docs/content/search-github/github-code-search/understanding-github-code-search-syntax.md

---
title: Understanding GitHub Code Search (beta) syntax
intro: 'You can build search queries that return the results you want with specialized code qualifiers, regular expressions, and boolean operations.'
allowTitleToDifferFromFilename: true
versions:
  feature: github-code-search
topics:
  - GitHub search
---

{% note %}

**Note:** {% data reusables.search.code-search-code-view-beta-note %}<br><br>

{% data reusables.search.code-search-link %} {% data reusables.search.code-view-link %}

{% endnote %}

## About the new code search (beta) query structure

The search syntax in this article only applies to searching code with the new code search (beta) enabled. {% data reusables.search.non-code-search-explanation %}

Search queries consist of search terms, consisting of text you want to search for, and qualifiers, which narrow down the search. 

A bare term with no qualifiers will match either the content of a file or the file's path. 

For example, the following query:

```
http-push
```

The above query will match the file `docs/http-push.txt`, even if it doesn't contain the term `http-push`. It will also match a file called `example.txt` if it contains the term `http-push`. 

You can enter multiple terms separated by whitespace to search for documents that satisfy both terms. 

For example, the following query:

```
sparse index
```

The search results would include all documents containing both the terms `sparse` and `index`, in any order. As examples, it would match a file containing `SparseIndexVector`, or even the phrase `index for sparse trees`. 

Searching for multiple terms separated by whitespace is the equivalent to the search `hello AND world`. Other boolean operations, such as `hello OR world`, are also supported in the new code search (beta). For more information about boolean operations, see "[Using boolean operations](#using-boolean-operations)."

The new code search (beta) also supports searching for an exact string, including whitespace. For more information, see "[Query for an exact match](#query-for-an-exact-match)."

You can narrow your code search with specialized qualifiers, such as `repo:`, `language:` and `path:`. For more information on the qualifiers you can use in the new code search (beta), see "[Using qualifiers](#using-qualifiers)."

You can also use regular expressions in your searches by surrounding the expression in slashes. For more information on using regular expressions, see "[Using regular expressions](#using-regular-expressions)."

## Query for an exact match

To search for an exact string, including whitespace, you can surround the string in quotes. For example:

```
"sparse index"
```

To search for a phrase containing a quotation mark, you can escape the quotation mark using a backslash. For example, to find the exact string `name = "tensorflow"`, you can search:

```
"name = \"tensorflow\""
```

You can also use quoted strings in qualifiers, for example:

```
path: git language: "protocol buffers"
```

## Using boolean operations

The new code search (beta) supports boolean expressions. You can use the operators `AND`, `OR`, and `NOT` to combine search terms.

By default, adjacent terms separated by whitespace are equivalent to using the `AND` operator. For example, the search query `sparse index` is the same as `sparse AND index`, meaning that the search results will include all documents containing both the terms `sparse` and `index`, in any order.

To search for documents containing either one term or the other, you can use the `OR` operator. For example, the following query will match documents containing either `sparse` or `index`:

```
sparse OR index
```

To exclude files from your search results, you can use the `NOT` operator. For example, to exclude file in the `__testing__` directory, you can search:

```
"fatal error" NOT path:__testing__
```

You can use parentheses to express more complicated boolean expressions. For example:

```
(language:ruby OR language:python) AND NOT path:"/tests/"
```

## Using qualifiers

You can use specialized keywords to qualify your search.
- [Repository qualifier](#repository-qualifier)
- [Organization and user qualifiers](#organization-and-user-qualifiers)
- [Language qualifier](#language-qualifier)
- [Path qualifier](#path-qualifier)
- [Symbol qualifier](#symbol-qualifier)
- [Content qualifier](#content-qualifier)
- [Is qualifier](#is-qualifier)

### Repository qualifier

To search within a repository, use the `repo:` qualifier. You must provide the full repository name, including the owner. For example:

```
repo:github/linguist
```

To search within a set of repositories, you can combine multiple `repo:` qualifiers with the boolean operator `OR`. For example:

```
repo:github/linguist OR repo:tree-sitter/tree-sitter
```

{% note %}

**Note:** The new code search beta does not currently support regular expressions or partial matching for repository names, so you will have to type the entire repository name (including the user prefix) for the `repo:` qualifier to work.

{% endnote %}

### Organization and user qualifiers

To search for files within an organization, use the `org:` qualifier. For example:

```
org:github
```

To search for files within an organization, use the `user:` qualifier. For example:

```
user:octocat
```

{% note %}

**Note:** The new code search beta does not currently support regular expressions or partial matching for organization or user names, so you will have to type the entire organization or user name for the qualifier to work.

{% endnote %}


### Language qualifier

To narrow down to a specific languages, use the `language:` qualifier. For example: 

```
language: ruby OR language:cpp OR language:csharp
```

For a complete list of supported language names, see [languages.yaml](https://github.com/github/linguist/blob/master/lib/linguist/languages.yml) in [github/linguist](https://github.com/github/linguist). If your preferred language is not on the list, you can open a pull request to add it.

### Path qualifier

To search within file paths, use the `path:` qualifier. This will match files containing the term anywhere in their file path. For example, to find files containing the term `unit_tests` in their path, use:

```
path:unit_tests
```
 The above query will match both `src/unit_tests/my_test.py` and `src/docs/unit_tests.md` since they both contain `unit_test` somewhere in their path. 

 To match only a specific filename (and not part of the path), you could use a regular expression:

 ```
 path:/(^|\/)README\.md$/
 ```
Note that the `.` in the filename is escaped, since `.` has special meaning for regular expressions. For more information about using regular expressions, see "[Using regular expressions](#using-regular-expressions)."

<br>

You can also use some limited glob expressions in the `path:` qualifier.

For example, to search for files with the extension `txt`, you can use:

```
path:*.txt
```
<br>
To search for JavaScript files within a `src` directory, you could use:

```
path:src/*.js
```

- By default, glob expressions are not anchored to the start of the path, so the above expression would still match a path like `app/src/main.js`. But if you prefix the expression with `/`, it will anchor to the start. For example:

    ```
    path:/src/*.js
    ```
- Note that `*` doesn't match the `/` character, so for the above example, all results will be direct descendants of the `src` directory. To match within subdirectories, so that results include deeply nested files such as `/src/app/testing/utils/example.js`, you can use `**`. For example:

    ```
    path:/src/**/*.js
    ```
<br>

You can also use the `?` global character. For example, to match the path `file.aac` or `file.abc`, you can use:

```
path:*.a?c
```
<br>
To search for a filename which contains a special character like `*` or `?`, just use a quoted string:

```
path:"file?"
```

Since glob expressions are disabled for quoted strings, so the above query will only match paths containing the literal string `file?`. 

### Symbol qualifier

You can search for symbol definitions in code, such as function or class definitions, using the `symbol:` qualifier. Symbol search is based on parsing your code using the open source [Tree-sitter](https://github.com/tree-sitter) parser ecosystem, so no extra setup or build tool integration is required.

For example, to search for a symbol called `WithContext`:

```
language:go symbol:WithContext
```

In some languages, you can search for symbols using a prefix (e.g. a prefix of their class name). For example, for a method `deleteRows` on a struct `Maint`, you could search `symbol:Maint.deleteRows` if you are using Go, or `symbol:Maint::deleteRows` if you are using Go, or `symbol:Maint::deleteRows` in Rust. 

You can also use regular expressions with the symbol qualifier. For example, the following query would find conversions people have implemented in Rust for the `String` type:

```
language:rust symbol:/^String::to_.*/
```

Note that this qualifier only searches for definitions and not references, and not all symbol types or languages are fully supported yet. Symbol extraction is supported for the following languages. 

- C#
- Python
- Go
- Java
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
- PHP
- Protocol Buffers
- Ruby
- Rust

We are working on adding support for more languages. If you would like to help contribute to this effort, you can add support for your language in the open source [Tree-sitter](https://github.com/tree-sitter) parser ecosystem, upon which symbol search is based.

### Content qualifier

By default, bare terms search both paths and file content. To restrict a search to strictly match the content of a file and not file paths, use the `content:` qualifier. For example:

```
content:README.md
```

This query would only match files containing the term `README.md`, rather than matching files named `README.md`. 

### Is qualifier

To filter based on document properties, you can use the `is:` qualifier. At this time, the only value supported in this qualifier is `archived`, which restricts the search to archived repositories. For example:

```
path:/MIT.txt is:archived
```

Note that the `is:` qualifier can be inverted with the `NOT` operator. To search for non-archived repositories, you can search:

```
log4j NOT is:archived
```

## Using regular expressions

The new code search (beta) supports regular expressions to search for patterns in your code. You can use regular expressions in bare search terms as well as within many qualifiers, by surrounding the regex expression in backslashes. 

For example, to search for the regular expression `sparse.*index`, you would use:

```
/sparse.*index/
```

Note that you'll have to escape any forward slashes within the regular expression. For example, to search for files within the `App/src` directory, you would use:

```
/^App\/src\//
```