Emacs rgrep customization

Question

I have the following custom function in ~/.emacs:

(defun xi-rgrep (term)
  (grep-compute-defaults)
    (interactive "sSearch Term: ")
    (rgrep term "*.[ch]*" "../"))

This function just runs rgrep for the term entered in the files/directories I'm interested in. However, I want to match the original rgrep functionality of having the default search term be the word at the point (I think that's the term?). How do I achieve this? I've tried several things, including running (grep-read-regexp) but haven't been successful.

Answer 1

You can use the 'thingatpt package like so:

(require 'thingatpt)
(defun xi-rgrep (term)
   (interactive (list (completing-read "Search Term: " nil nil nil (thing-at-point 'word))))
  (grep-compute-defaults)
  (rgrep term "*.[ch]*" "../"))

Answer 2

Here is another way which does not require the 'thingatpt package and uses (grep-read-regexp):

(defun xi-rgrep ()
  (interactive)
  (grep-compute-defaults)
  (rgrep (grep-read-regexp) "*.[ch]*" "../"))

I prefer this as 'thingatpt requires setting boundaries if you want to rgrep words with symbols, such as underscores, which is often the case for variables.