_ /| \'o.O' =(___)= U ack! |
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ack is a tool like grep, aimed at programmers with large trees of heterogeneous source code.
ack is written purely in Perl, and takes advantage of the power of Perl's regular expressions. It can be installed any number of ways:
curl http://ack.googlecode.com/svn/tags/latest/ack-standalone > ~/bin/ack && chmod 0755 !$
Users of TextMate, the programmer's editor for the Mac, can use the Ack in Project plugin by Trevor Squires:
TextMate users know just how slow its “Find in Project” can be with large source trees. That’s why you need "ack-in-project" – a TextMate bundle that uses the super-speedy ‘ack’ tool to search your code FAST. It gives you beautiful, clickable results just as fast as "ack" can find them. Check it out at: http://github.com/protocool/ack-tmbundle/tree/master
"Whoa, this is *so* much better than grep it's not even funny." -- Jacob Kaplan-Moss, creator of Django.
"Thanks for creating ack and sharing it with the world. It makes my days just a little more pleasant. I'm glad to have it in my toolbox. That installation is as simple as downloading the standalone version and chmodding is a nice touch." -- Alan De Smet
"I came across ack today, and now grep is sleeping outside. It's very much like grep, except it assumes all the little things that you always wanted grep to remember, but that it never did. It actually left the light on for you, and put the toilet seat down." -- Samuel Huckins
"ack is the best tool I have added to my toolbox in the past year, hands down." -- Bill Mill on reddit
"I use it all the time and I can't imagine how I managed with only grep." -- Thomas Thurman
"This has been replacing a Rube Goldberg mess of find/grep/xargs that I've been using to search source files in a fairly large codebase." -- G. Wade Johnson
"You had me at --thpppt." -- John Gruber, Daring Fireball
"Grepping of SVN repositories was driving me crazy until I found ack. It fixes all of my grep annoyances and adds features I didn't even know I wanted." -- Paul Prescod
"I added ack standalone to our internal devtools project at work. People are all over it." -- Jason Gessner
"I just wanted to send you my praise for this wonderful little application. It's in my toolbox now and after one day of use has proven itself invaluable." -- Benjamin W. Smith
"ack has replaced grep for me for 90% of what I used it for. Obsoleted most of my 'grep is crippled' wrapper scripts, too." -- Randall Hansen
"ack's powerful search facilities are an invaluable tool for searching large repositories like Parrot. The ability to control the search domain by filetype--and to do so independent of platform--has made one-liners out of many complex queries previously done with custom scripts. Parrot developers are hooked on ack." -- Jerry Gay
"That thing is awesome. People see me using it and ask what the heck it is." -- Andrew Moore
$ ack --help
Usage: ack [OPTION]... PATTERN [FILES]
Search for PATTERN in each source file in the tree from cwd on down.
If [FILES] is specified, then only those files/directories are checked.
ack may also search STDIN, but only if no FILES are specified, or if
one of FILES is "-".
Default switches may be specified in ACK_OPTIONS environment variable or
an .ackrc file. If you want no dependency on the environment, turn it
off with --noenv.
Example: ack -i select
Searching:
-i, --ignore-case Ignore case distinctions in PATTERN
--[no]smart-case Ignore case distinctions in PATTERN,
only if PATTERN contains no upper case
Ignored if -i is specified
-v, --invert-match Invert match: select non-matching lines
-w, --word-regexp Force PATTERN to match only whole words
-Q, --literal Quote all metacharacters; PATTERN is literal
Search output:
--line=NUM Only print line(s) NUM of each file
-l, --files-with-matches
Only print filenames containing matches
-L, --files-without-match
Only print filenames with no match
-o Show only the part of a line matching PATTERN
(turns off text highlighting)
--passthru Print all lines, whether matching or not
--output=expr Output the evaluation of expr for each line
(turns off text highlighting)
--match PATTERN Specify PATTERN explicitly.
-m, --max-count=NUM Stop searching in each file after NUM matches
-1 Stop searching after one match of any kind
-H, --with-filename Print the filename for each match
-h, --no-filename Suppress the prefixing filename on output
-c, --count Show number of lines matching per file
-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.
-C [NUM], --context[=NUM]
Print NUM lines (default 2) of output context.
--print0 Print null byte as separator between filenames,
only works with -f, -g, -l, -L or -c.
File presentation:
--pager=COMMAND Pipes all ack output through COMMAND.
Ignored if output is redirected.
--nopager Do not send output through a pager. Cancels any
setting in ~/.ackrc, ACK_PAGER or ACK_PAGER_COLOR.
--[no]heading Print a filename heading above each file's results.
(default: on when used interactively)
--[no]break Print a break between results from different files.
(default: on when used interactively)
--group Same as --heading --break
--nogroup Same as --noheading --nobreak
--[no]color Highlight the matching text (default: on unless
output is redirected, or on Windows)
--[no]colour Same as --[no]color
--flush Flush output immediately, even when ack is used
non-interactively (when output goes to a pipe or
file).
File finding:
-f Only print the files found, without searching.
The PATTERN must not be specified.
-g REGEX Same as -f, but only print files matching REGEX.
--sort-files Sort the found files lexically.
File inclusion/exclusion:
-a, --all-types All file types searched;
Ignores CVS, .svn and other ignored directories
-u, --unrestricted All files and directories searched
--[no]ignore-dir=name Add/Remove directory from the list of ignored dirs
-n No descending into subdirectories
-G REGEX Only search files that match REGEX
--perl Include only Perl files.
--type=perl Include only Perl files.
--noperl Exclude Perl files.
--type=noperl Exclude Perl files.
See "ack --help type" for supported filetypes.
--type-set TYPE=.EXTENSION[,.EXT2[,...]]
Files with the given EXTENSION(s) are recognized as
being of type TYPE. This replaces an existing
definition for type TYPE.
--type-add TYPE=.EXTENSION[,.EXT2[,...]]
Files with the given EXTENSION(s) are recognized as
being of (the existing) type TYPE
--[no]follow Follow symlinks. Default is off.
Directories ignored by default:
autom4te.cache, blib, _build, .bzr, .cdv, cover_db, CVS, _darcs, ~.dep,
~.dot, .git, .hg, ~.nib, .pc, ~.plst, RCS, SCCS, _sgbak and .svn
Files not checked for type:
/~$/ - Unix backup files
/#.+#$/ - Emacs swap files
/[._].*\.swp$/ - Vi(m) swap files
/core\.\d+$/ - core dumps
Miscellaneous:
--noenv Ignore environment variables and ~/.ackrc
--help This help
--man Man page
--version Display version & copyright
--thpppt Bill the Cat
This is version 1.86 of ack.
$ ack --help-types
Usage: ack [OPTION]... PATTERN [FILES]
The following is the list of filetypes supported by ack. You can
specify a file type with the --type=TYPE format, or the --TYPE
format. For example, both --type=perl and --perl work.
Note that some extensions may appear in multiple types. For example,
.pod files are both Perl and Parrot.
--[no]actionscript .as .mxml
--[no]asm .asm .s
--[no]batch .bat .cmd
--[no]binary Binary files, as defined by Perl's -B op (default: off)
--[no]cc .c .h .xs
--[no]cfmx .cfc .cfm .cfml
--[no]cpp .cpp .cc .cxx .m .hpp .hh .h .hxx
--[no]csharp .cs
--[no]css .css
--[no]elisp .el
--[no]erlang .erl
--[no]fortran .f .f77 .f90 .f95 .f03 .for .ftn .fpp
--[no]haskell .hs .lhs
--[no]hh .h
--[no]html .htm .html .shtml .xhtml
--[no]java .java .properties
--[no]js .js
--[no]jsp .jsp .jspx .jhtm .jhtml
--[no]lisp .lisp .lsp
--[no]lua .lua
--[no]make Makefiles
--[no]mason .mas .mhtml .mpl .mtxt
--[no]objc .m .h
--[no]objcpp .mm .h
--[no]ocaml .ml .mli
--[no]parrot .pir .pasm .pmc .ops .pod .pg .tg
--[no]perl .pl .pm .pod .t
--[no]php .php .phpt .php3 .php4 .php5
--[no]plone .pt .cpt .metadata .cpy .py
--[no]python .py
--[no]ruby .rb .rhtml .rjs .rxml .erb
--[no]scheme .scm
--[no]shell .sh .bash .csh .tcsh .ksh .zsh
--[no]skipped Files, but not directories, normally skipped by ack (default: off)
--[no]smalltalk .st
--[no]sql .sql .ctl
--[no]tcl .tcl .itcl .itk
--[no]tex .tex .cls .sty
--[no]text Text files, as defined by Perl's -T op (default: off)
--[no]tt .tt .tt2 .ttml
--[no]vb .bas .cls .frm .ctl .vb .resx
--[no]vim .vim
--[no]xml .xml .dtd .xslt .ent
--[no]yaml .yaml .yml