staticTitle="Find and Replace" })
vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd('FileType', {
group = vim.api.nvim_create_augroup('my-grug-far-custom-keybinds', { clear = true }),
pattern = { 'grug-far' },
callback = function()
vim.keymap.set('n', '<localleader>w', function()
local state = unpack(require('grug-far').toggle_flags({ '--fixed-strings' }))
vim.notify('grug-far: toggled --fixed-strings ' .. (state and 'ON' or 'OFF'))
end, { buffer = true })
end,
})
vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd('FileType', {
group = vim.api.nvim_create_augroup('grug-far-keybindings', { clear = true }),
pattern = { 'grug-far' },
callback = function()
vim.api.nvim_buf_set_keymap(0, 'n', '<C-enter>', '<localleader>o<localleader>c', {})
end,
})
(where <localleader>o
and <localleader>c
are the default keybindings for Open and Close actions. You will need to change them if you set them to something different)
vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd('FileType', {
group = vim.api.nvim_create_augroup('grug-far-keymap', { clear = true }),
pattern = { 'grug-far' },
callback = function()
-- jump back to search input by hitting left arrow in normal mode:
vim.keymap.set('n', '<left>', function()
vim.api.nvim_win_set_cursor(vim.fn.bufwinid(0), { 2, 0 })
end, { buffer = true })
end,
})
Create a hotkey z
in nvim-tree
that will create/open a named instance of grug-far with the current directory of the file or directory in focus. On the second trigger, path of the grug-far instance will be updated, leaving other fields intact.
Nvim tree lazy plugin setup
Small video of it in action: #165 (comment)
return {
"nvim-tree/nvim-tree.lua",
dependencies = "nvim-tree/nvim-web-devicons",
config = function()
-- https://github.com/nvim-tree/nvim-tree.lua/blob/master/lua/nvim-tree.lua#L342
require("nvim-tree").setup {
commands = {
-- create a new neo-tree command
grug_far_replace = function(state)
local node = state.tree:get_node()
local prefills = {
-- get the current path and get the parent directory if a file is selected
paths = node.type == "directory" and node:get_id() or vim.fn.fnamemodify(node:get_id(), ":h"),
}
local grug_far = require "grug-far"
-- instance check
if not grug_far.has_instance "explorer" then
grug_far.open {
instanceName = "explorer",
prefills = prefills,
staticTitle = "Find and Replace from Explorer",
}
else
grug_far.open_instance "explorer"
-- updating the prefills without clearing the search and other fields
grug_far.update_instance_prefills("explorer", prefills, false)
end
end,
},
window = {
mappings = {
-- map our new command to z
z = "grug_far_replace",
},
},
-- rest of your config
}
end,
}
Create a hotkey gs
in oil.nvim
that will create/open a named instance of grug-far with the current directory in focus. On the second trigger, path of the grug-far instance will be updated, leaving other fields intact.
Oil explorer lazy plugin setup
return {
"stevearc/oil.nvim",
config = function()
local oil = require "oil"
oil.setup {
keymaps = {
-- create a new mapping, gs, to search and replace in the current directory
gs = {
callback = function()
-- get the current directory
local prefills = { paths = oil.get_current_dir() }
local grug_far = require "grug-far"
-- instance check
if not grug_far.has_instance "explorer" then
grug_far.open {
instanceName = "explorer",
prefills = prefills,
staticTitle = "Find and Replace from Explorer",
}
else
grug_far.open_instance "explorer"
-- updating the prefills without clearing the search and other fields
grug_far.update_instance_prefills("explorer", prefills, false)
end
end,
desc = "oil: Search in directory",
},
},
-- rest of your config
}
end,
}
Create a hotkey gs
in mini.files
that will create/open a named instance of grug-far with the current directory in focus. On the second trigger, the path of the grug-far instance will be updated, leaving other fields intact.
MiniFiles explorer lazy plugin setup
return {
"echasnovski/mini.files",
config = function()
local MiniFiles = require "mini.files"
MiniFiles.setup({
-- your config
})
local files_grug_far_replace = function(path)
-- works only if cursor is on the valid file system entry
local cur_entry_path = MiniFiles.get_fs_entry().path
local prefills = { paths = vim.fs.dirname(cur_entry_path) }
local grug_far = require "grug-far"
-- instance check
if not grug_far.has_instance "explorer" then
grug_far.open {
instanceName = "explorer",
prefills = prefills,
staticTitle = "Find and Replace from Explorer",
}
else
grug_far.open_instance "explorer"
-- updating the prefills without crealing the search and other fields
grug_far.update_instance_prefills("explorer", prefills, false)
end
end
vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd("User", {
pattern = "MiniFilesBufferCreate",
callback = function(args)
vim.keymap.set("n", "gs", files_grug_far_replace, { buffer = args.data.buf_id, desc = "Search in directory" })
end,
})
end,
}
Chances are that you are using copilot.nvim and the fix is to exclude grug-far
file types in copilot config:
filetypes = {
["grug-far"] = false,
["grug-far-history"] = false,
["grug-far-help"] = false,
}
- nvim-spectre: the OG find and replace in a buffer plugin, great inspiration!
- telescope.nvim: lifted
rg
healthcheck from there :P - lazy.nvim: used their beautiful
README.md
as a template - plugin-template.nvim: super handy template, this plugin is based on it!