Advanced search
DETAILS: Tier: Premium, Ultimate Offering: SaaS, self-managed
- Moved to GitLab Premium in 13.9.
You can use advanced search for faster, more efficient search across the entire GitLab instance. Advanced search is based on Elasticsearch, a purpose-built full-text search engine you can horizontally scale to get results in up to a second in most cases.
You can find code you want to update in all projects at once to save maintenance time and promote innersourcing.
You can use advanced search in:
- Projects
- Issues
- Merge requests
- Milestones
- Users
- Epics
- Code
- Comments
- Commits
- Project and group wikis
Enable advanced search
- For GitLab SaaS and GitLab Dedicated, advanced search is enabled in paid subscriptions.
- For GitLab self-managed, an administrator must enable advanced search.
Syntax
Advanced search uses Elasticsearch syntax. The syntax supports both exact and fuzzy search queries.
| Syntax | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
" |
Exact search | "gem sidekiq" |
~ |
Fuzzy search | J~ Doe |
| |
Or | display | banner |
+ |
And | display +banner |
- |
Exclude | display -banner |
* |
Partial | bug error 50* |
\ |
Escape | \*md |
# |
Issue ID | #23456 |
! |
Merge request ID | !23456 |
User search
- Ability to refine user search introduced in GitLab 15.10.
When you search for a user, a fuzzy query is used by default. You can refine user search with Elasticsearch syntax.
Code search
| Syntax | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
filename: |
Filename | filename:*spec.rb |
path: |
Repository location 1 | path:spec/workers/ |
extension: |
File extension without . 2
|
extension:js |
blob: |
Git object ID 2 | blob:998707* |
-
path:returns matches for full or partial paths. -
extension:andblob:return exact matches only.
Examples
| Query | Description |
|---|---|
rails -filename:gemfile.lock |
Returns rails in all files except the gemfile.lock file. |
RSpec.describe Resolvers -*builder |
Returns RSpec.describe Resolvers that does not start with builder. |
bug | (display +banner) |
Returns bug or both display and banner. |
helper -extension:yml -extension:js |
Returns helper in all files except files with a .yml or .js extension. |
helper path:lib/git |
Returns helper in all files with a lib/git* path (for example, spec/lib/gitlab). |
Known issues
-
You can only search files smaller than 1 MB. For more information, see issue 195764. For self-managed GitLab instances, an administrator can configure this setting.
-
You can use advanced search on the default branch of a project only. For more information, see issue 229966.
-
The search query must not contain any of the following characters:
. , : ; / ` ' = ? $ & ^ | < > ( ) { } [ ] @For more information, see issue 325234.
-
Search results show only the first match in a file. For more information, see issue 668.