Exclude .git directory from grep searches

Objective

The idea here is to recursively search for a word using grep but exclude everything under .git directory

bare bones solution

 grep -sir pattern . --exclude-dir=".git"

The . in the ".git" argument is matched literally. So it will exclude hits from .git but include hits from, say, kgit directory. The appendix contains more details on this.

Advanced solution

Typing the whole grep command can become cumbersome after a while. So I wrote git_grep.py, a python script to simplify searching in a repository while working in it.

If a directory name is supplied, the script figures out the top level git directory to search in. If it is not supplied, it starts with the current working directory.

For example, I have a git repository in ~/work/gitlab/rutils.

rajulocal@hogwarts ~/work/gitlab/rutils
 % ls -ald .git
drwxr-xr-x 8 rajulocal rajulocal 4096 Mar  5 08:51 .git/

To search this directory while working in it

rajulocal@hogwarts ~/work/gitlab/rutils
 % git_grep.py "import os" 
/home/rajulocal/work/gitlab/rutils/python3/scottrade/scottrade.py:    import os
/home/rajulocal/work/gitlab/rutils/python3/git_grep.py:import os

Sometimes we might be working in a directory that is part of the repository but buried deep underneath. If so, the script figures out the top level directory and searches from there.

rajulocal@hogwarts ~/work/gitlab/rutils
 % cd python3/scottrade 

rajulocal@hogwarts ~/work/gitlab/rutils/python3/scottrade
 % git_grep.py "import os" 
/home/rajulocal/work/gitlab/rutils/python3/scottrade/scottrade.py:    import os
/home/rajulocal/work/gitlab/rutils/python3/git_grep.py:import os

If you are not inside a git repository, but want to search in one simply pass it as an argument.

rajulocal@hogwarts ~/work/gitlab/rutils/python3/scottrade
 % cd

rajulocal@hogwarts ~
 % git_grep.py "import os" ~/work/gitlab/rutils/python3
/home/rajulocal/work/gitlab/rutils/python3/scottrade/scottrade.py:    import os
/home/rajulocal/work/gitlab/rutils/python3/git_grep.py:import os

Appendix - experiment with grep

 % mkdir -p .git kgit
 % echo "more this" > .git/head
 % echo "more that" > kgit/head
 % echo "more this and that" > head    

 % grep more .
grep: .: Is a directory
 % grep more *
head:more this and that
grep: kgit: Is a directory

 % grep -sir more *
head:more this and that
kgit/head:more that
 % grep -sir more .
./kgit/head:more that
./head:more this and that
./.git/head:more this

 % grep -sir more . --exclude-dir=".git"
./kgit/head:more that
./head:more this and that
 % grep -sir more . --exclude-dir="kgit"
./head:more this and that
./.git/head:more this
 % grep -sir more . --exclude-dir="*git" 
./head:more this and that

Appendix - system information

 % which grep git  
/bin/grep
/usr/bin/git

 % dpkg -S /bin/grep /usr/bin/git
grep: /bin/grep
git: /usr/bin/git

 % dpkg -l grep git | grep ^ii
ii  git            1:2.1.4-2.1+deb8u1 amd64        fast, scalable, distributed revision control system
ii  grep           2.20-4.1           amd64        GNU grep, egrep and fgrep

 % grep --version
grep (GNU grep) 2.20
Copyright (C) 2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Written by Mike Haertel and others, see <http://git.sv.gnu.org/cgit/grep.git/tree/AUTHORS>.
rajulocal@hogwarts ~/work/gitlab/rutils

 % git --version
git version 2.1.4