Re: Using vimgrep to find files NOT containing a string

On Wed, Sep 02, 2020 at 07:14:37PM +0000, russurquhart1 via vim_use wrote:
> I generally use:
>
> :vim `beta: ` **/*.md | copen
>
> To traverse my Markdown files to find those containing 'beta: '.
>
> I need to do the opposite but can get the pattern right. I tried
>
> :vim -v `beta: ` **/*.md | copen
>
> thinking that might work but no dice.
>
> I looked through teh vimgrep help but couldn't find anything.
>
> Does anyone know how to do this?

Not with vimgrep, but on the command line to find files that don't
contain a pattern I generally do

grep -c "beta: " **/*.md | grep ':0$' | sed -e 's/:0$//'

this assumes your shell can do ** and it's probably not the most
elegant/efficient way of doing it, but it's one that I can remember how
to spell.

And then I opened the grep manual page to see if there's an easier way,
and lo and behold:

-L, --files-without-match
Suppress normal output; instead print the name of each
input file from which no output would normally have been
printed. The scanning will stop on the first match.

Just what the doctor ordered!

To feed these files to to vim you could play with temporarily setting
'grepprg', or use :args `grep -L "beta: " **/*.md`

If your shell doesn't do **, you may need to use something a bit more
complicated like

find -name '*.md' -exec grep -L "beta: " {} +

HTH,
Marius Gedminas
--
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.

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