Skip .svn directories when using grep

Tim White — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:56:08 +0000

grep returns .svn metadata files

What You'll Need:
grep 2.5.3+

I can't count how many times a day I use grep. It is an indispensable tool for searching the contents of configuration files, data files, and source code.

One of the annoying side effects of grep is when searching a Subversion working copy recursively, all the hidden .svn directories also get searched. This can yield a lot of false positive matches since these directories contain "pristine copies of all version-controlled files".

If you've got grep 2.5.3 or higher, it's easy to ignore .svn directories with the "--exclude-dir" option:

$ grep -r --exclude-dir='.svn' 'my search string' /some/directory

But that's a lot to type in each time you want to search your source code. To save keystrokes, try setting up an alias in your home directory's .bashrc file that utilizes the --exclude-dir option (for Mac, use your home directory's .profile file.). I call mine devgrep:

alias devgrep="grep --exclude-dir='.svn'"

After adding the alias, don't forget to source your .bashrc:

$ source ~/.bashrc

Now whenever you need to search a Subversion working copy recursively, use the new alias to skip .svn directories:

$ devgrep -rin 'doctype' /var/www/html/templates
./foo.tpl:1:
./bar.tpl:1:
./baz.phtml:1:

You can also exclude file types when grep'ing. If you're a vim user, it can be helpful to skip .swp files in your alias:

alias devgrep="grep --exclude-dir='.svn' --exclude='*.swp'"

Yet another workaround would be to use ack - a Perl based, juiced up version of grep with a lot more features.

Zulius » grep

Skip .svn directories when using grep