ripgrep (rg) is a line-oriented search tool that recursively searches directories for a regex pattern. Written in Rust, it is designed to be faster than grep, particularly on large codebases, by respecting .gitignore rules and skipping hidden/binary files by default.
Key Features
Blazingly Fast — Uses Rust regex engine with SIMD acceleration
Automatic .gitignore Respect — Ignores files matched by .gitignore by default
Smart Recursive Search — Skips binary files and hidden directories
Colorized Output — Highlighted matches with context and line numbers
Multiple Encoding Support — Handles UTF-8, UTF-16, Latin-1, and more