How do I force ag (the silver searcher) to list empty files

Question

How do I get ag to list all files, including empty ones?

+ravi@boxy:~$ mkdir new && cd new
+ravi@boxy:~/new$ echo stuff > non-empty && touch empty
+ravi@boxy:~/new$ ag -ul
non-empty
+ravi@boxy:~/new$

How do I get empty to appear in the example above?

Just a guess but perhaps it's an optimization that says empty files can't match any text? — Jeff Schaller, Aug 14 '16 at 13:20
Why do you want to find empty files with `ag`? The entire point of `ag` is to avoid searching files that have no chance to contain useful patterns. — Satō Katsura, Aug 14 '16 at 16:00
They are files. Why break -l if a null pattern is supposed to match all files? ...Because it's faster and (and generally better) than 'find'. — Tom Hale, Aug 14 '16 at 17:07

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 14 '16 at 14:11

3

My suspicion is confirmed by looking at the source in the search_file function around line 258, where it checks the file's size. If the size is zero, it bails out:

if (f_len == 0) {
    log_debug("Skipping %s: file is empty.", file_full_path);
    goto cleanup;
}

To confirm that this is the case, you may be able to use the --debug option.

answered Aug 14 '16 at 14:11

Jeff Schaller

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Yes, it comes up in the debug output. I've raised an issue at: [ag not printing empty files with -ul](https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher/issues/956) – Tom Hale Aug 15 '16 at 01:14

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

0

As @Jeff answers, the code didn't previously support this. I made a Pull Request to fix the issue which has just now been merged in.

Note: The project maintainer is asking for help as his available time for ag is limited.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

Community

1

answered Nov 13 '16 at 02:56

Tom Hale

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Too bad this forces one to include all the (in my case) garbage files with -u – ig-dev Jul 19 '22 at 20:08

How do I force ag (the silver searcher) to list empty files

2 Answers2