1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
|
# General form
The input is the area at the bottom of the focused panel, in which you can type a filter or a command.
Its parts are
* a filtering pattern
* a verb invocation, starting with a space or a colon (`:`)
Both parts are optional.
# The filtering pattern
A search pattern is made of 1 to 3 parts separated by the `/` character but you rarely need the two `/`.
The syntax is globally
<mode><pattern>[/<flags>]
The mode is either nothing (fuzzy path), just a slash (regex name) or some letters followed by a slash.
The search mode combines
* the search type: fuzzy, regex, exact, tokens
* the search object: file name, file path, file content
mode | example query | example match | explanation
-|-|-|-
fuzzy path | `abc` or `p/abc` | `a/bac.txt` | search for "abc" in a fuzzy way in sub-paths from current tree root
fuzzy name | `n/abc` or `nf/abc` | `abac.txt` | search for "abc" in a fuzzy way in filenames
tokens name | `nt/ab,cd` | `dcdAbac.txt` | search for the "ab" and "cd" tokens, in whatever order (case and diacritics insensitive)
exact name | `e/Bac` or `en/Bac` | `ABac.txt` | search for the string "Bac" in filenames
regex name | `/[yz]{3}` or `/[yz]{3}/` | `fuzzy.rs` | search for the regular expression `[yz]{3}` in filenames
regex name | `/(json|xml)$/i` | `thing.XML` | find files whose name ends in `json` or `xml`, case insensitive
regex name | `/abc/i` | `aBc.txt` | search for the regular expression `abc` with flag `i` in filenames
exact path | `ep/te\/d` or `pe/te\/d/` | `website/docs` | search for "te/d" in sub-paths from current tree root
regex path | `rp/\\d{3}.*txt` | `dir/a256/abc.txt` | search for the `\d{3}.*txt` regex in sub-paths from current tree root
tokens path | `t/ab,cd` | `DCD/a256/abc.txt` | search for the "ab" and "cd" tokens in sub-paths from current tree root
exact content | `c/mask` or `c/mask/` | `umask = "1.0"` | search for the "mask" string in file contents
regex content | `rc/[abc]{5}/i` | `bAAAc` | search with a regular expression in file contents - `i` making it case insensitive
regex content | `cr/\\bzh\\b` | `"zh":{` | search a word with a regular expression in file contents
It's also possible to [redefine those mode mappings](../conf_file/#search-modes).
To escape characters (for example the space, colon or slash) in the pattern, use a `\` (an antislash is `\\`).
# Combining filtering patterns
Patterns can be combined with the `!` (not), `&` (and) and `|` (or) operators, and parentheses if necessary.
You can for example display non `json` files containing either `isize` or `i32` with
!/json$/&(c/isize/|c/i32/)
## Subtleties
The characters you use as operators and the parenthesis can be useful in patterns too, either because you want to search for them in fuzzy patterns or in file contents, or because you write non trivial regular expressions.
Most often you'll just type what feels natural and broot will select the interpretation which makes sense but you might be interested in a few rules:
* parenthesis and operators in the second pattern part (parts being separated by `/`) are part of the pattern, which explains why `/(json|xml)` is interpreted as a regular expression. If you want to do a fuzzy search for a `|` in the name of your files, you'll need to either escape it as `\|` or to have an explicit pattern mode : `nf/a|b` because `a|b` would search for files whose name contains either `a` or `b`. And to ensure an operator or closing parenthesis isn't interpreted as part of your pattern, close it with a `/`.
* broot interprets the left operand before the right one and doesn't interpret the second one if it's not necessary. So if you want to search your whole disk for json files containing `abcd`, it will be faster to use `/json$/&c/abcd` rather than `c/abcd/&/json$/` which would look at the file name only after having scanned the content.
# The verb invocation
The verb invocation is
:<verb><arguments>
or
<space><verb><arguments>
where arguments can be empty, depending on the verb's behaviour and invocation pattern.
Verbs are detailed in the [Verbs & Commands](verbs.md) chapter.
# Examples
## A Fuzzy Path search:
`re`
## A regular expression based search:
`/R`
## A search followed by a command without arguments:
`re rm` (which is equivalent to `re:rm`)
This is very natural: You use the search to select your element and you don't need to remove it before typing the command.
## A search followed by a command taking an argument:
`re mv ../regex.rs`
## A full text search
In this case with an escaped space:
`c/two\ p`
## A regular expression based full text search
## A complex composite search
Here we search for `"carg"` both in file names and file contents, and we exclude `"lock"` files:
`!lock&(carg|c/carg/)`
note: the `/` at the end of `c/carg/` is necessary to tell broot that the following parenthesis isn't part of the pattern.
|
