--files-without-matches does not work properly

[jdv85]

-l and -L should be mutually exclusive, but they are not.

A simple example illustrating the issue:

zsh 12550 % echo test123 > file
zsh 12551 % ag -L test file 
file
zsh 12552 % ag -l test file
file

zsh 12548 % ag --version
ag version 0.15

[mcphail]

This is a duplicate of issue #206. Please test and report on my patch in pull request #211 to see if it helps. Thanks.

[joshma]

I know it's 2 years later, but this still seems like an issue? The original test case now passes, but here's a minimal repro, it seems to require a trailing newline:

$ echo 'foo\n' > file
$ ag -L foo file
file
$ ag -l foo file
file

[jez]

@joshma I see this as an issue too. I can reproduce the above and I run into the issue on a separate instance.

[decaff]

Interesting problem. I believe this commit makes -L work as expected. Give it a shot...let me know if it doesn't work as expected.

[joshma]

@decaff works for me (although obviously no idea if it breaks anything else) :)

[brianloveswords]

I just ran into this today! Is it possible to cut a new release with this fix sometime soon?

[KingDuckZ]

$ ag --version
ag version 0.31.0

Not sure if those commits are in my version yet, but I found a problem that breaks my bash script around ag. This used to work:

DeleteFile=$(ag --files-with-matches "^$MatchRegex\$" "$CopiedList" | wc -l)
if [ $DeleteFile -eq 0 ]; then
    DeleteFilePath=$(echo "$OutDir/$z" | sed --regexp-extended 's%/{2,}%/%g')
    rm -rf "$DeleteFilePath"
fi

Now my script deletes all files because when invoked with an explicit file name, ag doesn't print the match anymore.

[michele@weblite tmp]$ cd /tmp/
[michele@weblite tmp]$ ls
systemd-private-39809ec5dd1c4aa9bac4ba7ef7fae5a7-systemd-timesyncd.service-WoTS23  tmp.HdtQ3IGW3u  tmp.WyOjJBDNa4
[michele@weblite tmp]$ ag -l 'risorse/misaligned.css' .
ERR: Error opening directory ./systemd-private-39809ec5dd1c4aa9bac4ba7ef7fae5a7-systemd-timesyncd.service-WoTS23: Permission denied
tmp.WyOjJBDNa4
tmp.HdtQ3IGW3u
[michele@weblite tmp]$ ag -l 'risorse/misaligned.css' tmp.*
tmp.HdtQ3IGW3u
tmp.WyOjJBDNa4
[michele@weblite tmp]$ ag -l 'risorse/misaligned.css' tmp.HdtQ3IGW3u 
[michele@weblite tmp]$ ag -l 'risorse/misaligned.css' tmp.WyOjJBDNa4 
[michele@weblite tmp]$ ag -l 'risorse/misaligned.css' tmp.WyOjJBDNa4 | wc -l
0

That used to work (but unfortunately I don't know until what version). ag should still return the file name to confirm there was a match.

Edit Should I open a new issue? I posted here because somehow it looks related to this issue to me, but if I'm wrong I'll file a new bug.

Edit 2 I see the return code can be used to test if the match was successful, the problem is that ag will exit with code 1 either if there was no match or if the file couldn't be accessed, so it's confusing.

[ilmari]

This is still an issue in git master (comm -12 shows lines that are common between the two inputs):

$ git describe --tags 
0.31.0-21-gb0eb6d7
$ comm -12 <(./ag -l Silver|sort) <(./ag -L Silver|sort)
doc/ag.1.md
NOTICE
README.md

[adius]

What's the status on this one?

[ilmari]

It's still an issue with current master (630125a). The issue seems to be that -L ignores matches on the first line of the file.

$ ./ag Silver
README.md
1:# The Silver Searcher

doc/ag.1.md
1:ag(1) -- The Silver Searcher. Like ack, but faster.

doc/ag.1
7:\fBag\fR \- The Silver Searcher\. Like ack, but faster\.

NOTICE
1:The Silver Searcher

the_silver_searcher.spec.in
19:The Silver Searcher

[Apakollaps]

First off, ag is awesome so thanks everyone who's involved for your work. It makes me surprised that this issue is still open though, as it makes one doubt the results from ag. Is there an ETA for a fix?

[serhalp]

Any updates on this? -L completely ignores matches on the first line of the file. Seems like if this isn't going to be fixed soon, the flag should be removed entirely, as it effectively does not work as advertised at all.

[tukanos]

Still valid today. What was reported by @serhalp is still true.

[davidstosik]

Still an issue... I spent 30 minutes trying to understand why a file was showing in both ag -l and ag -L...

$ ag --version
ag version 2.2.0

Features:
  +jit +lzma +zlib

$ echo -e "foo\nbar" > file.txt

$ cat file.txt
foo
bar

$ ag --files-with-matches bar file.txt
file.txt

$ ag --files-without-matches bar file.txt
file.txt

$ echo "" >> file.txt

$ cat file.txt
foo
bar


$ ag --files-with-matches bar file.txt
file.txt

$ ag --files-without-matches bar file.txt
# No result

Looks like ag -L ignores a file's last line.
grep gets it right:

$ grep --version
grep (GNU grep) 3.1
Packaged by Homebrew
Copyright (C) 2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Written by Mike Haertel and others, see <http://git.sv.gnu.org/cgit/grep.git/tree/AUTHORS>.

$ echo -e "foo\nbar" > file.txt

$ cat file.txt
foo
bar

$ grep -l bar file.txt
file.txt

$ grep -L bar file.txt
# No result

[jwhitley]

I believe this issue should be closed, as a dupe of many other issues, because it should be fixed once and for all by #1245, which has been merged for some months now. /cc @ggreer