Show HN: Search code in GitHub repos using regular expressions (grep.app)

Article summary

A new search tool allows users to search code in GitHub repositories using regular expressions. The tool is built on top of Solr and indexes a fraction of all GitHub repositories, with updates fetched from GitHub within a few days. The search engine is powered by a couple of servers with 20 cores each. The tool's capabilities and potential applications are being discussed by the community.

Main themes

• GitHub code search
• regular expression search
• Solr indexing
• repository selection criteria
• deduplication of results
• commercialization and open-sourcing

What commenters say

• The search tool is impressive and fills a significant gap in GitHub's functionality.
• The tool's indexing process and criteria for selecting repositories are not transparent and could be improved.
• Some users have found the tool useful for discovering forks or copies of their code in other repositories.
• The tool's lack of deduplication of results is a significant issue that needs to be addressed.
• The search tool could be useful for searching individual repositories, especially large ones that take a long time to clone.
• GitHub's own code search functionality is notoriously bad and this tool provides a better alternative.
• The tool's potential for commercialization or open-sourcing is being discussed, with some users expressing interest in paying for a private code search engine.
• The tool's comparison to other code search tools, such as livegrep and Debian Code Search, highlights its unique features and limitations.