ack is a grep-like utility that allows searching using Perl-like regular expressions instead of the ed-like regular expressions from grep. Note: On Debian systems and derivatives like Ubuntu it's called ack-grep due to a naming conflict with a Kanji-related tool which is named ack, too.
Questions tagged [ack]
38 questions
29
votes
1 answer
Limiting silver-searcher to only search specific file types
I'm doing ag "active_record" ., but I want to only care about .rb files.
How do I limit what file types it searches on the command line?
David West
- 409
- 4
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20
votes
2 answers
ack-grep show the matched files name only. Do not show the matched content
I'm searching some keywords among minified files.
It doesn't make sense to show those minified content.
How could I use ack-grep 'SEARCH_WORD' and show the matched file names only
poc
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18
votes
4 answers
How to use ack to search for file name
I have started using ack which is much faster than grep. However using ack I want to search for file name rather than file contents. Is there a way to do that?
Nadal
- 939
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- 11
17
votes
3 answers
Adding file type to ack permanently
I've recently learned how to let ack support more filetypes (adding the following to .ackrc):
--type-add
latte=.latte
Unfortunately, that produces an info line on every ack search I use, even ones with 0 results.
$ ack --latte dump
ack: --type-add:…
Martin Tóth
- 842
- 1
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14
votes
3 answers
Is there a command in Mac OS X that can perform multiline regex searching?
I want to do a simple regex search recursively through a directory that isn't restricted to single lines.
I tried grep and ack, but neither seem to support this.
I know it shouldn't be too computationally expensive (in my case) because my text…
Dan Tao
- 1,089
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12
votes
1 answer
Breadth-first search with ack or grep
When I search e.g. my home directory with ack (or grep), I normally want to know where I set a specific option.
Since most config files are really close to ~ it would considerably speed up ack if I could search breadth-first. Is this possible?
Profpatsch
- 427
- 4
- 13
12
votes
1 answer
Ack/Ag/Pt just list files?
For a Unix/Unix-like OS...
So, I know I can just use find . to list all of the files recursively from the current folder. This includes files I am not interested in.
Using Ack, Ag (silver searcher), or Pt (platinum searcher), is there a way to do…
aikeru
- 243
- 2
- 9
11
votes
2 answers
How do I map --f to run Ack plugin in Vim?
I'm new to vim and I'm trying to map a key combo for running the Ack plugin found here: https://github.com/mileszs/ack.vim
I want to map cmd-shift-f to run the Ack command :Ack. I've added the following to ~/.vimrc
nmap :Ack
It doesn't…
jordelver
- 2,251
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8
votes
3 answers
grin, ack and rak comparison
Having used ack for some time now, I find it much better for my development purposes than grep. But then I've heard about rak and grin. Has anyone used all three of them and can provide a comparison?
sumek
- 647
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7
votes
2 answers
How do you ack for a file that contains two or more phrases/words?
How do you use ack to search for a file that contains, for example,
cat
dog
mouse
anywhere in the file? Each phrase occur at least once in the file.
This is kind of like the behavior of an online search engine.
Bonus:
Can we use regex on those…
hobbes3
- 1,003
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6
votes
2 answers
Show line number when search a single file
ack usually shows line numbers with file name,
$ ack searchme
filename
1:searchme
but it doesn't when search a single file,
$ ack searchme filename
searchme
It's easy to show line numbers with grep
$ grep -n searchme filename
1:searchme
Can I…
Sanghyun Lee
- 300
- 2
- 11
6
votes
2 answers
Macports install of ack doesn't create correct executable
I am trying to install p5-app-ack port from Mac Ports, but it seems it doesn't create a /opt/local/bin/ack binary at the end:
$ sudo port search *app-ack
Password:
p5-app-ack @1.960.0 (perl)
A grep replacement that ignores .svn/CVS/blib…
qazwsx
- 8,599
- 24
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- 86
5
votes
1 answer
Using Ack.vim's quickwindow in vim
I am using ack.vim with vim. I get my search results back in a vim quickwindow which is great. Only problem is that I have to hit [enter] to open the file that's displaying in the quickwindow. On thee ack.vim github site it says
In the quickfix…
frow
- 51
- 2
4
votes
3 answers
Gnu parallel and ack not playing nicely due to stdin, pipe
I'm trying to use parallel and ack together to do some searching in parallel. However, ack seems to insist on using stdin if it finds itself in a pipe, even if you give it files to search:
$ echo hello > test.txt
$ ack hello test.txt
hello
$ echo…
mgalgs
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4
votes
1 answer
Why doesn't ack recursively search all files by default?
From everything I can read
ack-grep foo
should search through all files in the current directory and subdirectories for the term "foo".
However, the closest I can get is
ack-grep foo *
Which returns all results that have "foo" in the current…
theicfire
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