counsel-git-grep does not accept spaces in search string

[noorul]

The following command works in command line

git --no-pager grep --full-name -n --no-color -i -e 'def test_'

But when I try to search 'def test' using counsel-git-grep, it returns nothing.

[abo-abo]

Are you using custom counsel settings? I'm using the defaults, which translate the input def test into the regex def.*test. You can get literal spaces by stacking multiple spaces: two spaces in a row match a single space etc.

In your input, the trailing space doesn't matter, the final regex given to the shell should be the same as for input def test.

[noorul]

I had a custom setting. I removed it and it works now, but it does not give the desired output.

When I use the following

git --no-pager grep --full-name -n --no-color -i -e 'def test_'

It gives me only the ones start with "def test_" but counsel returns more like the ones with def generate_test_data() too. I am not sure why counsel is not passing the string as it is to git-grep

[dgchurchill]

I seem to have a related problem. I'm on Windows, with counsel-git-grep-skip-counting-lines set to its default of nil. This means counsel--git-grep-count gets initialized to 0 in counsel-git-grep. Then in counsel-git-grep-function the condition (or counsel-git-grep-skip-counting-lines (> counsel--git-grep-count 20000)) evaluates to nil meaning the (counsel-more-chars 3) check is skipped and the executed command is git --no-pager grep --full-name -n --no-color -i -e ''.

Setting counsel-git-grep-skip-counting-lines to t seems to fix the git command being executed, but then I actually get no results. Still investigating...

[abo-abo]

@noorul This is expected and is a feature:

- input `def test` means: search for `def.*test`
- input `def  test` means: search for `def test`
- input `def   test` means: search for `def  test`
- etc.

@dgchurchill Try to customize counsel-git-grep-cmd-default. Windows has problems when single quotes get passed in a command.

[dgchurchill]

Thanks @abo-abo. Setting counsel-git-grep-cmd-default to "git --no-pager grep --full-name -n --no-color -i -e \"%s\"" solved my problem. Apologies for hijacking this thread when my issue turned out to be unrelated.

[noorul]

@abo-abo def test_ worked! Thank you! Closing this!