World Magazine 2024
Search and Replace
by
Funduc Software
We all look for neat little utilities that make doing what we do easier. Rarely, though, do you find one that covers all of the bases, or at least tries too! Search and Replace for Windows is one of those programs, and aside from the fact that it is an award winning program, its an easy to use search and replace utility that programmers, webmasters, and novice computer users alike can benefit from. Unfortunately it’s not a Freeware program, it’s Shareware, which means it will cost you a few bucks, but the first time you use it across a large number of files, it will pay for itself.
This neat little utility has many, many uses beginning with manipulating small notepad text files, manipulation of multiple HTML pages, binary files, you name it. Simply, Search and Replace looks through “multiple files” for a string and then replaces it with another string of your choice. Think about it. How many times have you had to change one line through 100 HTML pages and just shuddered at the thought of having to load each page, edit it, save it and then move on to the next one. A long and difficult task, but not any more!
Search and Replace can search subdirectories, ZIP files and do case sensitive or insensitive searches. Extensive support for grep style regular expression search and replacements includes operations that span more than one line, incrementing number replacements, and inserting the path and filename in replaced files. Binary search and replace is also available.
You can specify multiple include/exclude file masks and filters based on file date and size. Control over replacements includes configurable replacement prompts and a display of replacements before they are made. An easily understood script editor makes frequent and/or complex multi-step search and replace operations easy to prepare. Advanced script operations include a boolean expression evaluator for added control over which files will be processed by the script. The internal context viewer allows you to edit text files. An “HTML Mode” makes plain text html character code substitutions easy. You can also “Touch” files such as changing time and date stamps. See the Search and Replace Features List below for more details.
If you need to find and replace text, or just find text, this utility is a must have. It is significantly faster than other Windows grep-only utilities and allows replacing for the same price as those programs which offer only grep capabilities. Plus, separate programs for Windows 3.x, Windows 95, 98 and NT are provided at no extra charge.
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Features List:
Scripts can be applied to Search/replace strings in the Binary Mode dialog. This allows special processing of RTF codes, HTML codes, Unicode files, with a lookup table created by the user along with several supplied by us.
+ Output in the Search and Replace “Results List” can be sent to your printer, saved to a file (your choice of delimiters), or viewed in your web browser via an automatically generated htm file. If you have a color printer you can print the html file to obtain a color coded output.
+ Find in Search Results (press F3 when focus is in Search Results).
+ File operations can be carried out on the files in the search results list.
+ An HTML Mode that automatically makes plain text -> html special character substitutions during search &/or replace operations.
+ The internal “context” viewer allows you to view your search results in context with the surrounding text. You can jump from one “search hit” to the next and edit text files. Search and Replace automatically detects if the file being searched is text and, if not, will automatically view binary files using our freeware companion utility HexView. Alternatively, Search and Replace can be configured to launch with an external hex editor/viewer such as HexWorkshop (BreakPoint Software). You can also launch a user configurable external text viewer/editor with optional special commands and launch associated programs on “found” files, e.g., launch your web browser if the search hit occurs in an .htm or .html file.
+ Text files can be reformatted w/ word wrap at a specified column.
+ Search and replace operations can be case sensitive or not, they can span multiple files via multiple file masks and filter settings, and they can span more than one line. An ‘Ignore Whitespace’ function can find a phrase regardless of where line breaks may lie.
+ The program can read the enviroment variables on the host computer and use them in a search/replace using the “%%envvar=” syntax. For example, the ‘temp’ environment variable can be referred using the string “%%envvar=temp%%”.
+ Replacements, including those in script and binary operations, can be visualized in context before they are made. You can (optionally) write files changed by a replacement operation to a backup directory and preserve original file time/date stamps during replacements.
+ Regular Expression operators include the basic grep-style substring and match operators, along with special replacement operators such as case change operators, file and path name replacements, counters, and binary mode operators. The Incrementing Counter operations let you allow you to quickly revise a sequence of numbers in one or more files or add numbers where no numbers exist originally. (See Regular Expressions English).
+ Scripts let you specify multiple search/replace combinations, save a particular search or replace string for later use, or process multiple drives/directories and/or file masks. Advanced Script Settings let you control program options, embed comments in scripts, and further specify the files processed during a script operation via a boolean expression evaluator. When building scripts you can easily add the the Search/Replace & Mask/Path values from the mail dialog by holding down the CTRL key while clicking on the Insert or Remove All buttons in the script editor. (See Script Editor). Scripts include an iterative operator to repeat a script a specified number of times. Binary Mode search and replace lets you process binary files &/or text files with special characters such as tabs, line feed, carriage returns. (See Binary Editor).
+ Multiple include & exclude file masks let you, for example, search all “.htm” &”.html” files except the “.htm” files begin with “s” or “t”. You can also create complex file masks to include some subdirectories while excluding others. Filter Options allow you, for example, to include only files created after a set date that are smaller than the size you specify.
+ Searching can be halted after the first hit in a file – useful for when you have to search large or many files. A ‘no replace’ flag is also available to turn off replacement functions – useful for administrators or users who need extra limits on the possibility of inadvertent replacements.
+ User control over replacement prompts/warnings includes one string at a time, one file at a time, all at once (no warnings), and combinations in between such as skipping all remaining occurrences in a file.
+ An enhanced “Touch” dialog allows you to change time and date stamp and attributes of files.
+ Search and Replace can be launched from Win95/NT Start-Find Menu. Files &/or directories dropped from Explorer or File Manger into the Search and Replace main window are automatically recognized for processing. The Win95/NT Explorer shell extension lets you launch Search and Replace on a specific file or group of selected files.
+ Search ZIP files without manually extracting files first.
+ User configurable fonts & colors.
+ Command line support (13 functions) includes control over most program options & ability to run search & replaces via batch files.
+ Help file includes many examples.
+ 32 bit & 16 bit versions included in purchase price.
+ An established, mature program with a history of regular updates and solid support.
| Search and Replace HTML Mode | |
| Search and Replace 3.2+ has an ‘HTML compatibility mode’ that enables the program to make ISO plain text character code substitutions for the HTML special characters during search &/or replace operations.
For example, if your search string is “Search & Replace”, the program will find “Search & Replace” in your html document and display this in the Search Results list (if you have ‘Display First Hit Line’ enabled in Options-Output). If a replacement is being made involves a character for which there is an html special character code, the character code will be used. For example, if you search for “x > y” and replace that with “x < y”, the program will find the string “x > y” and replace that with “x < y”. You can visualize the actual replacement by enabling Replace Prompts (Options-Replace). HTML mode is activated from the Search and Replace Flags Menu or the ‘HTML Mode’ tool bar button. Please see the program F1 HLP for more information. Not all programs/editors follow the same html character code standards. Consult the documentation for your html editor &/or examine your raw html document if you have questions about the substitutions used by your editor. |
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Search and Replace Scripts |
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| Search and Replace Script Dialog |
The Search and Replace Script function, with Advanced Settings, allows you to save search and replace operations for later use. Scripts can be used to do multiple search &/or replace procedures across one or more path & file mask combinations. They can be simple search/ replaces, grep style regular expressions, or binary operations. You can rearrange to order of operations in scripts and override one or more components of a script from the Search and Replace main screen. Program options can be (optionally) specified in scripts – useful for using unique settings that differ from your customary program settings. Scripts are ordinary text files that can be edited by hand if you like. |
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| Advanced Script Settings Dialog A |
Search and Replace Advanced Script Settings, with a boolean expression evaluator, provide added control over which files are processed by the script. The “E1” & “E2” variables modeled here with a default “OR” expression refer the search/replace string pairs above.
A full compliment of operators is permitted, AND OR > < = >= 2 and you can compare one variable to another, E1 > E2 Expressions can be simple or complex, E1 AND (E3 > 2 OR (E4 < (E2*2))) You can also insert comment text into scripts and control program options in effect for the script. |
| Example Scripts
Download some example scripts – scripts.zip (5K) |
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| Additional features can be found at the Funduc Software Home Page. | |
| Courtesy Funduc Software ©2000 Funduc Software. All rights reserved.
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