6 ms·

I wish fd and rg would align some of their flags. For example, both fd and rg have a --type, but for fd it means file/directory/symlink etc. For rg it means the

I wish fd and rg would align some of their flags. For example, both fd and rg have a --type, but for fd it means file/directory/symlink etc. For rg it means the file MIME type. Another example is that fd has an --extension flag, and rg doesn't. Since I believe the correlation of usage of these tools is high, I think they could benefit from having similarly named flags.

hnlmorg 2y ago
To be honest, this is one of the reasons I usually stick with POSIX tools, I’m too old and too lazy to want to learn a whole new set of flags for a whole new set of tools that are very close to but not quite the same as what’s already part of my muscle memory now. Not taking anything away from the tools that have been written. Just for me, the pain of learning a new tool is greater than the convenience I’d gain from using it.
- renewiltord 2y ago
  It's actually because they stayed compatible that the problem arises: fd and find -type mean the same but this user wants them to be different. Overall, I use AI shell completion so it's much smoother.
  - hnlmorg 2y ago
    I’ve been thinking of adding AI completion into my CLI tools but not really sure how to implement it in a non-intrusive way. So I’ve got a few questions, if you don’t mind sharing: What’s the workflow like for AI shell completion? How does it know which flag to complete for you? Do you write a description in native language (eg English) and it completes the entire command line? Or is it more one flag at a time?
    - renewiltord 2y ago
      Ah I do it from the other side Got it from here https://x.com/arjie/status/1575201117595926530?s=46 https://x.com/arjie/status/1575201117595926530?s=46
      - hnlmorg 2y ago
        Interesting. Thanks for sharing. That gives me some ideas to try myself.
        renewiltord 2y ago
        Good luck. Do share if any are sticky!
- burntsushi 2y ago
  As the author of ripgrep, I find this unconvincing personally. Have you ever tried to use `sed` with its `-i` flag? That's because `-i`, while incredibly useful, is not POSIX. So when you say "POSIX tools," what you actually probably mean is, "superset of POSIX tools." There is some agreement among the same tools as what the options in the superset actually mean, but not always, as is the case with `sed`. Compare, for example, what `man grep` says on your system with the POSIX definition: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/grep.html https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/g... As for whether flags are consistent across different tools, well that's a total crapshoot. `find` uses `-L` for following symlinks while `grep` uses `-R`. Ironically, both `fd` and ripgrep use `-L`, so they are more consistent than the relevant superset-plus-POSIX tooling on at least that front. To be clear, I mean this somewhat narrowly. Namely > I’m too old and too lazy I totally get that. I have a bunch of things I kinda want to learn and do, but just not enough time in the day. But I do still try to make time for these things. I did it for `tmux` (previously, `screen`) and `zsh` (previously, `bash`) and I am very happy I did. Each one cost me about a Sunday and a half, but they've been paying rewards ever since.
  - ziml77 2y ago
    I’m happy you gave ripgrep an option to perform replacements so I don’t have to worry about sed and its lack of a standard way to change files in-place. I realize on my Mac I could install GNU sed, but if I’m going to install an extra utility anyway, why not go with something that is overall nicer?
    - burntsushi 2y ago
      Hah, well, hate to break it to you, but ripgrep never writes files, only reads them. So its `-r/--replace` option only controls ripgrep's output, but doesn't actually replace data inside a file.
      - ziml77 2y ago
        I could swear I used it to do just that a handful of times in the past. But my brain's been a bit scrambled recently so I'm probably misremembering now. I know for sure I made use of the replace option and was happy it was there and that using it felt better than using sed. I guess it does make sense now that I think about it that ripgrep wouldn't do in-place edits. If ripgrep never performs writes, there's never a chance of a mistake in usage or bug in the software clobbering files in bulk.
- sweeter 2y ago
  this is what tab completion and tldr is for. 99% of use cases are well covered and clear by the name of the flag, and a good CLI tool will make that easy to understand. A quick example and self-explanatory flags with tab-completion is all you need. Then if you ever have a more complicated use case, you can grep through the man page. its legit as simple as "fd -e png -x optimize-png {}" the only thing I dont like about fd is that for some reason it kind of forces you to do 'fd . Downloads' if you just want everything in "Downloads" which equates to 'fd {pattern} Dir1 dir2" I wish you could omit the pattern sometimes.
- ForTheKidz 2y ago
  ripgrep solves a really annoying part of the unix toolbox: inconsistency in how to correctly search a bunch of files for a string. Are you supposed to `find -name -exec`? Or are you supposed to `find -name | xargs -n 1`? Oh, but files can have spaces, so you might try `find -name -print0 | xargs`, but careful—`-print0` is not POSIX and you won't find it on some unixen! (let's not even discuss locate vs slocate vs mlocate.... ugh! Files are worse than everything but all the other options.)
derriz 2y ago
Yeah this annoys me even though I'm a daily user of both fd and rg. What makes it more confusing is that many of the flags DO align - or partially align. For example, I'm used to glob patterns but the glob flag (-g) works differently in fd and rg. I think that fd's -g flag does not use "full-path" globbing while rg's -g does (or the other way around). To get fd to use rg style globs, it also needs the -p flag, which rg also recognizes but it has a completely different meaning for rg and has nothing to do with how globbing/filename matching works. I guess I'm used to the warts at this stage, like I had gotten used to the warts on find and grep all those years ago. Difficult or impossible to fix these inconsistencies at this stage without breaking backward compatibility.
laktak 2y ago
I used sql instead of flags to make it easier to remember - see https://github.com/laktak/zfind https://github.com/laktak/zfind
thayne 2y ago
It's a tricky balance. To use your --type example, it isn't consistent with rg, but it is mostly consistent with find. And fd'a --type option is much more useful for fd than an equivalent would be for rg. It doesn't make a lot of sense to filter the files to grep to directories, or sockets, but that is useful if you are searching for file names, or even just all files of a certain type. Conversely, rg's --type option isn't quite as useful for fd, because fd is already matching a pattern against the file name, so you can easily just add the appropriate extension to your search pattern. Or use the --exyension flag.

hnlmorg 2y ago

To be honest, this is one of the reasons I usually stick with POSIX tools, I’m too old and too lazy to want to learn a whole new set of flags for a whole new set of tools that are very close to but not quite the same as what’s already part of my muscle memory now. Not taking anything away from the tools that have been written. Just for me, the pain of learning a new tool is greater than the convenience I’d gain from using it.

renewiltord 2y ago
It's actually because they stayed compatible that the problem arises: fd and find -type mean the same but this user wants them to be different. Overall, I use AI shell completion so it's much smoother.
- hnlmorg 2y ago
  I’ve been thinking of adding AI completion into my CLI tools but not really sure how to implement it in a non-intrusive way. So I’ve got a few questions, if you don’t mind sharing: What’s the workflow like for AI shell completion? How does it know which flag to complete for you? Do you write a description in native language (eg English) and it completes the entire command line? Or is it more one flag at a time?
  - renewiltord 2y ago
    Ah I do it from the other side Got it from here https://x.com/arjie/status/1575201117595926530?s=46 https://x.com/arjie/status/1575201117595926530?s=46
    - hnlmorg 2y ago
      Interesting. Thanks for sharing. That gives me some ideas to try myself.
      - renewiltord 2y ago
        Good luck. Do share if any are sticky!
burntsushi 2y ago
As the author of ripgrep, I find this unconvincing personally. Have you ever tried to use `sed` with its `-i` flag? That's because `-i`, while incredibly useful, is not POSIX. So when you say "POSIX tools," what you actually probably mean is, "superset of POSIX tools." There is some agreement among the same tools as what the options in the superset actually mean, but not always, as is the case with `sed`. Compare, for example, what `man grep` says on your system with the POSIX definition: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/grep.html https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/g... As for whether flags are consistent across different tools, well that's a total crapshoot. `find` uses `-L` for following symlinks while `grep` uses `-R`. Ironically, both `fd` and ripgrep use `-L`, so they are more consistent than the relevant superset-plus-POSIX tooling on at least that front. To be clear, I mean this somewhat narrowly. Namely > I’m too old and too lazy I totally get that. I have a bunch of things I kinda want to learn and do, but just not enough time in the day. But I do still try to make time for these things. I did it for `tmux` (previously, `screen`) and `zsh` (previously, `bash`) and I am very happy I did. Each one cost me about a Sunday and a half, but they've been paying rewards ever since.
- ziml77 2y ago
  I’m happy you gave ripgrep an option to perform replacements so I don’t have to worry about sed and its lack of a standard way to change files in-place. I realize on my Mac I could install GNU sed, but if I’m going to install an extra utility anyway, why not go with something that is overall nicer?
  - burntsushi 2y ago
    Hah, well, hate to break it to you, but ripgrep never writes files, only reads them. So its `-r/--replace` option only controls ripgrep's output, but doesn't actually replace data inside a file.
    - ziml77 2y ago
      I could swear I used it to do just that a handful of times in the past. But my brain's been a bit scrambled recently so I'm probably misremembering now. I know for sure I made use of the replace option and was happy it was there and that using it felt better than using sed. I guess it does make sense now that I think about it that ripgrep wouldn't do in-place edits. If ripgrep never performs writes, there's never a chance of a mistake in usage or bug in the software clobbering files in bulk.
sweeter 2y ago
this is what tab completion and tldr is for. 99% of use cases are well covered and clear by the name of the flag, and a good CLI tool will make that easy to understand. A quick example and self-explanatory flags with tab-completion is all you need. Then if you ever have a more complicated use case, you can grep through the man page. its legit as simple as "fd -e png -x optimize-png {}" the only thing I dont like about fd is that for some reason it kind of forces you to do 'fd . Downloads' if you just want everything in "Downloads" which equates to 'fd {pattern} Dir1 dir2" I wish you could omit the pattern sometimes.
ForTheKidz 2y ago
ripgrep solves a really annoying part of the unix toolbox: inconsistency in how to correctly search a bunch of files for a string. Are you supposed to `find -name -exec`? Or are you supposed to `find -name | xargs -n 1`? Oh, but files can have spaces, so you might try `find -name -print0 | xargs`, but careful—`-print0` is not POSIX and you won't find it on some unixen! (let's not even discuss locate vs slocate vs mlocate.... ugh! Files are worse than everything but all the other options.)

derriz 2y ago

Yeah this annoys me even though I'm a daily user of both fd and rg. What makes it more confusing is that many of the flags DO align - or partially align. For example, I'm used to glob patterns but the glob flag (-g) works differently in fd and rg. I think that fd's -g flag does not use "full-path" globbing while rg's -g does (or the other way around). To get fd to use rg style globs, it also needs the -p flag, which rg also recognizes but it has a completely different meaning for rg and has nothing to do with how globbing/filename matching works. I guess I'm used to the warts at this stage, like I had gotten used to the warts on find and grep all those years ago. Difficult or impossible to fix these inconsistencies at this stage without breaking backward compatibility.

laktak 2y ago

I used sql instead of flags to make it easier to remember - see https://github.com/laktak/zfind https://github.com/laktak/zfind

thayne 2y ago

It's a tricky balance. To use your --type example, it isn't consistent with rg, but it is mostly consistent with find. And fd'a --type option is much more useful for fd than an equivalent would be for rg. It doesn't make a lot of sense to filter the files to grep to directories, or sockets, but that is useful if you are searching for file names, or even just all files of a certain type. Conversely, rg's --type option isn't quite as useful for fd, because fd is already matching a pattern against the file name, so you can easily just add the appropriate extension to your search pattern. Or use the --exyension flag.