megrep

megrep is a cross-platform command-line utility for searching text patterns within files and data streams. It is designed as a fast, scalable alternative to traditional search tools, with particular attention to large codebases, logs, and pipelines. The tool supports standard regular expressions and also offers variations such as Perl-compatible (PCRE) syntax and extended regular expressions, enabling complex matching.

Features include recursive directory search, case-insensitive and exact matching options, print of line numbers and filenames, printing only the matching portions, and colorized output for readability. It also provides streaming input support, so patterns can be searched in data piped from other programs, and can utilize multiple CPU cores to parallelize scanning across files. Exclusion and inclusion patterns can be specified via glob-like options, and output can be customized with various formatting flags.

Implementation and licensing: megrep is described as an open-source project implemented in a memory-safe language and distributed under a permissive license. The project is typically hosted on public code repositories where users can contribute and report issues.

History and usage: As a conceptual tool, megrep has been discussed in open-source circles as an example of modern search utilities that balance speed, expressiveness, and usability. In practice, users might employ megrep for code search, log analysis, data extraction, and text processing tasks.

Examples: megrep -R "TODO" /path; megrep -i -n "error|fail" /var/log; cat logfile | megrep -E "pattern".

See also: grep, ripgrep, The Silver Searcher (ag), ack.