How do I include hidden directories but exclude .git folders?

[haji-ali]

Is there a way to include hidden files/folders but exclude .git folders? I tried

rg --hidden -g '!*.git*' string

But this would exclude all files that have the word .git in them, including files that I want to include like .gitignore or if I ever have a file like my.git. Since -g matches a glob I cannot match path separators. Is there a way to achieve this?

[okdana]

The glob patterns are meant to work like the ones in .gitignore; you can just use !.git (or !.git/ to be more precise)

% git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/dana/test/.git/
% \rg --no-ignore -q --hidden refs && echo match || echo no match
match
% \rg --no-ignore -q --hidden -g '!.git/' refs && echo match || echo no match
no match

[BurntSushi]

Also note that you can put .git/ in your .ignore (or .rgignore), which will have the same effect if you don't want to specify -g '!.git/' every time you use --hidden.

[garrison]

In order to get this to be the default behavior, I needed the following two lines in ripgreprc:

--hidden
--glob=!.git/

If the second line is instead -g !.git/, it does not behave properly.

[BurntSushi]

You'll want to read the docs for the config file format carefully. Every line is a single argument. So you need either

--glob=!.git/

or

--glob
!.git/

[3052]

the existing answers seem pointlessly complicated. I am sure someone will correct me, but this seems to work for my needs:

rg -u -u -g !.git SOMETHING

[BurntSushi]

Yes, but that's not obvious to anyone else following along. Typing an unquoted ! in a Unix shell will get you odd results:

$ rg -u -u -g !.git SOMETHING
zsh: event not found: .git

and sometimes I want to search EVERYTHING except .git

Valid, but not what this question asked. It's fine to share it here, but it would be good to note the differences between what you're answering with and what the OP asked for.