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I often have to use the --exclude-dir to exclude various folders such as .git from the search path.

grep -r --exclude-dir=.git --exclude-dir=another_path XXX

Then, the command line becomes quite lengthy every time.

Is there a way to make the --exclude-dir options the default, so that grep -r XXX is equivalent to above?

(This is with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS).

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    This question is similar to: Is there a 'rc' configuration file for grep/egrep? (~/.egreprc?). If you believe it’s different, please edit the question, make it clear how it’s different and/or how the answers on that question are not helpful for your problem. Commented Jul 10 at 10:10
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    ripgrep (github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep) may suite your situation better. It ignores various files/folders by default and is significantly faster than grep. It's very common and even VS Code nowadays calls ripgrep under the hood when you do a search due to its speed Commented Jul 10 at 12:40

1 Answer 1

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What about an alias or a shell function in the appropriate start-up file?

alias mygrep='grep -r --exclude-dir=.git --exclude-dir=another_path' 
grepwithoutgitrot () { grep -r --exclude-dir=.git --exclude-dir=another_path "$@" }

If you really want to change the grep command for your command-line needs, you could use

grep () { command grep -r --exclude-dir=.git --exclude-dir=another_path "$@" }

... which avoids a recursion. Any of these methods would work on any unixy system with any Bourny shell (sh, bash, zsh, ksh, many others).

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  • The alias option gets my vote. It allows the user to choose the normal grep whenever suitable. Commented Jul 10 at 10:08
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    @PeterBill you can always use command or prefix the command with `\` to over-ride any alias or function to run the original binary directly. Commented Jul 10 at 12:43
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    And you could just as easily name the function mygrep, @PeterBill. There is no benefit in using an alias, it doesn't make it any more easy (or hard, for that matter) to use the regular grep. Commented Jul 10 at 14:17

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