How to do max-depth search in ack and grep

ackgrep

Is there any way to tell ack to only search for text on the current folder? (or specify a max-depth level?) And with grep?

Best Answer

Use -n for no-recurse:

$ ack -n foo

grep is not recursive by default, and you should use the -r flag only if you want a recursive search.

You can search the current directory with grep as follows:

$ grep -- foo *

Related Solutions

Grep Character Encoding – How to Use Grep/Ack with Files in Arbitrary Encoding?

If all the files you're searching in have the same encoding:

LC_CTYPE=ru_RU.KOI8-R luit ack-grep "$(echo 'привет' | iconv -t KOI8-R)" *.txt

or in bash or zsh

LC_CTYPE=ru_RU.KOI8-R luit ack-grep "$(iconv -t KOI8-R <<<'привет')" *.txt

Or start a child shell in the desired encoding:

$ LC_CTYPE=ru_RU.KOI8-R luit
$ ack-grep 'привет' *.txt
$ exit

Luit (shipped with XFree86 and X.org) runs the program specified on its command line in the locale specified by the LC_CTYPE setting, assuming an UTF-8 terminal. So the command runs in the desired locale, and Luit translates its terminal output to UTF-8.

Another approach, if you have a directory tree with a lot of files in a different encoding, is to mount a view of that directory tree under a your prefered encoding. I think the fuseflt filesystem can do this (untested).

mkdir /utf8-view
fuseflt iconv-koi8r-utf8.conf /some/dir /utf8-view
ack-grep 'привет' /utf8-view/*.txt.utf8
fusermount -u /utf8-view

where the configuration file iconv-koi8r-utf8.conf contains

ext_in =
ext_out = *.utf8
flt_in =
flt_out = .utf8
flt_cmd = iconv -f KOI8-R -t UTF-8

Ack – Search All Files with Ack

By default, Ack searches for a pattern in all non-binary files below the current directory.

I believe older Ack versions would search through binary files when you passed them the --binary flag. This flag has been removed though. You may be able to use grep instead.

grep -ar 'foo' .

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Grep Character Encoding – How to Use Grep/Ack with Files in Arbitrary Encoding?

Ack – Search All Files with Ack

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