Re: Making git grep ignore binary the default

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Oct 17, 2025, 21:29 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqsefhxlmd.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <CAPapNH0C3+bU-RUO6oFHUKLjKuNdm-aXgsFTHFobYVrJXWzr=g@mail.gmail.com>

El_Hoy <eloyesp@gmail.com> writes:

Show 14 quoted lines

> I've found that there is a flag (`git grep -I`) to ignore binary
> files, it works great, but I've found no way to make it the default.
>
> It would be great to have a config for this. This way a possible
> implementation implies:
>
> - Adding a config `grep.ignoreBinary` that defaults to false, keeping
> the current default.
>
> - Adding a flag `git grep --include-binary` to revert the default. But
> maybe the `-a, --text` flag already does that.
>
> Also, maybe the next git version (3.0) can default to ignore-binary as
> a better default.

I am tempted to suggest not to do any of the above.

Simply because we have never needed to do something similar to "-a" and "-I" that we added in early 2006 for the past nearly 20 years. Also because GNU does not have any such thing to force "-a" or "-I" as default. The biggest reason is that it would be surprising if such a change does not break existing scripts that have been written by people over the years.