git find [SWITCHES] [REVS] [--] [EXPRESSION]

This command searches for files satisfying the EXPRESSION, a la find(1), anywhere in a Git repo. Unlike find(1), the search scope is the whole repo (for the REVS you specify) regardless of the current directory.

For more help, run git find --help or git find --man.

NOTE: most of this is not yet implemented :) . Contributions welcome!

Quick reference:

• Switches:

  Basic: Help (-?, --usage; -h, --help; --man); Version (-V, --version); Verbosity (-v); Warnings (-W).

  Search scope: Git directory (--git-dir), Working directory (--wd), Unrestricted search (-u).

• Revs:

  Anything accepted by git-rev-parse(1).

  A git ref (under .git/refs/) is also a rev in the sense of git-rev-parse(1) and gitrevisions(7). The terms "ref" and "rev" are used interchangeably by git-find.

• Expression:

  Anything accepted by find(1), plus -ref/-rev

These are options controlling the overall behaviour of git-find. They may not be interleaved in with the "Expression", if one is given.

• --git-dir <dir>

  Use <dir> as the .git directory. Not yet implemented.

• -h, --help

  Print basic help

• --man

  Show full help (equivalent to man git-find)

• -u

  Unrestricted search. Normally, git-find does not search ignored files. When this option is given, it does search those files. However, it still skips .git/ directories.

• --usage, -?

  Print a brief usage reminder

• -v

  Increase verbosity. May be given multiple times.

• -V, --version

  Print version information and exit

• --wd <dir>

  Use <dir> as the working directory. Not yet implemented.

• -W, -Wname

  Enable warning name, or all warnings if no name is given.

In the "Revs" or "Expression", you can specify multiple items joined by logical operators. They are listed below in order of descending precedence. Each operator must be separated by whitespace from any adjacent parameters. Operators short-circuit.

• ( ), [ ]

  Grouping. Parentheses and brackets are interchangeable.

• -not, --not, !, ^

  Logical negation.

• -a, --a, -and, --and, &&

  Logical and. This is the default operator between terms if no operator is given.

• -o, --o, -or, --or, ||

  Logical or

• , (a single comma)

  Sequence: separates items to be evaluated separately. The return value is that of the last item in the sequence.

By default, git-find searches the current index (cache). This is the same as the default for git-ls-files(1). You can specify one or more revs to search using any of the forms described in gitrevisions(7).

You can specify the special value ]] (a double right bracket) to search the working tree that is currently checked out. (Mnemonic: search right here.) If you have an actual rev called "]]", git-find won't be able to help you. Sorry!

TODO? You can specify multiple ranges of revs separated by C<-o> (or its
equivalent forms given in L</Operators>) or C<,>.  Comma is treated as
equivalent to C<-o> when separating revs.

The expression includes one or more elements separated by "Operators". Elements can be options, tests, or operators.

Elements of expressions can be specified in a form similar to find(1). Long elements (e.g., -name) can start with a single or a double dash.

Tests are of two types:

• Index tests

  These are tests that only require information from the git index, such as the name of the file and whether it is executable. They are (at least on Unix-like systems):

  -cmin, -cnewer, -ctime, -empty, -executable, -false, -gid, -group, -ilname, -iname, -inum, -ipath, -iregex, -iwholename, -level, -mmin, -mtime, -name, -nogroup, -nouser, -path, -readable, -regex, -size, -true, -type, -uid, -user, -wholename, -writeable

    TODO also -links, -lname, -perm, -samefile, -xtype?
  

• Detailed tests

  All tests other than index tests may require checking out a worktree with one or more of the given revs. Therefore, they may be much slower than name-only tests. However, if the only rev given is ]] (working directory), detailed tests can be executed without checking out a worktree, so the slowdown is not as bad.

In git-find but not in find(1): -ref, -rev

In find(1) but not in git-find: find switches; TODO -xtype, -context?

If the -W option is given, warnings are enabled. Possible warnings are:

• -Wdetailed

  Warn if a detailed test is used on a search scope other than ]] (the current working tree).

Christopher White, <cxw at cpan.org>

Please report any bugs or feature requests through the GitHub interface at https://github.com/cxw42/git-find/issues. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

perldoc App::GitFind

You can also look for information at:

• GitHub (report bugs here)

  https://github.com/cxw42/git-find

• MetaCPAN

  https://metacpan.org/release/App-GitFind

Copyright 2019 Christopher White. Portions copyright 2019 D3 Engineering, LLC.

This program is distributed under the MIT (X11) License: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.