According to Microsoft the use of the search function to search for files locally and on the internet at the same time (right click properties, settings, advanced) is called Windows Search Live. I used Microsoft’s term for their products. Nothing more. Windows Search can be used for Find and Replace, it’s an Ultimate Extra function. Can’t recall exactly which one added the functions but head over to
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/extras.aspx
to check them out.

And I did mention that search and replace was “one of the few reasons for doing such a complete index” alluding to the need to turn on drive indexing as opposed to just the basic folders that it does by default.

I was really interested in this as I’ve been playing with a static dump of the English Wikipedia for a few months now. (Yes, I know it’s outdated). Dealing with millions and millions of small html files, I need something that will search out key terms and replace them with a generic string I could use later to reorganize the pages.

For me, and this is a page of people’s opinions, doing a large search and replace works best from the shell, and for making changes in code, NotePad++ does it just fine with NO EXPRESSIONS OF ANY FLAVOUR AT ALL. just double click to “find” every occurrence. Use the Find and Replace plugin to turn on/off Over-type Highlighted to replace all.

However politeness is never a lost cause. Could the fact that “the boss you once had” is no longer your boss be connected with your approach to such submissions?

Thanks to all for the comments re alternatives to today’s offering. I find such constructive comments an extremely valuable aspect of GAOTD.

A good discussion.

Best search and replace software discussion – Donationcoder 07/2007
http://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/index.php?topic=9401

Now here is the freeware roundup, 10 in all. Omitting the note/editor programs like Notepad++ ,Textpad, PsPad.. I include a little info, some others probably have good preview modes that I don’t mention and features vary greatly.. Thanks for the new ones to me above, like grepWin.

The top three interest me the most, I used Inforapid a while back, although at the moment I am not doing a lot of search and replace.

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grepWin – regex, preview
http://tools.tortoisesvn.net/grepWin

TextCrawler – Digital Volcano (strong reg-ex)
http://www.digitalvolcano.co.uk/textcrawler.html

InforRapid Search & Repalce – Ingo Straub – 2003 w/ strong features,
preview, regex, boolean, Word-Excel search, PDF, network
http://www.inforapid.com/html/searchreplace.htm

Simple Search-Replace v1.06 – RJL Software (preview)
http://www.rjlsoftware.com/software/utility/search/

TexRep – No Nonsense Software
http://www.no-nonsense-software.com/freeware/

Vgrep
http://www.english.aionel.net/

Serp – Timebend (reg-ex, multi-line)
http://timebend.com/serp.php

Replace Text (BK ReplaceEm)
http://www.ecobyte.com/replacetext/
“free, but you must agree to the following terms: You agree to admit your own fallibility and to embrace
personal growth to the benefit of yourself, and those around you…. (continues)”

A.F.9 – Alex Fauland (asci character function)
http://www.fauland.com/af9.htm

WildReplace v0.99d (beta) – Cylog Software – regexp, shows folder structure
http://www.cylog.org/utilities/wildreplace.jsp\

Shalom,
Steven Avery

The words “standard” and “regular” are not interchangeable when used in the context of the computing term “regular expression”. It’s certainly true that there are multiple standards for regular expressions, and most implementations don’t fully conform to any standard. You can find lots of information about regular expressions. One of the better sites is Regular-Expressions.info. They have a syntax reference (see the site navigation links on the left), an extensive tutorial (see the site navigation links on the left), and a comparison of regular expression flavors (scroll down for a feature table).

Windows Search and Live Search are two different things. Windows Search is local, Live Search is for the web. Vista comes with Windows Search 3; Search 4 is a separate download. Search 4 doesn’t use regular expressions, although it does support complex queries (much of the Microsoft documentation is nonsense). It does support DOS wildcards, and one can play semantic games as to whether that qualifies as a regular expression (they’re far too primitive to qualify as what most people consider to be regular expressions). Windows Search doesn’t do replacement. The command-line utility FindStr supports primitive regular expressions. By default, Windows Search doesn’t index entire drives, it only indexes relevant items, which you can configure.