NAME¶
ack - grep-like text finder
SYNOPSIS¶
ack [options] PATTERN [FILE...]
ack -f [options] [DIRECTORY...]
DESCRIPTION¶
Ack is designed as an alternative to
grep for programmers.
Ack searches the named input FILEs (or standard input if no files are named, or
the file name - is given) for lines containing a match to the given PATTERN.
By default, ack prints the matching lines.
PATTERN is a Perl regular expression. Perl regular expressions are commonly
found in other programming languages, but for the particulars of their
behavior, please consult
<
http://perldoc.perl.org/perlreref.html|perlreref>. If you don't know
how to use regular expression but are interested in learning, you may consult
<
http://perldoc.perl.org/perlretut.html|perlretut>. If you do not need
or want ack to use regular expressions, please see the
"-Q"/"--literal" option.
Ack can also list files that would be searched, without actually searching them,
to let you take advantage of ack's file-type filtering capabilities.
FILE SELECTION¶
If files are not specified for searching, either on the command line or piped in
with the "-x" option,
ack delves into subdirectories
selecting files for searching.
ack is intelligent about the files it searches. It knows about certain
file types, based on both the extension on the file and, in some cases, the
contents of the file. These selections can be made with the
--type
option.
With no file selection,
ack searches through regular files that are not
explicitly excluded by
--ignore-dir and
--ignore-file options,
either present in
ackrc files or on the command line.
The default options for
ack ignore certain files and directories. These
include:
- •
- Backup files: Files matching #*# or ending with ~.
- •
- Coredumps: Files matching core.\d+
- •
- Version control directories like .svn and .git.
Run
ack with the "--dump" option to see what settings are set.
However,
ack always searches the files given on the command line, no
matter what type. If you tell
ack to search in a coredump, it will
search in a coredump.
DIRECTORY SELECTION¶
ack descends through the directory tree of the starting directories
specified. If no directories are specified, the current working directory is
used. However, it will ignore the shadow directories used by many version
control systems, and the build directories used by the Perl MakeMaker system.
You may add or remove a directory from this list with the
--[no]ignore-dir option. The option may be repeated to add/remove
multiple directories from the ignore list.
For a complete list of directories that do not get searched, run "ack
--dump".
WHEN TO USE GREP¶
ack trumps
grep as an everyday tool 99% of the time, but don't
throw
grep away, because there are times you'll still need it.
E.g., searching through huge files looking for regexes that can be expressed
with
grep syntax should be quicker with
grep.
If your script or parent program uses
grep "--quiet" or
"--silent" or needs exit 2 on IO error, use
grep.
OPTIONS¶
- --ackrc
- Specifies an ackrc file to load after all others; see "ACKRC LOCATION
SEMANTICS".
- -A NUM,
--after-context=NUM
- Print NUM lines of trailing context after matching lines.
- -B NUM,
--before-context=NUM
- Print NUM lines of leading context before matching lines.
- --[no]break
- Print a break between results from different files. On by default when
used interactively.
- -C [NUM],
--context[=NUM]
- Print NUM lines (default 2) of context around matching lines.
- -c, --count
- Suppress normal output; instead print a count of matching lines for each
input file. If -l is in effect, it will only show the number of
lines for each file that has lines matching. Without -l, some line
counts may be zeroes.
If combined with -h (--no-filename) ack outputs only one total
count.
- --[no]color, --[no]colour
- --color highlights the matching text. --nocolor suppresses
the color. This is on by default unless the output is redirected.
On Windows, this option is off by default unless the Win32::Console::ANSI
module is installed or the "ACK_PAGER_COLOR" environment
variable is used.
- --color-filename=color
- Sets the color to be used for filenames.
- --color-match=color
- Sets the color to be used for matches.
- --color-lineno=color
- Sets the color to be used for line numbers.
- --[no]column
- Show the column number of the first match. This is helpful for editors
that can place your cursor at a given position.
- --create-ackrc
- Dumps the default ack options to standard output. This is useful for when
you want to customize the defaults.
- --dump
- Writes the list of options loaded and where they came from to standard
output. Handy for debugging.
- --[no]env
- --noenv disables all environment processing. No .ackrc is
read and all environment variables are ignored. By default, ack
considers .ackrc and settings in the environment.
- --flush
- --flush flushes output immediately. This is off by default unless
ack is running interactively (when output goes to a pipe or file).
- -f
- Only print the files that would be searched, without actually doing any
searching. PATTERN must not be specified, or it will be taken as a path to
search.
- --files-from=FILE
- The list of files to be searched is specified in FILE. The list of
files are separated by newlines. If FILE is "-", the list
is loaded from standard input.
- --[no]filter
- Forces ack to act as if it were receiving input via a pipe.
- --[no]follow
- Follow or don't follow symlinks, other than whatever starting files or
directories were specified on the command line.
This is off by default.
- -g PATTERN
- Print files where the relative path + filename matches PATTERN.
This option can be combined with --color to make it easier to spot
the match.
- --[no]group
- --group groups matches by file name. This is the default when used
interactively.
--nogroup prints one result per line, like grep. This is the default
when output is redirected.
- -H, --with-filename
- Print the filename for each match. This is the default unless searching a
single explicitly specified file.
- -h, --no-filename
- Suppress the prefixing of filenames on output when multiple files are
searched.
- --[no]heading
- Print a filename heading above each file's results. This is the default
when used interactively.
- --help, -?
- Print a short help statement.
- --help-types, --help=types
- Print all known types.
- -i, --ignore-case
- Ignore case distinctions in PATTERN
- --ignore-ack-defaults
- Tells ack to completely ignore the default definitions provided with ack.
This is useful in combination with --create-ackrc if you
really want to customize ack.
- --[no]ignore-dir=DIRNAME,
--[no]ignore-directory= DIRNAME
- Ignore directory (as CVS, .svn, etc are ignored). May be used multiple
times to ignore multiple directories. For example, mason users may wish to
include --ignore-dir=data. The --noignore-dir option allows
users to search directories which would normally be ignored (perhaps to
research the contents of .svn/props directories).
The DIRNAME must always be a simple directory name. Nested
directories like foo/bar are NOT supported. You would need to
specify --ignore-dir=foo and then no files from any foo directory
are taken into account by ack unless given explicitly on the command
line.
- --ignore-file=FILTERTYPE:FILTERARGS
- Ignore files matching FILTERTYPE:FILTERARGS. The filters are
specified identically to file type filters as seen in "Defining your
own types".
- -k, --known-types
- Limit selected files to those with types that ack knows about. This is
equivalent to the default behavior found in ack 1.
- --lines=NUM
- Only print line NUM of each file. Multiple lines can be given with
multiple --lines options or as a comma separated list
(--lines=3,5,7). --lines=4-7 also works. The lines are
always output in ascending order, no matter the order given on the command
line.
- -l, --files-with-matches
- Only print the filenames of matching files, instead of the matching
text.
- -L, --files-without-matches
- Only print the filenames of files that do NOT match.
- --match PATTERN
- Specify the PATTERN explicitly. This is helpful if you don't want
to put the regex as your first argument, e.g. when executing multiple
searches over the same set of files.
# search for foo and bar in given files
ack file1 t/file* --match foo
ack file1 t/file* --match bar
- -m=NUM,
--max-count=NUM
- Stop reading a file after NUM matches.
- --man
- Print this manual page.
- -n, --no-recurse
- No descending into subdirectories.
- -o
- Show only the part of each line matching PATTERN (turns off text
highlighting)
- --output=expr
- Output the evaluation of expr for each line (turns off text
highlighting) If PATTERN matches more than once then a line is output for
each non-overlapping match. For more information please see the section
"Examples of --output".
- --pager=program, --nopager
- --pager directs ack's output through program. This can also
be specified via the "ACK_PAGER" and "ACK_PAGER_COLOR"
environment variables.
Using --pager does not suppress grouping and coloring like piping output on
the command-line does.
--nopager cancels any setting in ~/.ackrc, "ACK_PAGER" or
"ACK_PAGER_COLOR". No output will be sent through a pager.
- --passthru
- Prints all lines, whether or not they match the expression. Highlighting
will still work, though, so it can be used to highlight matches while
still seeing the entire file, as in:
# Watch a log file, and highlight a certain IP address
$ tail -f ~/access.log | ack --passthru 123.45.67.89
- --print0
- Only works in conjunction with -f, -g, -l or -c (filename output). The
filenames are output separated with a null byte instead of the usual
newline. This is helpful when dealing with filenames that contain
whitespace, e.g.
# remove all files of type html
ack -f --html --print0 | xargs -0 rm -f
- -Q, --literal
- Quote all metacharacters in PATTERN, it is treated as a literal.
- -r, -R, --recurse
- Recurse into sub-directories. This is the default and just here for
compatibility with grep. You can also use it for turning
--no-recurse off.
- -s
- Suppress error messages about nonexistent or unreadable files. This is
taken from fgrep.
- --[no]smart-case, --no-smart-case
- Ignore case in the search strings if PATTERN contains no uppercase
characters. This is similar to "smartcase" in vim. This option
is off by default, and ignored if "-i" is specified.
-i always overrides this option.
- --sort-files
- Sorts the found files lexicographically. Use this if you want your file
listings to be deterministic between runs of ack.
- --show-types
- Outputs the filetypes that ack associates with each file.
Works with -f and -g options.
- --type=[no]TYPE
- Specify the types of files to include or exclude from a search. TYPE is a
filetype, like perl or xml. --type=perl can also be
specified as --perl, and --type=noperl can be done as
--noperl.
If a file is of both type "foo" and "bar", specifying
--foo and --nobar will exclude the file, because an exclusion takes
precedence over an inclusion.
Type specifications can be repeated and are ORed together.
See ack --help=types for a list of valid types.
- --type-add
TYPE:FILTER:FILTERARGS
- Files with the given FILTERARGS applied to the given FILTER are recognized
as being of (the existing) type TYPE. See also "Defining your own
types".
- --type-set
TYPE:FILTER:FILTERARGS
- Files with the given FILTERARGS applied to the given FILTER are recognized
as being of type TYPE. This replaces an existing definition for type TYPE.
See also "Defining your own types".
- --type-del TYPE
- The filters associated with TYPE are removed from Ack, and are no longer
considered for searches.
- -v, --invert-match
- Invert match: select non-matching lines
- --version
- Display version and copyright information.
- -w, --word-regexp
- Force PATTERN to match only whole words. The PATTERN is wrapped with
"\b" metacharacters.
- -x
- An abbreviation for --files-from=-; the list of files to search are
read from standard input, with one line per file.
- -1
- Stops after reporting first match of any kind. This is different from
--max-count=1 or -m1, where only one match per file is
shown. Also, -1 works with -f and -g, where -m
does not.
- --thpppt
- Display the all-important Bill The Cat logo. Note that the exact spelling
of --thpppppt is not important. It's checked against a regular
expression.
- --bar
- Check with the admiral for traps.
- --cathy
- Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate!
THE .ackrc FILE¶
The
.ackrc file contains command-line options that are prepended to the
command line before processing. Multiple options may live on multiple lines.
Lines beginning with a # are ignored. A
.ackrc might look like this:
# Always sort the files
--sort-files
# Always color, even if piping to a another program
--color
# Use "less -r" as my pager
--pager=less -r
Note that arguments with spaces in them do not need to be quoted, as they are
not interpreted by the shell. Basically, each
line in the
.ackrc
file is interpreted as one element of @ARGV.
ack looks in several locations for
.ackrc files; the searching
process is detailed in "ACKRC LOCATION SEMANTICS". These files are
not considered if
--noenv is specified on the command line.
Defining your own types¶
ack allows you to define your own types in addition to the predefined types.
This is done with command line options that are best put into an
.ackrc
file - then you do not have to define your types over and over again. In the
following examples the options will always be shown on one command line so
that they can be easily copy & pasted.
ack --perl foo searches for foo in all perl files.
ack
--help=types tells you, that perl files are files ending in .pl, .pm, .pod
or .t. So what if you would like to include .xs files as well when searching
for --perl files?
ack --type-add perl:ext:xs --perl foo does this for
you.
--type-add appends additional extensions to an existing type.
If you want to define a new type, or completely redefine an existing type, then
use
--type-set.
ack --type-set eiffel:ext:e,eiffel defines the
type
eiffel to include files with the extensions .e or .eiffel. So to
search for all eiffel files containing the word Bertrand use
ack --type-set
eiffel:ext:e,eiffel --eiffel Bertrand. As usual, you can also write
--type=eiffel instead of
--eiffel. Negation also works, so
--noeiffel excludes all eiffel files from a search. Redefining also
works:
ack --type-set cc:ext:c,h and
.xs files no longer belong
to the type
cc.
When defining your own types in the
.ackrc file you have to use the
following:
--type-set=eiffel:ext:e,eiffel
or writing on separate lines
--type-set
eiffel:ext:e,eiffel
The following does
NOT work in the
.ackrc file:
--type-set eiffel:ext:e,eiffel
In order to see all currently defined types, use
--help-types, e.g.
ack --type-set backup:ext:bak --type-add perl:ext:perl --help-types
In addition to filtering based on extension (like ack 1.x allowed), ack 2 offers
additional filter types. The generic syntax is
--type-set
TYPE:FILTER:FILTERARGS;
FILTERARGS depends on the value of
FILTER.
- is:FILENAME
- is filters match the target filename exactly. It takes exactly one
argument, which is the name of the file to match.
Example:
--type-set make:is:Makefile
- ext:EXTENSION[,EXTENSION2[,...]]
- ext filters match the extension of the target file against a list
of extensions. No leading dot is needed for the extensions.
Example:
--type-set perl:ext:pl,pm,t
- match:PATTERN
- match filters match the target filename against a regular
expression. The regular expression is made case insensitive for the
search.
Example:
--type-set make:match:/(gnu)?makefile/
- firstlinematch:PATTERN
- firstlinematch matches the first line of the target file against a
regular expression. Like match, the regular expression is made case
insensitive.
Example:
--type-add perl:firstlinematch:/perl/
More filter types may be made available in the future.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES¶
For commonly-used ack options, environment variables can make life much easier.
These variables are ignored if
--noenv is specified on the command
line.
- ACKRC
- Specifies the location of the user's .ackrc file. If this file
doesn't exist, ack looks in the default location.
- ACK_OPTIONS
- This variable specifies default options to be placed in front of any
explicit options on the command line.
- ACK_COLOR_FILENAME
- Specifies the color of the filename when it's printed in --group
mode. By default, it's "bold green".
The recognized attributes are clear, reset, dark, bold, underline,
underscore, blink, reverse, concealed black, red, green, yellow, blue,
magenta, on_black, on_red, on_green, on_yellow, on_blue, on_magenta,
on_cyan, and on_white. Case is not significant. Underline and underscore
are equivalent, as are clear and reset. The color alone sets the
foreground color, and on_color sets the background color.
This option can also be set with --color-filename.
- ACK_COLOR_MATCH
- Specifies the color of the matching text when printed in --color
mode. By default, it's "black on_yellow".
This option can also be set with --color-match.
See ACK_COLOR_FILENAME for the color specifications.
- ACK_COLOR_LINENO
- Specifies the color of the line number when printed in --color
mode. By default, it's "bold yellow".
This option can also be set with --color-lineno.
See ACK_COLOR_FILENAME for the color specifications.
- ACK_PAGER
- Specifies a pager program, such as "more", "less" or
"most", to which ack will send its output.
Using "ACK_PAGER" does not suppress grouping and coloring like
piping output on the command-line does, except that on Windows ack will
assume that "ACK_PAGER" does not support color.
"ACK_PAGER_COLOR" overrides "ACK_PAGER" if both are
specified.
- ACK_PAGER_COLOR
- Specifies a pager program that understands ANSI color sequences. Using
"ACK_PAGER_COLOR" does not suppress grouping and coloring like
piping output on the command-line does.
If you are not on Windows, you never need to use
"ACK_PAGER_COLOR".
AVAILABLE COLORS¶
ack uses the colors available in Perl's Term::ANSIColor module, which
provides the following listed values. Note that case does not matter when
using these values.
Foreground colors¶
black red green yellow blue magenta cyan white
bright_black bright_red bright_green bright_yellow
bright_blue bright_magenta bright_cyan bright_white
Background colors¶
on_black on_red on_green on_yellow
on_blue on_magenta on_cyan on_white
on_bright_black on_bright_red on_bright_green on_bright_yellow
on_bright_blue on_bright_magenta on_bright_cyan on_bright_white
Vim integration¶
ack integrates easily with the Vim text editor. Set this in your
.vimrc to use
ack instead of
grep:
set grepprg=ack\ -k
That example uses "-k" to search through only files of the types ack
knows about, but you may use other default flags. Now you can search with
ack and easily step through the results in Vim:
:grep Dumper perllib
Miles Sterrett has written a Vim plugin for
ack which allows you to use
":Ack" instead of ":grep", as well as several other
advanced features.
<
https://github.com/mileszs/ack.vim>
Emacs integration¶
Phil Jackson put together an
ack.el extension that "provides a
simple compilation mode ... has the ability to guess what files you want to
search for based on the major-mode."
<
http://www.shellarchive.co.uk/content/emacs.html>
TextMate integration¶
Pedro Melo is a TextMate user who writes "I spend my day mostly inside
TextMate, and the built-in find-in-project sucks with large projects. So I
hacked a TextMate command that was using find + grep to use ack. The result is
the Search in Project with ack, and you can find it here:
<
http://www.simplicidade.org/notes/archives/2008/03/search_in_proje.html>"
Shell and Return Code¶
For greater compatibility with
grep,
ack in normal use returns
shell return or exit code of 0 only if something is found and 1 if no match is
found.
(Shell exit code 1 is "$?=256" in perl with "system" or
backticks.)
The
grep code 2 for errors is not used.
If "-f" or "-g" are specified, then 0 is returned if at
least one file is found. If no files are found, then 1 is returned.
DEBUGGING ACK PROBLEMS¶
If ack gives you output you're not expecting, start with a few simple steps.
Use --noenv¶
Your environment variables and
.ackrc may be doing things you're not
expecting, or forgotten you specified. Use
--noenv to ignore your
environment and
.ackrc.
Use -f to see what files have been selected¶
Ack's
-f was originally added as a debugging tool. If ack is not finding
matches you think it should find, run
ack -f to see what files have
been selected. You can also add the "--show-types" options to show
the type of each file selected.
Use --dump¶
This lists the ackrc files that are loaded and the options loaded from them. So
for example you can find a list of directories that do not get searched or
where filetypes are defined.
TIPS¶
Use the .ackrc file.¶
The
.ackrc is the place to put all your options you use most of the time
but don't want to remember. Put all your --type-add and --type-set definitions
in it. If you like --smart-case, set it there, too. I also set --sort-files
there.
Use -f for working with big codesets¶
Ack does more than search files. "ack -f --perl" will create a list of
all the Perl files in a tree, ideal for sending into
xargs. For
example:
# Change all "this" to "that" in all Perl files in a tree.
ack -f --perl | xargs perl -p -i -e's/this/that/g'
or if you prefer:
perl -p -i -e's/this/that/g' $(ack -f --perl)
If you're searching for something with a regular expression metacharacter, most
often a period in a filename or IP address, add the -Q to avoid false
positives without all the backslashing. See the following example for more...
Use ack to watch log files¶
Here's one I used the other day to find trouble spots for a website visitor. The
user had a problem loading
troublesome.gif, so I took the access log
and scanned it with ack twice.
ack -Q aa.bb.cc.dd /path/to/access.log | ack -Q -B5 troublesome.gif
The first ack finds only the lines in the Apache log for the given IP. The
second finds the match on my troublesome GIF, and shows the previous five
lines from the log in each case.
Examples of --output¶
Following variables are useful in the expansion string:
- $&
- The whole string matched by PATTERN.
- $1, $2, ...
- The contents of the 1st, 2nd ... bracketed group in PATTERN.
- "$`"
- The string before the match.
- "$'"
- The string after the match.
For more details and other variables see
<
http://perldoc.perl.org/perlvar.html#Variables-related-to-regular-expressions|perlvar>.
This example shows how to add text around a particular pattern (in this case
adding _ around word with "e")
ack2.pl "\w*e\w*" quick.txt --output="$`_$&_$'"
_The_ quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
The quick brown fox jumps _over_ the lazy dog
The quick brown fox jumps over _the_ lazy dog
This shows how to pick out particular parts of a match using ( ) within regular
expression.
ack '=head(\d+)\s+(.*)' --output=' $1 : $2'
input file contains "=head1 NAME"
output "1 : NAME"
Share your knowledge¶
Join the ack-users mailing list. Send me your tips and I may add them here.
FAQ¶
Why isn't ack finding a match in (some file)?¶
Probably because it's of a type that ack doesn't recognize. ack's searching
behavior is driven by filetype.
If ack doesn't know what kind of
file it is, ack ignores the file.
Use the "-f" switch to see a list of files that ack will search for
you. You can use the "--show-types" switch to show which type ack
thinks each file is.
Wouldn't it be great if ack did search & replace?¶
No, ack will always be read-only. Perl has a perfectly good way to do search
& replace in files, using the "-i", "-p" and
"-n" switches.
You can certainly use ack to select your files to update. For example, to change
all "foo" to "bar" in all PHP files, you can do this from
the Unix shell:
$ perl -i -p -e's/foo/bar/g' $(ack -f --php)
Can I make ack recognize .xyz files?¶
Yes! Please see "Defining your own types". If you think that
ack should recognize a type by default, please see
"ENHANCEMENTS".
There's already a program/package called ack.¶
Yes, I know.
Why is it called ack if it's called ack-grep?¶
The name of the program is "ack". Some packagers have called it
"ack-grep" when creating packages because there's already a package
out there called "ack" that has nothing to do with this ack.
I suggest you make a symlink named
ack that points to
ack-grep
because one of the crucial benefits of ack is having a name that's so short
and simple to type.
To do that, run this with
sudo or as root:
ln -s /usr/bin/ack-grep /usr/bin/ack
Alternatively, you could use a shell alias:
# bash/zsh
alias ack=ack-grep
# csh
alias ack ack-grep
What does ack mean?¶
Nothing. I wanted a name that was easy to type and that you could pronounce as a
single syllable.
Can I do multi-line regexes?¶
No, ack does not support regexes that match multiple lines. Doing so would
require reading in the entire file at a time.
If you want to see lines near your match, use the "--A",
"--B" and "--C" switches for displaying context.
Why is ack telling me I have an invalid option when searching for "+foo"?¶
ack treats command line options beginning with "+" or "-" as
options; if you would like to search for these, you may prefix your search
term with "--" or use the "--match" option. (However,
don't forget that "+" is a regular expression metacharacter!)
Why does "ack '.{40000,}'" fail? Isn't that a valid regex?¶
The Perl language limits the repetition quanitifier to 32K. You can search for
".{32767}" but not ".{32768}".
ACKRC LOCATION SEMANTICS¶
Ack can load its configuration from many sources. This list specifies the
sources Ack looks for configuration; each one that is found is loaded in the
order specified here, and each one overrides options set in any of the sources
preceding it. (For example, if I set --sort-files in my user ackrc, and
--nosort-files on the command line, the command line takes precedence)
- •
- Defaults are loaded from App::Ack::ConfigDefaults. This can be omitted
using "--ignore-ack-defaults".
- •
- Global ackrc
Options are then loaded from the global ackrc. This is located at
"/etc/ackrc" on Unix-like systems.
Under Windows XP and earlier, the ackrc is at "C:\Documents and
Settings\All Users\Application Data\ackrc".
Under Windows Vista/7, the global ackrc is at "C:\ProgramData"
The "--noenv" option prevents all ackrc files from being
loaded.
- •
- User ackrc
Options are then loaded from the user's ackrc. This is located at
"$HOME/.ackrc" on Unix-like systems.
Under Windows XP and earlier, the user's ackrc is at "C:\Documents and
Settings\$USER\Application Data\ackrc".
Under Windows Vista/7, the user's ackrc is at
<C:\Users\$USER\AppData\Roaming>.
If you want to load a different user-level ackrc, it may be specified with
the $ACKRC environment variable.
The "--noenv" option prevents all ackrc files from being
loaded.
- •
- Project ackrc
Options are then loaded from the project ackrc. The project ackrc is the
first ackrc file with the name ".ackrc" or "_ackrc",
first searching in the current directory, then the parent directory, then
the grandparent directory, etc. This can be omitted using
"--noenv".
- •
- --ackrc
The "--ackrc" option may be included on the command line to
specify an ackrc file that can override all others. It is consulted even
if "--noenv" is present.
- •
- ACK_OPTIONS
Options are then loaded from the environment variable
"ACK_OPTIONS". This can be omitted using
"--noenv".
- •
- Command line
Options are then loaded from the command line.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ACK 1.X AND ACK 2.X¶
A lot of changes were made for ack 2; here is a list of them.
GENERAL CHANGES¶
- •
- When no selectors are specified, ack 1.x only searches through files that
it can map to a file type. ack 2.x, by contrast, will search through every
regular, non-binary file that is not explicitly ignored via
--ignore-file or --ignore-dir. This is similar to the
behavior of the -a/--all option in ack 1.x.
- •
- A more flexible filter system has been added, so that more powerful file
types may be created by the user. For details, please consult
"Defining your own types".
- •
- ack now loads multiple ackrc files; see "ACKRC LOCATION
SEMANTICS" for details.
- •
- ack's default filter definitions aren't special; you may tell ack to
completely disregard them if you don't like them.
REMOVED OPTIONS¶
- •
- Because of the change in default search behavior, the -a/--all and
-u/--unrestricted options have been removed. In addition, the
-k/--known-types option was added to cause ack to behave with the
default search behavior of ack 1.x.
- •
- The -G option has been removed. Two regular expressions on the
command line was considered too confusing; to simulate -G's
functionality, you may use the new -x option to pipe filenames from
one invocation of ack into another.
- •
- The --binary option has been removed.
- •
- The --skipped option has been removed.
- •
- The --text option has been removed.
- •
- The --invert-file-match option has been removed. Instead, you may
use -v with -g.
CHANGED OPTIONS¶
- •
- The options that modify the regular expression's behavior (-i,
-w, -Q, and -v) may now be used with -g.
ADDED OPTIONS¶
- •
- --files-from was added so that a user may submit a list of
filenames as a list of files to search.
- •
- -x was added to tell ack to accept a list of filenames via standard
input; this list is the list of filenames that will be used for the
search.
- •
- -s was added to tell ack to suppress error messages about
non-existent or unreadable files.
- •
- --ignore-directory and --noignore-directory were added as
aliases for --ignore-dir and --noignore-dir
respectively.
- •
- --ignore-file was added so that users may specify patterns of files
to ignore (ex. /.*~$/).
- •
- --dump was added to allow users to easily find out which options
are set where.
- •
- --create-ackrc was added so that users may create custom ackrc
files based on the default settings loaded by ack, and so that users may
easily view those defaults.
- •
- --type-del was added to selectively remove file type
definitions.
- •
- --ignore-ack-defaults was added so that users may ignore ack's
default options in favor of their own.
- •
- --bar was added so ack users may consult Admiral Ackbar.
AUTHOR¶
Andy Lester, "<andy at petdance.com>"
BUGS¶
Please report any bugs or feature requests to the issues list at Github:
<
https://github.com/petdance/ack2/issues>
ENHANCEMENTS¶
All enhancement requests MUST first be posted to the ack-users mailing list at
<
http://groups.google.com/group/ack-users>. I will not consider a
request without it first getting seen by other ack users. This includes
requests for new filetypes.
There is a list of enhancements I want to make to
ack in the ack issues
list at Github: <
https://github.com/petdance/ack2/issues>
Patches are always welcome, but patches with tests get the most attention.
SUPPORT¶
Support for and information about
ack can be found at:
- •
- The ack homepage
<http://beyondgrep.com/>
- •
- The ack-users mailing list
<http://groups.google.com/group/ack-users>
- •
- The ack issues list at Github
<https://github.com/petdance/ack2/issues>
- •
- AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation
<http://annocpan.org/dist/ack>
- •
- CPAN Ratings
<http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/ack>
- •
- Search CPAN
<http://search.cpan.org/dist/ack>
- •
- Git source repository
<https://github.com/petdance/ack2>
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS¶
How appropriate to have
acknowledgements!
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to ack in any way, including Stephen
Thirlwall, Jonah Bishop, Chris Rebert, Denis Howe, Raul Gundin, James McCoy,
Daniel Perrett, Steven Lee, Jonathan Perret, Fraser Tweedale, Raal Gundan,
Steffen Jaeckel, Stephan Hohe, Michael Beijen, Alexandr Ciornii, Christian
Walde, Charles Lee, Joe McMahon, John Warwick, David Steinbrunner, Kara
Martens, Volodymyr Medvid, Ron Savage, Konrad Borowski, Dale Sedivic, Michael
McClimon, Andrew Black, Ralph Bodenner, Shaun Patterson, Ryan Olson, Shlomi
Fish, Karen Etheridge, Olivier Mengue, Matthew Wild, Scott Kyle, Nick Hooey,
Bo Borgerson, Mark Szymanski, Marq Schneider, Packy Anderson, JR Boyens, Dan
Sully, Ryan Niebur, Kent Fredric, Mike Morearty, Ingmar Vanhassel, Eric Van
Dewoestine, Sitaram Chamarty, Adam James, Richard Carlsson, Pedro Melo, AJ
Schuster, Phil Jackson, Michael Schwern, Jan Dubois, Christopher J. Madsen,
Matthew Wickline, David Dyck, Jason Porritt, Jjgod Jiang, Thomas Klausner, Uri
Guttman, Peter Lewis, Kevin Riggle, Ori Avtalion, Torsten Blix, Nigel
Metheringham, Gabor Szabo, Tod Hagan, Michael Hendricks, AEvar Arnfjoerd`
Bjarmason, Piers Cawley, Stephen Steneker, Elias Lutfallah, Mark Leighton
Fisher, Matt Diephouse, Christian Jaeger, Bill Sully, Bill Ricker, David
Golden, Nilson Santos F. Jr, Elliot Shank, Merijn Broeren, Uwe Voelker, Rick
Scott, Ask Bjorn Hansen, Jerry Gay, Will Coleda, Mike O'Regan, Slaven ReziX,
Mark Stosberg, David Alan Pisoni, Adriano Ferreira, James Keenan, Leland
Johnson, Ricardo Signes, Pete Krawczyk and Rob Hoelz.
COPYRIGHT & LICENSE¶
Copyright 2005-2014 Andy Lester.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the Artistic License v2.0.
See
http://www.perlfoundation.org/artistic_license_2_0 or the LICENSE.md file
that comes with the ack distribution.