doc: document Windows path separators and UTF-8 locale

Add FAQ guidance for Git Bash path separators via `--path-separator`
and the Windows UTF-8 system locale option.

Closes #1667
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BTF Kabir authored and GitHub committed 2026-10-23 11:04:37 -04:00
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@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@
* [When I run `rg`, why does it execute some other command?](#rg-other-cmd)
* [How do I create an alias for ripgrep on Windows?](#rg-alias-windows)
* [How do I create a PowerShell profile?](#powershell-profile)
* [Why do paths and encoding look wrong in Git Bash on Windows?](#windows-paths-encoding)
* [How do I pipe non-ASCII content to ripgrep on Windows?](#pipe-non-ascii-windows)
* [How can I search and replace with ripgrep?](#search-and-replace)
* [How is ripgrep licensed?](#license)
@@ -829,6 +830,33 @@ Any PowerShell code in this file gets evaluated at the start of console. This
way you can have own aliases to be created at start.
<h3 name="windows-paths-encoding">
Why do paths and encoding look wrong in Git Bash on Windows?
</h3>
ripgrep prints file paths using the platform's native path separator (`\` on
Windows). Under Git Bash, MSYS2, or Cygwin, that can look awkward next to
Unix-style tools, and console locale settings can also garble non-ASCII
output even though ripgrep is emitting the file bytes unchanged.
If you want forward slashes in printed paths when using those shells, set
`--path-separator`. A common alias is:
```
alias rg='rg --path-separator //'
```
The double slash avoids Git Bash rewriting a single `/`.
If non-ASCII characters (for example umlauts in file contents) look wrong in
a Windows console, try enabling the system UTF-8 locale. Note that this is
a system-wide change and may affect other programs.
See also
[Why does using a leading `/` on Windows fail?](#because-cygwin) and
[How do I pipe non-ASCII content to ripgrep on Windows?](#pipe-non-ascii-windows)
<h3 name="pipe-non-ascii-windows">
How do I pipe non-ASCII content to ripgrep on Windows?
</h3>