detect-secrets not identifying all the secret occurrences in a file

[reddybhaskarvengala]

If the secret written into a file at multiple locations, only the first one being identified by detect-secrets. Remaining instances are not getting reported by detect-secrets.

Example code in demo.txt

1. secret="abcd"
2. random code
3. secret="abcd"

Now run the detect-secrets scan on the above file and observe that the issue will be reported only at the line 1 and it is not reported the line number 3.

[reddybhaskarvengala]

Hi @lorenzodb1 any update on this?

[geekNero]

Hey, this is mentioned in the docs, to avoid this you can do the following:
go to detect-secrets/detect_secrets/core/potential_secret.py on line number 53, you'll find a list. In that list add another parameter "line_number". So it should look something like this: self.fields_to_compare = ['filename', 'secret_hash', 'type', 'line_number']

[a-weiss-programmer]

I'm running into this issue as well.

Would it be worth adding a command line flag/programmatic setting of this behavior?

[geekNero]

I'll give it a go but the devs have been inactive for a while, I doubt they'll accept it. Still I'll drop the link to my forked repository.

[lorenzodb1]

Hello everyone, apologies for the delayed reply. I've gathered some context around this issue and it turns out that this is actually a feature ™. Jokes aside, the idea behind this is that if detect-secrets flags a secret in a file, a developer would look for other instances of the same secret in it. Now, I personally do like the idea of flagging all instances, but the change is not trivial. #527 would help a lot, and I'm pushing for it to be merged as soon as possible. In the meantime, forgive us and stay tuned for more updates :)

[reddybhaskarvengala]

Hi @lorenzodb1 thank you for the update.