This page provides a visual breakdown of our Search Query Language and a handful of examples to get you started. It is complementary to our syntax reference and illustrates syntax using railroad diagrams instead of tables.
How to read railroad diagrams. Follow the lines in these railroad diagrams from left to right to see how pieces of syntax combine. When a line splits it means there are multiple options available. When it is possible to repeat a previous syntax, you'll see a line lead into a box that looks like this:
... |
At a basic level, a query consists of search patterns and parameters. Typical queries contain one or more space-separated search patterns that describe what to search, and parameters refine searches by filtering results or changing search behavior.
Example: repo:github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph file:schema.graphql The result
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Build query expressions by combining basic queries and operators like AND
or OR
.
Group expressions with parentheses to build more complex expressions. If there are no balanced parentheses, AND
operators bind tighter, so foo or bar and baz
means foo or (bar and baz)
. You may also use lowercase and
or or
.
Example: repo:github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph rtr AND newRouter
↗
A pattern to search. By default the pattern is searched literally. The kind of search may be toggled to change how a pattern matches:
foo.*bar.*baz
↗ "foo bar"
↗fmt.Sprintf(":[format]", :[args])
↗repo |
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file |
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content |
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language |
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type |
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case |
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fork |
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archived |
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repogroup |
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repo has file |
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repo has commit after |
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count |
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timeout |
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visibility |
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pattern type |
Search parameters allow you to filter search results or modify search behavior.
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regular expression |
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Search repositories that match the regular expression.
A -
before repo
excludes the repository. By default
the repository will be searched at the HEAD
commit of the default
branch. You can optionally change the revision.
Example: repo:gorilla/mux testroute
↗ -repo:gorilla/mux testroute
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Search a repository at a given revision. For example, a branch name, commit hash, or git tag.
Example: repo:^github\.com/gorilla/mux@948bec34 testroute
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You can search multiple revisions by separating the revisions with :
. Specify HEAD
for the default branch.
Example: repo:^github\.com/gorilla/[email protected]:v1.4.0 testing.T
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regular expression |
Search files whose full path matches the regular expression. A -
before file
excludes the file from being searched.
Example: file:\.js$ httptest
↗ file:\.js$ -file:test http
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language: |
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lang: |
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l: |
Only search files in the specified programming language, like typescript
or
python
.
Example: lang:typescript encoding
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content: |
quoted string |
Set the search pattern to search using a dedicated parameter. Useful, for
example, when searching literally for a string like repo:my-repo
that may
conflict with the syntax of parameters in this Sourcegraph language.
Example: repo:sourcegraph content:"repo:sourcegraph"
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type: |
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Set whether the search pattern should perform a search of a certain type. Notable search types are symbol, commit, and diff searches.
Example: type:symbol path
↗ type:commit author:nick
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case: |
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Set whether the search pattern should be treated case-sensitively. This is synonymous with the toggle button.
Example: OPEN_FILE case:yes
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fork: |
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Set to yes
if repository forks should be included or only
if only forks
should be searched. Respository forks are excluded by default.
Example: fork:yes repo:sourcegraph
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archived: |
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Set to yes
if archived repositories should be included or only
if only
archives should be searched. Archived repositories are excluded by default.
Example: archived:only repo:sourcegraph
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repogroup: |
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Only include results from the named group of repositories (defined by the server admin). Same as using repo that matches all of the group’s repositories. Use repo unless you know that the group exists.
Example: repogroup:go-gh-100 helm
↗ – searches the top 100 Go repositories on GitHub, ranked by stars.
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regular expression |
Only include results from repositories that contain a matching file. This keyword is a pure filter, so it requires at least one other search term in the query. Note: this filter currently only works on text matches and file path matches.
Example: repohasfile:\.py file:Dockerfile$ pip
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quoted string |
Filter out stale repositories that don’t contain commits past the specified time frame. This parameter is experimental.
Example: -repohasfile:Dockerfile docker
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number |
Retrieve at least N results. By default, Sourcegraph stops searching early and returns if it finds a full page of results. This is desirable for most interactive searches. To wait for all results, or to see results beyond the first page, use the count: keyword with a larger N.
Example: count:1000 function
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time value |
Set a search timeout. The time value is a string like 10s or 100ms, which is parsed by the Go time package's ParseDuration. By default the timeout is set to 10 seconds, and the search will optimize for returning results as soon as possible. The timeout value cannot be set longer than 1 minute.
Example: timeout:15s count:10000 func
↗ – sets a longer timeout for a search that contains a lot of results.
visibility: |
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Filter results to only public or private repositories. The default is to include both private and public repositories.
Example: type:repo visibility:public
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patterntype: |
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Set whether the pattern should run a literal search, regular expression search, or a structural search pattern. This parameter is available as a commannd-line and accessibility option, and synonymous with the visual search pattern toggles. in search pattern.
A string that is interpreted as a RE2 regular expression.
string |
An unquoted string is any contiguous sequence of characters not containing whitespace.
"any string" |
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'any string' |
Any string, including whitespace, may be quoted with single '
or double "
quotes. Quotes can be escaped with \
.
Set parameters that apply only to commit and diff searches.
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Include commits or diffs that are authored by the user.
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quoted string |
Include results which have a commit date before the specified time frame.
Example: before:"last thursday"
↗ before:"november 1 2019"
↗
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quoted string |
Include results which have a commit date before the specified time frame.
Example: after:"6 weeks ago"
↗ after:"november 1 2019"
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| quoted string |
Include results which have commit messages containing the string.
Example: type:commit message:"testing"
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