ripgrep requires at least one pattern to execute a search

Error message

ripgrep requires at least one pattern to execute a search

What it means

Error "ripgrep requires at least one pattern to execute a search" thrown in BurntSushi/ripgrep.

Source

Thrown at crates/core/flags/hiargs.rs:1033

    /// extracted as well.
    fn from_low_args(
        state: &mut State,
        low: &mut LowArgs,
    ) -> anyhow::Result<Patterns> {
        // The first positional is only a pattern when ripgrep is instructed to
        // search and neither -e/--regexp nor -f/--file is given. Basically,
        // the first positional is a pattern only when a pattern hasn't been
        // given in some other way.

        // No search means no patterns. Even if -e/--regexp or -f/--file is
        // given, we know we won't use them so don't bother collecting them.
        if !matches!(low.mode, Mode::Search(_)) {
            return Ok(Patterns { patterns: vec![] });
        }
        // If we got nothing from -e/--regexp and -f/--file, then the first
        // positional is a pattern.
        if low.patterns.is_empty() {
            anyhow::ensure!(
                !low.positional.is_empty(),
                "ripgrep requires at least one pattern to execute a search"
            );
            let ospat = low.positional.remove(0);
            let Ok(pat) = ospat.into_string() else {
                anyhow::bail!("pattern given is not valid UTF-8")
            };
            return Ok(Patterns { patterns: vec![pat] });
        }
        // Otherwise, we need to slurp up our patterns from -e/--regexp and
        // -f/--file. We de-duplicate as we go. If we don't de-duplicate,
        // then it can actually lead to major slow downs for sloppy inputs.
        // This might be surprising, and the regex engine will eventually
        // de-duplicate duplicative branches in a single regex (maybe), but
        // not until after it has gone through parsing and some other layers.
        // If there are a lot of duplicates, then that can lead to a sizeable
        // extra cost. It is lamentable that we pay the extra cost here to
        // de-duplicate for a likely uncommon case, but I've seen this have a

View on GitHub (pinned to 3fce3b5bb0)

Solutions

Provide at least one pattern as a positional argument or via -e/--regexp or -f/--file

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at crates/core/flags/hiargs.rs:1033 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of BurntSushi/ripgrep@3fce3b5bb0 (2026-08-06). Data as JSON: /data/errors/2b73cf3cf23f06ea.json. Report an issue: GitHub.