Add a --only-restricted to not show search results other than ignored and hidden files

[juarezr]

Overview

Currently, fd can filter hidden/ignored files from search results according to the following flags:

• --ignore, --no-ignore, --no-ignore-vcs: Show/omit search results from files and directories ignored by rules/patterns in '.gitignore', '.ignore', '.fdignore', or the global ignore files.
• --hidden, --no-hidden: Show/omit search results from hidden dot files.
• --unrestricted: Show both the ignored and hidden files.

This gives us two kinds of results:

1. A "restricted" mode with the paths matched by the search patterns but without the files/folders in hidden/ignored paths.
2. A "mixed" mode with all the paths matched by the search patterns, disregarding when it is or isnt't in a hidden/ignored path.

Proposal

• Add a new flag like --only-restricted to filter out files/folders that are not under ignore/hidden paths.
• This will yield a third mode where the search result will omit "restricted" entries but will show files/folders that are under ignore/hidden paths.
• This new flag can also be combined with flags --no-ignore and --hidden to further restrict the search results.

Use cases

• Searching only in hidden folders like $XDG_CONFIG_HOME ($HOME/.config/)
• Searching only non-committed files under .gitignore rules in Git repositories

[tmccombs]

This seems like mostly a duplicate of #984 .

Searching only in hidden folders like $XDG_CONFIG_HOME ($HOME/.config/)

What is a use case for recursively searching through all hidden files, and only hidden files?

If you just want to search .config, you can use that as your base directory. If you want to search all hidden files in your current directory, do something like

fd --hidden search-pattern .*

Searching only non-committed files under .gitignore rules in Git repositories

That would probably be better served by piping git ls-files --ignored --exclude-standard --other to grep or similar.

[juarezr]

This seems like mostly a duplicate of #984 .

Oh! Yes, I agree.
I apologize for registering a duplicate. I should have searched for it with more effort.

Searching only in hidden folders like $XDG_CONFIG_HOME ($HOME/.config/)

What is a use case for recursively searching through all hidden files, and only hidden files?

If you just want to search .config, you can use that as your base directory. If you want to search all hidden files in your current directory, do something like

fd --hidden search-pattern .*

I believe the case for searching for hidden files/folders is not as strong as the case for searching ignored files.

However, there are just some minor caveats left:

• Warning/error messages when using .* as the path argument:

❯ fd --hidden --glob '*.json' .*
[fd error]: Search path '.gitattributes' is not a directory.
[fd error]: Search path '.gitignore' is not a directory.
.vscode/extensions.json
.vscode/launch.json
.vscode/settings.json
.vscode/tasks.json

• Error caused by the user mistakenly using .* as a string for the path argument (common in scripts):

❯ fd --hidden --glob '*.json' '.*'
[fd error]: Search path '.*' is not a directory.
[fd error]: No valid search paths given.

• Using .* as a path argument may miss some files under hidden sub-directories:

❯ mkdir testdir
❯ cd testdir
❯ mkdir -p .hidden1/.sub1 .hidden2/.sub2 .hidden2/dir1 .hidden2/.sub3/dir2
❯ touch .hidden1/file1.json .hidden1/.sub1/file-sub1.json
❯ touch .hidden2/.sub2/file-sub2.json .hidden2/dir1/file-dir1.json .hidden2/.sub3/dir2/file-dir2.json
❯ mkdir -p dir3 dir3/.hidden3
❯ touch file-not-hidden1.json dir3/file-not-hidden2.json dir3/.hidden3/file-dir3.json
❯ fd --hidden json .*
.hidden1/.sub1/file-sub1.json
.hidden1/file1.json
.hidden2/.sub2/file-sub2.json
.hidden2/.sub3/dir2/file-dir2.json
.hidden2/dir1/file-dir1.json
❯ fd --hidden json
.hidden1/.sub1/file-sub1.json
.hidden1/file1.json
.hidden2/.sub2/file-sub2.json
.hidden2/.sub3/dir2/file-dir2.json
.hidden2/dir1/file-dir1.json
dir3/.hidden3/file-dir3.json
dir3/file-not-hidden2.json
file-not-hidden1.json

In the example above, the file dir3/.hidden3/file-dir3.json is hidden, but .* would not catch it.

Searching only non-committed files under .gitignore rules in Git repositories

That would probably be better served by piping git ls-files --ignored --exclude-standard --other to grep or similar.

Although that is a valid option for handling this use case, one could argue that saying "better served" may be too bold to describe it here because:

• It requires deeper Unix/command line knowledge:
  • User must know the functionality of two additional command-line tools: git and grep
  • One has to learn the command-line syntax of these tools
  • Using git for this use case may not be the first/most intuitive idea that comes to mind.
  • Regular fd users (like I am) would first try to solve it using fd and will waste some time until they figure out that is not possible to do it.
  • The amount of time spent researching a solution using git | grep combination is higher than if fd had this option.
• It may be a valid use case for fd to serve:
  • Regular users of fd may naturally try to use it to handle this use case
  • fd performance is superb.
  • I believe the flag is quite complementary to the --ignore flags that fd already has.

Of course, the cost assessment for development and maintenance is an important factor when considering adding a feature like this.