leoliu / ack-el Goto Github PK

Being able to edit the matches from the search buffer is useful.

Is this a planned feature?

If the recommended solution is to use wgrep-ack, it mostly seems to work, but wgrep-exit resets all colors to the ones compilation-mode uses and unhighlights all matches.
Let me know if I should report it there, instead.

Howdy,

this is not really meant to be a bug report, rather a proposal to modify the behavior of ack.

I'm having two problems with it: when I start ack and search for something and the press q then only the window is being closed, not the *ack* buffer itself. So the next time I start ack, I just end up in that old buffer, it doesn't even ask me for a search term. I'm not sure if the keybinding q is configured somewhere in my emacs config or if it's a default or an ack-mode setting. But this behavior is really annoying for me.

Another problem is, that if I start ack, a new window with the ack buffer will be created but I am not switched to it. So I have to manually switch to it every time. That's just one key stroke to much for my taste ;-)

So, here's my actual ack config in case someone has similar problems or if you consider to incorporate something like this into ack-mode:

;; https://github.com/leoliu/ack-el

(defun tvd-kill-ack()
  "Close the  *ack* window and  kill the associated  buffer along
with the ack process"
  (interactive)
  (let ((kill-buffer-query-functions nil))
    (delete-window)
    (kill-buffer "*ack*")))

(defun tvd-hook-kill-ack()
  "set local keys in temporary ack buffer"
  (local-set-key (kbd "q") 'tvd-kill-ack))

(use-package ack
  :config

  ;; don't annoy me with git search & co
  (setq ack-defaults-function 'ack-legacy-defaults)

  ;; focus the *ack* buffer directly
  (advice-add 'ack-mode :after
              '(lambda ()
                 (pop-to-buffer "*ack*")))
  :init
  (add-hook 'ack-mode-hook 'tvd-hook-kill-ack))

*ack* result buffer parses the numbers in a filename as the line number, breaking compile-goto-error

Using RET to visit a broken file results in a prompt "Find this ack match in" with a directory prompt, trying to find the partial match up until the filename's first hyphen.

abc-123-def.txt fails
abc-123.txt works

M-x ack RET
M-Y

expected: yank the symbol at point in the buffer from which I called ack
actual: "Previous command was not a yank"

Installed as per the readme with M-x package-install RET ack RET.
v0.9.
GNU Emacs 24.5.1

Did I miss something?

Commit b2c449c made ack-quickgrep-defaults the default value for ack-defaults-function.

In my day-to-day use, this is a less useful default than the legacy defaults. I often M-x ack from a Dired buffer, for example, and I never want to search for the filename at point.

Looking at the commit, I see how to restore the legacy default for myself—so I wouldn't normally complain at all, except that the commit message invited me to 😉.

Thank you for a very useful package!

What is the actual command that gets called?

Hello again Leo,

In issue #9, I proposed that you add a ack-maybe-skel-vc-grep (or that you remove the error raising behaviour in ack-skel-vc-grep).

Here's another request. Since this might raise more objections, I made it a new issue. If the user uses C-u C-u M-x ack , he wants to choose a directory. Let's assume he chooses a subdirectory of a git project. Does it make sense to add a vc skeleton to the root of the project, or should we should override with regular ack? I believe we should do the latter. If the use wants to use the root of the project he should have C-u M-x ack'ed instead, right?

So, I propose this change, which already includes the fix for #9, too.

diff --git a/ack.el b/ack.el
index 11c1f93..0bc8445 100644
--- a/ack.el
+++ b/ack.el
@@ -285,16 +285,28 @@ This gets tacked on the end of the generated expressions.")
   (let* ((regexp (concat "\\`" (regexp-opt
                                 (mapcar 'car ack-vc-grep-commands))
                          "\\'"))
-         (root (or (ack-guess-project-root default-directory regexp)
-                   (error "Cannot locate vc project root")))
-         (which (car (directory-files root nil regexp)))
+         (guessed-root (ack-guess-project-root ack--project-root regexp))
+         (which (progn
+                  (unless (equal
+                           (file-truename ack--project-root)
+                           (file-truename guessed-root))
+                    (error "You asked to `ack' in %s but the project root is %s"
+                           ack--project-root
+                           guessed-root))
+                  (car (directory-files guessed-root nil regexp))))
          (backend (downcase (substring which 1)))
          (cmd (or (cdr (assoc which ack-vc-grep-commands))
                   (error "No command provided for `%s grep'" backend))))
-    (setq ack--project-root root)
     (delete-minibuffer-contents)
     (skeleton-insert `(nil ,cmd " '" _ "'"))))
 
+(defun ack-maybe-skel-vc-grep ()
+  "Try insert ta template for vc grep search.
+Don't do anything if that triggers an error (the previous
+template stays put)"
+  (interactive)
+  (ignore-errors (ack-skel-vc-grep)))
+
 (defun ack-yank-symbol-at-point ()
   "Yank the symbol from the window before entering the minibuffer."
   (interactive)

I'd like to be able to specify ag over ack by calling a function provided by ack-el. Currently I have both ag and ack installed on my system. ack is used simply because the order in the code dictates that.

Maybe it is time for a version bump for GNU ELPA?

It would be great to have a function that will automatically invoke a search using the symbol at point. Currently this requires three steps: invoke ack, keystroke to copy symbol at point to minibuffer, and hit enter.

Hi Leo,

I hope this project isn't abandoned. I recently discovered it and it's very well done. Thanks!

I have one small problem with it. Here's my ack-minibuffer-setup-hook

(add-hook 'ack-minibuffer-setup-hook 'ack-skel-vc-grep t)
(add-hook 'ack-minibuffer-setup-hook 'ack-yank-symbol-at-point t)

Obviously, the idea is to use git grep and then yank the symbol at point. But what if I choose a directory without a vc project? M-x ack will fail, because ack-skel-vc-grep raises an error, since it can't work under those circunstances. If it didn't raise the error though, ack would be able to gracefully fallback to ack. So now I have the trivial.

(defun ack-maybe-skel-vc-grep ()
  "Try insert ta template for vc grep search.
Don't do anything if that triggers an error (the previous
template stays put)"
  (interactive)
  (ignore-errors (ack-skel-vc-grep)))

in my config, which works very nicely. Is this something you would consider adding? If so I can make a PR (or take over maintenance if you've lost interest :-))

I just updated ack-el. Now when I use M-x ack the mini-buffer reports:

Symbol's value as variable is void: project-root