Ack to the future!

Transcript

1. 1.

   ack to the future Andy Lester & Rob Hoelz YAPC::NA

   2012, June 14, Madison, WI Thursday, June 14, 12
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   Searching large trees of source code Thursday, June 14, 12

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   In the beginning... there was find+grep Thursday, June 14, 12

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   Search only Perl files Thursday, June 14, 12

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   So I created ack Thursday, June 14, 12

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   Recognizes filetypes • --perl matches *.pm, *.pl, *.t • and

   scripts without extensions that begin with a #!...perl shebang line • Same with Python, PHP, Ruby, etc Thursday, June 14, 12
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   Ignores junk • .git, .svn, .hg, etc • coredumps •

   binary files • blib, _build, nytprof • *~ backups Thursday, June 14, 12
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   Perl regexes • True Perl regexes, not PCRE. • Use

   $1, $&, etc ‣ ack '#include\s*"(.+)"' --output='$1' Thursday, June 14, 12
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   Portable, Windows • Works back to Perl 5.8.8 • Only

   one dependency, File::Next • Works on Windows when you have no other Unixy tools Thursday, June 14, 12
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    Easy install • Install as App::Ack from CPAN • -or-

    • Install a package (might be "ack-grep" for your distro) • -or- • DL single file from betterthangrep.com Thursday, June 14, 12
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    Pretty output Thursday, June 14, 12

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    --passthru Thursday, June 14, 12

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    Optimized for laziness • Typing grep switches is slow •

    DIY aliases + shell configs are not portable Thursday, June 14, 12
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    "It turns out that Defaults Matter. Who knew?" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=830731 Thursday,

    June 14, 12
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    Popular! Useful! Many contributors! Thursday, June 14, 12

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    And now.... Thursday, June 14, 12

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    Thursday, June 14, 12

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    Less-surprising re: non-code searching Thursday, June 14, 12

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    Flexible file/dir selectors • Making types is easier! • --type-add=make:match:/^[mr]akefile/i

    • --type-add=perl:firstlinematch:/perl/ • Making exclusions is easier! • --ignore-file=Makefile.PL • --ignore-dir=cache/ Thursday, June 14, 12
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    Per-project ackrc Thursday, June 14, 12

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    Going to alpha tonight! Thursday, June 14, 12

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    Paving the way for 2.x Thursday, June 14, 12

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    Ack becomes a search framework Thursday, June 14, 12

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    Plugins! Thursday, June 14, 12

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    What could we do with ack plugins? Thursday, June 14,

    12
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    Searching in tarballs Thursday, June 14, 12

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    Search a git repo as of a given commit Thursday,

    June 14, 12
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    Select only unstaged files to search Thursday, June 14, 12

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    Search for text in a PDF, or Word doc, or...

    Thursday, June 14, 12
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    Only select files newer than 10 days ago. Thursday, June

    14, 12
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    (Snazzy plugins not included!) Thursday, June 14, 12

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    Join us for the future! • http://betterthangrep.com/ • ack-users on

    Google Groups Thursday, June 14, 12