How to install Ack on macOS using Homebrew
This post provides a step-by-step guide with a list of commands on how to install ack on macOS using Homebrew.
This post provides a step-by-step guide with a list of commands on how to install ack on macOS using Homebrew. Ack is a tool like grep and designed for programmers with large heterogeneous trees of source code.
What is Ack?
“Ack is purely written in portable Perl 5 and takes advantage of the power of Perl’s regural expressions. It is fast because it only searches the stuff it makes sense to search. Searches entire trees by default while ignoring Subversion, Git and other VCS directories and other files that aren’t your source code.” ~ Ack
What is Homebrew?
Homebrew is a free and open-source software package management system that simplifies the installation of software on Apple’s macOS operating system. It is known as the missing package manager for macOS.
Quick Commands
The following is the single command required to install ack on macOS using Homebrew.
$ brew install ack
Brew Commands
This section provides a quick set of commands on how to install Ack on macOS using Homebrew. It is assumed that Homebrew is already installed. If not, please follow this link.
$ brew update # Fetch latest version of homebrew and formula.
$ brew search ack # Searches all known formulae for a partial or exact match.
$ brew info ack # Displays information about the given formulae.
$ brew install ack # Install the given formulae.
$ brew cleanup # Remove any older versions from the cellar.
Summary
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Ack on macOS making use of Homebrew. Follow me on any of the different social media platforms and feel free to leave comments.
