Exact code search

Tier: Premium, Ultimate Offering: GitLab.com, Self-managed Status: Beta
History
  • Introduced in GitLab 15.9 with flags named index_code_with_zoekt and search_code_with_zoekt. Disabled by default.
On self-managed GitLab, by default this feature is not available. To make it available, an administrator can enable the feature flags named index_code_with_zoekt and search_code_with_zoekt. On GitLab.com, this feature is available. On GitLab Dedicated, this feature is not available. This feature is not ready for production use.
caution
This feature is in Beta and subject to change without notice. For more information, see epic 9404.

With exact code search, you can use regular expressions and exact strings to search for code in one or more projects. You can use backslashes to escape special characters and double quotes to search for exact strings.

Exact code search is powered by Zoekt and is used by default in groups where the feature is enabled.

Zoekt search API

History
On self-managed GitLab, by default this feature is available. To hide the feature, an administrator can disable the feature flag named zoekt_search_api. On GitLab.com and GitLab Dedicated, this feature is not available. This feature is not ready for production use.

With the Zoekt search API, you can use the search API for exact code search. When this feature is disabled, basic or advanced search is used instead.

By default, the Zoekt search API is disabled on GitLab.com to avoid breaking changes. To request access to this feature, contact GitLab.

History
On self-managed GitLab, by default this feature is not available. To make it available, an administrator can enable the feature flag named zoekt_cross_namespace_search. On GitLab.com and GitLab Dedicated, this feature is not available. This feature is not ready for production use.

Use this feature to search code across the entire GitLab instance.

Global code search does not perform well on large GitLab instances. If you enable this feature for instances with more than 20,000 projects, your search might time out.

Search modes

History
The availability of this feature is controlled by a feature flag. For more information, see the history.

When you enable zoekt_exact_search, you can switch between two search modes:

  • Regular expression mode: supports regular and boolean expressions.
  • Exact match mode: returns results that exactly match the query.

When zoekt_exact_search is disabled, the regular expression mode is used by default.

Syntax

This table shows some example queries for regular expression and exact match modes.

Query Regular expression mode Exact match mode
"foo" foo "foo"
foo file:^doc/ foo in directories that start with /doc foo in directories that start with /doc
"class foo" class foo "class foo"
class foo class and foo class foo
foo or bar foo or bar foo or bar
class Foo class (case insensitive) and Foo (case sensitive) class Foo (case insensitive)
class Foo case:yes class and Foo (both case sensitive) class Foo (case sensitive)
foo -bar foo but not bar foo -bar
foo file:js foo in files with names that contain js foo in files with names that contain js
foo -file:test foo in files with names that do not contain test foo in files with names that do not contain test
foo lang:ruby foo in Ruby source code foo in Ruby source code
foo file:\.js$ foo in files with names that end with .js foo in files with names that end with .js
foo.*bar foo.*bar (regular expression) None