why doesn't a pattern with / at the beginning and end work as I would expect?

[zusage]

ripgrep: Non-capturing group doesn't return a value.
regexp is:
/foo\((\w+(?:,\s*\w+)*)\);/
string:
foo(var, var2, var3);

Example of regexp (PCRE) with a successful result:
link

[BurntSushi]

Please provide an rg command with input. Show actual output and expected output

[zusage]

$ echo "foo(var, var2, var3);" | rg '/foo\((\w+(?:,\s*\w+)*)\);/'
$ echo $?
1

[BurntSushi]

This is why providing the actual command you're running is so critical. In this case, it has nothing to do with your regex. Instead, here you are putting slashes at the beginning and end of your regex pattern. I don't know why. Just remove them and it works:

$ echo "foo(var, var2, var3);" | rg 'foo\((\w+(?:,\s*\w+)*)\);'
foo(var, var2, var3);

If there is some documentation that led you to putting slashes in your regex pattern, I'd love to fix it. Could you please point me to where you thought it was necessary to use slashes?

[zusage]

It was my typo. My mistake. Please excuse me for the inconvenience caused to you.

[drazde]

Hi, I have a similar problem. I would like search a url that start with '/' (not a pattern) in the files, but I cant't find how escape character

Eg:

$ rg '/BurntSushi/ripgrep/discussions' 

[BurntSushi]

Why are you trying to escape a /?

It isn't a special character. There is nothing to do. It should work as is. If it isn't working as you expect, then you need to show your problem, as I asked for above. And open a new question please.

[drazde]

With and without /

marco@drazde MINGW64 /c/tmp
$ rg '/ws/test' test.txt

marco@drazde MINGW64 /c/tmp
$ rg 'ws/test' test.txt
2:/ws/test

test.txt

[ltrzesniewski]

Looks like it's specific to Mingw, it works as expected for me in PowerShell/Windows and Ubuntu/WSL:

[BurntSushi]

Yes, that's a cygwin problem. It's mangling your pattern because it looks like a file path.

I don't know how to work around it. Sorry.

[drazde]

Looks like it's specific to Mingw, it works as expected for me in PowerShell/Windows and Ubuntu/WSL:

Also in Windows Terminal

C:\Users\Marco Andreolli\Downloads>rg "/my/ws"

C:\Users\marco\Downloads>cat test.txt
foo bar
/ws/test
C:\Users\marco\Downloads>

But with cmd it works..

[BurntSushi]

Double quotes don't work on Windows I believe. Try single quotes. Or in this case, you shouldn't need quotes at all.

[drazde]

I try both single and double, in Windows Terminal and MINGW64 (bash for Git in Windows)
but doesn't work

[BurntSushi]

Try no quotes?

I don't know, sorry. I'm not a Windows user and I don't see anything to suggest that this is a ripgrep problem. You might have better luck in a Windows help forum or something.

[BurntSushi]

And as I mentioned, IIRC, MINGW64 mangles things that look like paths. There's really nothing that I'm aware of that ripgrep can feasibly do about that. I also don't know how to work-around it.

[drazde]

Also without quote doesn't work; it's strange but i can do a workaround.
I thought I had done something wrong