Here’s the Deal

The Silver Searcher (Ag) vs Nirw Search

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When comparing The Silver Searcher (Ag) vs Nirw Search, the Slant community recommends The Silver Searcher (Ag) for most people. In the question“What are the best open source tools for searching source code?” The Silver Searcher (Ag) is ranked 1st while Nirw Search is ranked 11th. The most important reason people chose The Silver Searcher (Ag) is:

It is written in C. It is up to 10 times faster than ack.

Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking

Common Questions

What are the best open source tools for searching source code?

Pros

Pro
Really fast

It is written in C. It is up to 10 times faster than ack.

Pro
Simple syntax

Ack-compatible.

Pro
Ignores files in .gitignore by default

It ignores file patterns from your .gitignore, .hgignore and .ignore. This can be a bit buggy though.

Pro
Supports PCRE RegExp

Supports RegEx like look-ahead/behind (only fixed length lookbehind however).

Pro
No need to manage another config file or learn a new config syntax

Everything is managed with command line args, meaning you can store commonly used options through .bashrc aliases, bash scripts, and/or autocompletion. There is no config file format to learn or extra dotfiles to manage.

Pro
Progress Output

By default, display the file being searched.

Pro
Optional multi-line support

Pro
Color highlight matches

Pro
Tab completion

The command-line for refining a search supports auto-completing based on the current output.

Pro
Can refine the initial search

Initial search can be refined by typing in other terms (optionally exclude from results too).

Pro
Optional regex or literal text searches

While regex is default, sometimes escaping is inconvenient, in these cases you can perform literal searches.

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Cons

Con
You have to remember commonly used options and add them as flags everytime

You are not able to define options in a config file as there is none. (You have to use a shell alias or wrapper script to get your default options.)

Con
Cannot add custom file types

All file types ag is able to search for are baked into the executable. There is no way to add new ones neither via command line nor via (the not existing) config file. The only way is a pull request on github and waiting for a new release.