# ack: a grep alternative for searching codebases

DevFeed: [ack: a grep alternative for searching codebases](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/ack-40651.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://radek.io/posts/ack/>)

Published: 2014-08-25T00:00:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Radek Pazdera](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/radek-pazdera.md>)

Topics: [Command-line interface](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/cli.md>), [Regular expression](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/regular-expression.md>), [Terminal](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/terminal.md>), [Unix](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/unix.md>), [Utility Software](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/utility.md>), [version-control](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/version-control.md>)

Tags: [alternatives](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/alternatives.md>), [command-line](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/command-line.md>), [expression](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/expression.md>), [save](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/save.md>), [searching](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/searching.md>), [terminal](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/terminal.md>), [tools](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tools.md>), [unix](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/unix.md>)

## AI overview

This article introduces ack as an alternative to grep for searching codebases. It explains that ack searches directory trees, ignores version-control directories, editor backups, binaries, and other irrelevant files by default, and highlights matches with terminal colors. It also discusses configuration files and command-line options.

## Source excerpt

grep optimised for programmers