CODEWITHSUNDEEP
command-line-argumentsack
qazwsx
qazwsx

Reputation: 26868

How to use option to specify file name extensions for ack?

I'd like to specify the file name extensions when searching in a folder of files. Read the man page of ack and still confused. Why something like the following not working?

ack --type-add=xlog=.xlog "foobar"

Update

I use ack 2.14 under Perl 5.16.2.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 172

Answers (1)

Andy Lester
Andy Lester

Reputation: 93636

First, I'm assuming you're using ack 2.x, because the filetype rules are very different in ack 2.x than 1.x.

Your --type-add=xlog=.xlog told ack about the filetype "xlog", but you didn't do anything with it. Do you only want to search .xlog files? Then you need --xlog. Are you trying to exclude .xlog files from your searching? If so, then you need to say --noxlog.

So if you only want .xlog files, you do

ack --type-add=xlog=.xlog --xlog text-to-search-for

Now, that's a pain to type over and over again, so you can put

--type-add=xlog=.xlog

into an ackrc file (either /etc/ackrc or ~/.ackrc or somewhere in your project directory) and then you only need to do

ack --xlog text-to-search-for

Upvotes: 1

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