This plugin is a front for the Perl module App::Ack. Ack can be used as a replacement for 99% of the uses of grep. This plugin will allow you to run ack from vim, and shows the results in a split window.

The Official Version of this plugin is available at vim.org.

You have to install ack, of course.

Install on Debian / Ubuntu with:

sudo apt-get install ack-grep

For Debian / Ubuntu you can add this line into your .vimrc:

let g:ackprg="ack-grep -H --nocolor --nogroup --column"

Install on Gentoo with:

sudo emerge ack

Install with Homebrew:

brew install ack

Install with MacPorts:

sudo port install p5-app-ack

Install with Gentoo Prefix

emerge ack

Otherwise, you are on your own.

If you have Rake installed, you can just run: rake install.

Otherwise, the file ack.vim goes in ~/.vim/plugin, and the ack.txt file belongs in ~/.vim/doc. Be sure to run

:helptags ~/.vim/doc

afterwards.

:Ack [options] {pattern} [{directory}]

Search recursively in {directory} (which defaults to the current directory) for the {pattern}.

Files containing the search term will be listed in the split window, along with the line number of the occurrence, once for each occurrence. [Enter] on a line in this window will open the file, and place the cursor on the matching line.

Just like where you use :grep, :grepadd, :lgrep, and :lgrepadd, you can use :Ack, :AckAdd, :LAck, and :LAckAdd respectively. (See doc/ack.txt, or install and :h Ack for more information.)

From the ack docs (my favorite feature):

--type=TYPE, --type=noTYPE

    Specify the types of files to include or exclude from a search. TYPE is a filetype, like perl or xml. --type=perl can also be specified as --perl, and --type=noperl can be done as --noperl.

    If a file is of both type "foo" and "bar", specifying --foo and --nobar will exclude the file, because an exclusion takes precedence over an inclusion.

    Type specifications can be repeated and are ORed together.

    See ack --help=types for a list of valid types.

In the quickfix window, you can use:

o    to open (same as enter)
go   to preview file (open but maintain focus on ack.vim results)
t    to open in new tab
T    to open in new tab silently
v    to open in vertical split
gv   to open in vertical split silently
q    to close the quickfix window

This Vim plugin is derived (and by derived, I mean copied, essentially) from Antoine Imbert's blog post Ack and Vim Integration (in particular, the function at the bottom of the post). I added a help file that provides just enough reference to get you going. I also highly recommend you check out the docs for the Perl script 'ack', for obvious reasons: ack - grep-like text finder.