History file for ack.  http://beyondgrep.com/

2.02    Thu Apr 18 23:51:52 CDT 2013
====================================
[OPTIMIZATIONS]
The firstlinematch file type detection option now only searches the
first 250 characters of the first line of the file.  Otherwise, ack
would read entire text files that were only one line long, such as
minified JavaScript, and that would be slow.  Thanks, Michael
McClimon.

[DOCUMENTATION]
Many clarifications and cleanups.  Thanks, Michael McClimon.


2.00    Wed Apr 17 22:49:41 CDT 2013
====================================

The first version of ack 2.0.


# Incompatibilities with ack 1.x

ack 2 makes some big changes in its behaviors that could trip up
users who are used to the idiosyncracies of ack 1.x.  These changes
could affect your searching happiness, so please read them.

* ack's default behavior is now to search all files that it identifies
as being text.  ack 1.x would only search files that were of a file
type that it recognized.

* Removed the `-a` and `-u` options since the default is to search
all text files.

* Removed the `--binary` option.  ack 2.0 will not find and search
through binary files.

* Removed the `--skipped` option.

* Removed the `--invert-file-match` option.  `-v` now works with
`-g`.  To list files that do not match `/foo/`

    ack -g foo -v

* `-g` now obeys all regex options: `-i`, `-w`, `-Q`, `-v`

* Removed the `-G` switch, because it was too confusing to have two
regexes specified on the command line.  Now you use the `-x` switch
to pipe filenames from one `ack` invocation into another.

To search files with filename matching "sales" for the string "foo":

    ack -g sales | ack -x foo

# New features in ack 2.0

ack 2.0 will:

* By default searches all text files, as identified by Perl's `-T` operator
    * We will no longer have a `-a` switch.

* improved flexibility in defining filetype selectors
    * name equality ($filename eq 'Makefile')
    * glob-style matching (`*.pl` identifies a Perl file)
    * regex-style matching (`/\.pl$/i` identifies a Perl file)
    * shebang-line matching (shebang line matching `/usr/bin/perl/`
    identifies a Perl file)

* support for multiple ackrc files
    * global ackrc (/etc/ackrc)
        * https://github.com/petdance/ack/issues/#issue/79
    * user-specific ackrc (~/.ackrc)
    * per-project ackrc files (~/myproject/.ackrc)

* you can use --dump to figure which options are set where

* all inclusion/exclusion rules will be in the ackrc files
    * ack 2.0 has a set of definitions for filetypes, directories to
      include or exclude, etc, *but* these are only included so you don't
      need to ship an ackrc file to a new machine.  You may tell ack to
      disregard these defaults if you like.

* In addition to the classic `--thpppt` option to draw Bill the
Cat, `ack --bar` will draw (of course) Admiral Ackbar.