How do I search in search results

Question

When I C-s I can search. How should I do a function which I could bind for example to C-r which would let me search in the results of some predefined search query?

Like contents of window would be:

function xyz(a, b)
  return a + b
end

I can C-M-s with function.* as a query and the result will be function xyz(a, b).

I want to have a function where I could enter a query and search in those results(which would be generated behind my eyes automatically).

UPDATE

Thank you all for the solutions. occur, helm-occur also works very well, but I have accepted Jordon Biondo answer because he provided the code I needed to answer my question fully.

Answer 1

The simple approach would be to just use rgrep.

use M-xrgrep and specify searching for "function" in the current file in the current directory. You can wrap this up in a command so you don't have to specify the options each time like this:

(defun rgrep-lua-functions ()
  "run `rgrep` searching for 'function' in the current file."
  (interactive)
  (rgrep "function" (file-name-nondirectory (buffer-file-name)) "."))

This will yield a searchable buffer with the function signatures and you can jump to the definitions if you want.

Answer 2

Would occur work for you?

M-x occur or M-s o then entering your query will provide you with a list of lines matching that regexp. You can then use C-s to search within the Occur buffer to refine your search within the matching lines.

Answer 3

Emacs has a command called occur that is very well suited to this type of task. If you have Helm installed, then you can use helm-occur instead.

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Occur

The occur command is part of vanilla emacs, and is bound to M-s o by default. Occur will prompt you for a regexp to search for, and then it will open a new window showing all of the lines in the current buffer that contain a match. The resulting *Occur* buffer is searchable using isearch (C-s).

• M-s o function RET to show all lines matching "function"
• C-x o to move focus to the *Occur* buffer
• C-s to start a search within the search results

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Helm Occur

If you have helm installed you can use helm-occur to do something similar. In this case, the *Helm Occur* buffer will not be directly searchable with C-s. In Helm you can search for multiple search terms just by separating them with a space.

• M-x helm-occur RET to open a Helm Occur window
• function to show all lines containing "function"
• SPC foo to narrow the results to lines also containing foo

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In either of these modes, selecting the match in the occur buffer and pressing enter will jump you to that line in the code.

Answer 4

If you use library Icicles then you can easily do this kind of thing. What you are asking for (if I understand correctly), is to search only within certain search contexts.

For example, as in this case, you might want to search only within function definitions - the search contexts are function definitions. In Lisp, this would be things like defuns.

Icicles has several predefined Icicles search commands for searching definitions like this. These are collectively called Icicles Imenu commands.

To search only command definitions, you can use command icicle-imenu-command-full. To search only non-interactive function definitions, use command icicle-imenu-non-interactive-function-full.

Beyond searching definitions, you can easily define any kind of contexts to be searched. The simplest way is by providing a regexp. Command icicle-search prompts you for the search context-defining regexp. You can alternatively use a function to define the search contexts.

Other possibilities include:

• Searching the text of different kinds of THINGs (e.g., sexps, sentences, lists, strings, comments, XML elements,...), i.e., ignoring other text outside the THINGs.

• Searching zones of text that have given text or overlay properties, i.e., ignoring other text.

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NOTE:

Other answers here that mention occur and similar (helm-occur) provide a limited kind of context searching: the search contexts are just the lines of a buffer.

That is much more limited that, say, searching within whole function definitions, which is what I think you are asking for. With Icicles, command icicle-occur (bound to C-c ') lets you search within lines as search contexts.

Answer 5

With Isearch+:

1. C-M-s .+function.+, to search for whole lines that contain function.

2. C-z . followed by a regexp for something you want to look for in the lines that contain function.

(Optional) Repeat #2 with other patterns (regexps) to match in the same line. The matches can be in any order within the line.

Instead of step #1, you can start with C-M-s .+ C-z . function. The point is to search for whole lines that contain function along with any other patterns you like.

How C-z . works: It prompts you for an inline pattern to match (e.g. function). It wraps that with .* on each side, to get a full-line pattern (e.g. .*function.*). It adds a filter predicate that requires that your current search string (.+) also match that pattern (e.g. .*function.*).

See Dynamic Isearch Filtering for more information.