Confused about flag --print-long-lines: long lines seem to be printed by default? But can't turn that behavior *off* or modify it? (like --print-long-lines=false or --print-long-lines=200 or something?)

[dwawlyn]

Hi, I'm confused about the flag --print-long-lines.
Unless I'm misunderstanding something more fundamental about how you're supposed to use it,
it seems broken to me?

The manpage/help just says:
--print-long-lines Print matches on very long lines (Default: >2k characters)

But for me, long lines are printed by default,
and I can't find any way to turn that behavior off (or adjust it),
trying things like:

• --print-long-lines false
• --print-long-lines=false
• --print-long-lines=no
• --print-long-lines 100
• --print-long-lines=100

(I made sure I didn't accidentally have ag wrapped in an alias that already included the flag or something ; my ag is indeed just plain /usr/bin/ag.)

---

Like, I just set up a test like this [(looks weird cuz fishshell)]:
$

for n in 2 20 200 2000 2200
	echo "$(string repeat -n (math "$n-1") "_")x" > file_$n.txt
end

(
such that
$

cat *

#=>

_x
___________________x
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________x
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________x
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________x

)

and then both
$

ag x

and
$

ag x --print-long-lines

get exactly the same result
#=>

file_2.txt
1:_x

file_20.txt
1:___________________x

file_200.txt
1:_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________x

file_2000.txt
1:_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________x

file_2200.txt
1:_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________x

[
I actually passed that through pty and aha to try to keep the formatting/colors the same as you actually see when using it interactively
like:
$

pty ag x|aha -n -b

and then tried putting the output of that in <pre></pre> tags,
but of course that doesn't actually display the colors here...

I'm not sure how to get the colors to actually show up in a github comment,
if that's even possible(?),
but yeah,
the above block is actually underlyingly:

<pre>
<span style="font-weight:bold;color:lime;">file_2.txt</span>
<span style="font-weight:bold;color:yellow;">1</span>:_<span style="color:dimgray;background-color:yellow;">x</span>

<span style="font-weight:bold;color:lime;">file_20.txt</span>
<span style="font-weight:bold;color:yellow;">1</span>:___________________<span style="color:dimgray;background-color:yellow;">x</span>

<span style="font-weight:bold;color:lime;">file_200.txt</span>
<span style="font-weight:bold;color:yellow;">1</span>:_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________<span style="color:dimgray;background-color:yellow;">x</span>

<span style="font-weight:bold;color:lime;">file_2000.txt</span>
<span style="font-weight:bold;color:yellow;">1</span>:_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________<span style="color:dimgray;background-color:yellow;">x</span>

<span style="font-weight:bold;color:lime;">file_2200.txt</span>
<span style="font-weight:bold;color:yellow;">1</span>:_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________<span style="color:dimgray;background-color:yellow;">x</span>
</pre>

]

---

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it,
maybe a feature request:
expand the "before/after/context" flags so they can also take number of characters before/after?
(Right now, they only take lines.)

[ttencate]

It looks like --print-long-lines does nothing. It sets the opts.print_long_lines flag, but that flag is not mentioned anywhere else in the code, and there is a TODO:

the_silver_searcher/src/options.h

Line 67 in a61f178

int print_long_lines; /* TODO: support this in print.c */

Edit: duplicate of #189.