The YGrep Search Engine is a text search library to be used with any kind of Windows application. It provides such unusual features as:
The YGrep Search Engine is also greatly improved other most similar tools by providing outstanding features like:
Based upon the features just described, the YGrep Search Engine appears as a needed library for all those that are developing:
The YGrep Search Engine will improve them to a level that most end-users will find very useful but that the developer may fear to implement because of the complexity of the algorithms involved.
All those applications can benefit from the addition of the search capability of the YGrep Search Engine (and specifically of the regular expressions).
The YGrep Search Engine is truly tested software. It has been widely available and used since 1993. This means that you get a mature library in a stable state rather than a quick-and-dirty bunch of minimal features. Notably, several of the most widely available source code library are bug-ridden to a point that may appear surprising to most programmers.
While some of the capabilties of the YGrep Search Engine may be written by most C/C++ developers, it is often overkill to re-invent the wheel (we have a full set of wheels ready for you :-). Furthermore, you certainly do not want to spend time debugging all this automaton code that you did not look into since you graduated out of the Computer Science course.
The YGrep Search Engine offers a good compromise between performance and usability, where other products may sacrifice all ease-of-use to absolute performance (how do you get that performance if you have to dig into source code before being able to merely search for a string in a file?).
Forget about difficulties in understanding the library interface. Registered users receive actual documentation (not only a few Unix cryptic man pages).
You will also receive actual help direct from the developer using E-mail, phone, or fax at your convenience.
As I am listening to your real needs, you can get a real support from real people.
If you want to download it, here are a few FTP servers you can use. I only tried to give as much variety as possible in order to avoid bottlenecks. These will be changed in the future to reflect distribution.
This one is the most recent version for WIN32S, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT v4.0.
It is available locally at
YG705W95.ZIP file on Magic.
If you can't get to it, use the search engine at www.Shareware.Com to look for
all YG705W95 files,
or
all version 7 YGrep files.
To get the slightly older version 7.04, you still can try YG704W95.ZIP file on Magic. But be remembered that the latest is the one that solves all the bugs. You should use this old link only if you have specifically problems with the newest (I do not always insure that I am not adding a few!)
The YGrep Search Engine is shareware. It it not Public Domain or Free. See the help file for shareware information and extensive description of the registration steps (including a number of registration sites accepting 800-calls or credit cards). If you cannot find the Help file and its registration forms, use the minimal form file ORDER.DOC and mail it with your payment to the address shown.
If you find the YGrep Search Engine useful, do the decent thing and register! In return you will receive (for a Single User license at 20 USD or 18 Euros):
When you register the full Developper Kit (for 295 USD or 289 Euros), you will ADDITIONALLY receive:
You can also register for a "lifetime" of upgrades for the price of 695 USD or 680 Euros.
You can now register online. Just pick your one and click on the following links. My preferred server is currently the secure one from ShareIt! (payment possible in Euros). Just click on the following link:
You can also online with RegNet - The Registration Network (secure server). Just click on the following links:
Register either license from the major sales point "DigiBuy DigiWeb".
...supports the {} numeric closure for regular expressions. It is possible to use a{10} to look for 10 times the character 'a', or [a-z]{8} for matching 8 lower case letters, or a{2,4} to look for 2, 3 or 4 times the character 'a', or [a-z]{1,2} for matching 1 or 2 lower case letters.
Additionnaly, I removed an obscure bug in closures used at the end of a pattern (only when used with YGrepOptions(YO_SHORTCLO), which was further limiting the consequences).
Finally, I also removed a bug stopping you from using the "[-]" form in regular expressions.
Registered users have been directly informed. Registered users of version 7.00 or later have received their instructions to get the latest code. If your in one of these cases and did not receive anything, please call me.
Sometimes, people want to know what regular expressions can be applied to. So, I decided to provide (for free) a few simple examples of regular expressions at work.
If your from the European Community, let me stress a small issue in terms of registration:
You can register the YGrep Search Engine in Euros.
Just go to ShareIt!.
This is reducing significantly the indirect bank costs (both for you and me).
2000-feb-24: If you have been recently trying to register the YGrep Search Engine through the link to the PsL (Public Software Library), you may have had no returned information (not receiving my email acknowledgment, not receiving the software package, not even seeing your credit card charged). This is normal (in the sense that we know it has been happening to some people). This is completely abnormal since this service should have been operating at your (and my) complete satisfaction. Your order has been completely lost by a "bug" in the PsL servers. I did not receive it and your visa card will not be charged either. I invite you to place your order again on another of the listed servers (PsL has been removed from my list).
I deeply apologize for this hickup that caught me completely unaware.
Only available from this web site, we updated the downloadable link to upgrade from v7.04a to v7.04b. The only difference is:
This should not have any impact for users. If you wish the latest version, just download it again, but, in the general case, it probably is not even worth the effort.
Only available from this web site, we updated the downloadable link to upgrade from v7.04 to v7.04a. The only differences are:
None of these should have any impact for users. If you wish the latest version, just download it again, but it probably is not even worth the effort.
As some of us know, we are not living in a world where all characters are included in the basic 7-bit ASCII character set. The YGrep Search Engine v7.04 improves other previous versions by adding a correct support of the Windows locales as they are defined by the user of the DLL. This mainly mean that "ignore case" options of the routines are now also taking into account the needs of accented letters of the ANSI character set used by Windows.
The shareware package is immediately available for download.
Registered users have been receiving the upgrade directly from me.
Previous users will notice that there is NO need to re-compile existing code in order to adapt to this new version. The Reference Manual has not even been updated at all for this release.
Additionally, you can get a few of the addresses that I collected about internationalization and localization.
I have found a few book you may want to buy from Amazon.com.
Obfuscated C and Other Mysteries/Book-Disk (Wiley Professional Computing) by Don Libes, is a nice document for all those who wish they could be a good programmer in C and can afford a good dose of fun with bizarre C code from others. I love it!
Mastering Regular Expressions : Powerful Techniques for Perl and Other Tools (Nutshell Handbook) by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl, Andy Oram (Editor), is a very useful document for all users of regular expressions.
Programming Windows by Charles Petzold, is the basic book for anyone willing to program on the Microsoft Operating System. A must-read!
Advanced Windows Programming (Wiley Professional Computing) by Martin Heller, is - by far - my preferred book about writing real Windows applications. It may be a little old, but it still contains all the really important issues.
Developing International Software for Windows 95 and Windows NT seems to be a good book about internationalization and localization of programs.
Some customers have asked for the possibility to get a lifetime upgrade capability (paying once in order to get all subsequent upgardes). This is now possible. For a fee (695 USD or 680 Euros), you can get this lifetime upgradability of your YGrep Search Engine.
The YGrep Search Engine has been rated 3 stars by ZDnet
But, even nicer, (in its software library)
has awarded its
to the YGrep Search Engine
as you can see here!
Thanks to them.
As you've been patient enough to read down to here, I want to offer you a special bonus. From time to time, people ask for a specific routine I did not provide in the YGrep Search Engine: expansion of wild-chars in the file names.
I found this nice public domain and copyrighted package to those of you interested. It must not be used in commercial applications, but it can be useful.
If you can use it, just grab it (and remember that I do not provide support for it).
Also, we have been making freely available a description of the syntax of the regular expressions that we are using in the YGrep Search Engine.
Some Delphi users have been asking for a more complete package of test files than initially provided in the YGrep Search Engine.
Here is the small Delphi project which was the base of the files YGrepTst.PAS and YGrepInf.PAS you can find in the YGrep Search Engine ZIP files.
If you can use it, just grab it (and remember that I support the Engine, not this specific package).
One caveat:
One simple comment though. This project was made some time ago and it will be necessary to update it with the newest files extracted from the latest ZIP archive (YGrepTst.Pas, YGrepInf.Pas).