Ack: Search directory tree for files with a particular extension

Question

I basically just want to do ack foo *.citrus and have ack drill down and find the string 'foo' in all Citrus files in the current directory and below. The trouble is that this won't work if there aren't any Citrus files in the current directory.

I tried messing with -G without success. Do I really need to add a file type in .ackrc just to limit the search to files with a given extension?

Speer

Answer 1

By default, ack searches only in files with known types ( like *.java, *.cpp etc. ). It doesn't know about files *.citrus, so to search in such files you must use -a cmd line switch:

$ack -a -G '\.citrus$' foo
1.d/1.citrus
1:foo_bar

Etiquette

or you can use this tip: #3871111 – Etiquette

The -a is overkill. --type-set is the way to go. – Brandebrandea

This is logical, but less than optimally useful. Such a simple task -"search files with this extension" - requires you to tell it not only the extension using a regular extension (-G), but that you do want it to actually search those files (-a or --type-set - even this choice is controversial). You gotta love Unix. – Speer

Answer 2

As suggested by Andy Lester, you can also create a typeset without taking the trouble to add it in your .ackrc file:

ack --type-set=cit=.citrus --cit "foo"

Livre

Answer 3

You don't have to set it in .ackrc if you don't want. You can also set ACK_OPTIONS in your environment, or specify --type-set arguments on the command line. ack doesn't care.

Brandebrandea