Copyright: FindText Help Copyright Ian Land 1995


Contents
FindText Help Contents

FindText is, as its name suggests, a utility to find a particular text string within text files. It can also be used to search for all file names that match a particular pattern. It was written with simplicity of use and speed of execution as the primary objectives.

  Using FindText to search for file names

  Using FindText to search for text within files

  About FindText


FindingFiles
Using FindText to search for files

To use FindText to search for occurrences of a particular file name, enter the search pattern for the file you want to find in the File Mask box. This pattern is a standard DOS file pattern, so, for instance, *.BMP will return all files with the BMP extension. You can enter more than one pattern if you separate them with semi-colons, so *.BMP;*.GIF;*.JPG will find all files with the three specified extensions. If you don't specify a file mask, FindText will ask you if you want to search for all files.

Check the Include sub-folders box if you want the search to continue through all sub-directories of the specified start directory. So, if you ask FindText to begin in the root directory (for instance, C:\), it will search the entire hard disk for files that match your search criteria. To start the search, click the search button. To stop the search before it finishes, click the stop button. Couldn't be simpler, really.

When the search finishes, you will see a window showing all files that match your search criteria. From this window you can open, copy, rename, move and delete any of the files you wish.


FindingText
Finding text within files

To find a specified search string within a selection of files, enter the search text in the search for box. Check the match case option if you want the search to be case sensitive.

Enter the DOS file pattern in the file mask box. So, for instance, *.TXT will search all files with the TXT extension. You can enter more than one pattern if you separate them with semi-colons. So, *.TXT;*.WRI;*.DOC will search all files with these extensions beginning in the selected start directory. If you don't specify a file mask, you will be asked if you wish to search all files.

Check the include sub-folders box if you wish to search sub-directories as well as top level directories.

Click the search button to start the search. You can abort the search before it finishes by clicking the stop button. You will then see a window showing all files matching your search criteria that contain at least one instance of the selected text. From this window you can open, rename, move, copy and delete files as you wish.


About
About FindText

FindText 1.0 by Ian Land

FindText is freeware, but copyright is retained by the author. You are free to use and distribute FindText as you wish. The code has been tested running under Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups, and Windows 95, but I make no claims that it will run on your machine. This is a 16-bit version and therefore does not support Win 95 enhancements such as long file names. The 32-bit version will be available when I can be bothered to do it, and will include the Win 95 additions. Please send any bug reports or suggestions for improvements to the author, Ian Land, via email: iml@dircon.co.uk. Whether or not I get around to doing anything about your suggestion is an entirely different question...