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About Text Search Methods

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The Text editor supports two common searching methods: full string searching and incremental searching. With full string searching, you specify the entire search string before the search begins. With incremental searching, the search is performed as you type the string.

With the advanced find and replace capabilities of the Text editor, you can search for text in a single source file or in multiple files. You can search for literal text strings or use regular expressions to find words or characters. A regular expression is a search string that uses special characters to match a text pattern in a file. You can use regular expressions, including tagged regular expressions, with both the Find and Replace commands. Regular expressions are not supported with incremental searching.

With the Find and Replace commands, you can:

  • Find text in a single file.

  • Find text in multiple files.

  • Replace text.

  • Use regular expressions.

If you use the SearchIncremental or SearchIncrementalBack commands, you can toggle case-sensitive mode with the FindToggleCaseSensitivity command by pressing CTRL+C. These keystrokes are not bindable and affect only the incremental search commands.

Because incremental search finds the match while you are typing, you rarely need to type the complete search string. If you are looking for a string that occurs multiple times in your file, you can use the FindNext and FindPrev commands. Incremental search stops when you press the ESC key.

What do you want to do?

Find text in a single file

Find text in multiple files

Find text using regular expressions