Copyright: Visual Help Copyright ® 1993-1994 Firas Bushnaq


Contents

Introduction

What is GREP?
GREP means Get Regular Expression and Print. It is the Windows version of the well known UNIX utility that lets you find occurences of a given pattern in one or more files.

You can

- count the occurences of a pattern instead of printing them,
- write the name of the file the pattern was found in,
- print the line number of the file where the pattern was detected,
- print only the lines where the pattern wasn't found,
- make a case-insensitive search,

by simply check the boxes in the "option" group.

Procedures

Regular Expressions

Selecting files

Handling search results

What's new

Registration & legal stuff


Regular Expressions

Regular expression syntax is so described:

q       An ordinary character  matches itself. Any character not
mentioned below  is ordinary by definition.
\       The backslash quotes any special character.  "\$" matches a dollar-sign.
^       A circumflex at the beginning of an expression matches the
beginning of a line.
$       A dollar-sign at the end of an expression matches the end of a line.
.        A period matches any character except newline.
:a      A colon matches a class of characters described by the following
:d      character.  ":a" matches any letter, ":d" matches digits,
:n      ":n" matches alphanumerics, ": "  (be sure to include the blank space!)
:       	matches spaces, tabs, and all other control characters.
*       An expression followed by an asterisk matches zero or more
occurrances (Kleene closure) of that expression: "fo*" matches "f", "fo"
"foo", etc.
+      An expression followed by a plus sign matches one or more(positive closure)
occurrances of that expression: "fo+" matches "fo", etc.
-       An expression followed by a minus sign optionally matches
the expression.
[]      A string enclosed in square brackets matches any character in
that string, viewed as a set of charachters.  If the first character in the
string is a circumflex, the expression matches any character except the characters
in the string. For example, "[abc]" matches "bb" and "cab", while "[^rst]"
matches "abc" but not "arb".  A range of characters may be specified by two
characters separated by "-".  Note that, [a-z] matches lowercase letters, while [z-a]
matches nothing.

The concatenation of regular expressions is a regular expression.


Selecting Files

There is a predefined set of file extensions to search. If you need differrent extensions, type them in the edit box, separating them with semicolons.

Example:

*.cpp;*.h;*.c;*.rc;*.def

Stands for all types of c or c++ source file, and so on.


Result Window
The result windows

The result window lets you browse the search result.

You have limited editing capabilities, being able to save the result as a text file,
to make on it the basic clipboard operations (cut, copy and paste) and to print it.

The only major limitation is that this version of the application is unable to handle results greater than a segment (64K). I'm working to solve this problem in 4.1


Whatsnew
Wingrep evolution

What's new 4.00

•	Everything. The application has been totally rewritten to exploit the new search result window printing and editing features.

•	No more gauge.vbx needed to run the app

•	Printing and editing results now possible

What's new 3.00

•	Common file dialog-like directory and drive selection

•	Unlimited search result windows opened at the same time

•	Result window is resizable and minimizable

•	more than one file extension can be searched for at a time.

•	Can select search result window font

What's new 2.30

•	Help on line

•	New interface layout

•	Save and preset preferences

What's new 2.20

•	3D controls

•	Search in progress gauge dialog

What's new 2.1

•	New interface layout

•	Files and drive & directory selection split into different list boxes

•	Major bug fixed in class searches and error report

What's new 1.1

•	Microsoft style dialog box

•	Major bug fixed on application exit


Registration

WinGrep is not free software. You are free (and encouraged) to distribute it to your friends and to upload it to public BBSs, but if you want to use it for more than 21 days of trial period, then you should register. Please support the shareware idea, so that programmers are encouraged to produce better and better software.
Registration entitles you to receive the latest version of WinGrep on disk, and grants you a non-exclusive license to use WinGrep on one machine. It will also disable the registration prompt starting the application. Registered users will be notified of all future updates and enhancements.

Registration fees:

Single users, non commercial   	 10$ or 20,000 Lire
Single Users, commercial       	 20$ or 50,000 Lire
Multiple Users                  	               Contact me!

Excluding 3$ for S/H in Europe, 5$ Overseas.
              (Not charged if the program is sent by Internet ftp or E-Mail)

Please send checks, money orders or cash to

Alessandro Catorcini
Via A. Crocco 3F/6
I - 16122 Genoa, Italy  <=== (That's why my English is so strange)

Contact me for information about dealer pricing and volume discounts, comments or suggestions, or for technical information: call  ++39-10-810283,  write to the above address or or send a mail through Internet, to nostrum@dist.unige.it

Warranty


Warranty

(standard disclaimer):

Users of WinGrep must accept this disclaimer of warranty:
"WinGrep is supplied "as is". The author disclaims all warranties, espressed or Implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of WinGrep"

The use of the program implies the complete acceptance of the terms above.


Examples

foo	searches the string "foo"