Overview of Search and Replace Features

Search and Replace for Windows is a search (grep) utility you can use to find a string in multiple files, including files in ZIP archives. The registered version allows you to replace some, all, or none of the strings with another string. The shareware version will make replacements in the first five files per session. Here is a list of the basic features.

• 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.

• 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. The program can search-replace the Windows Clipboard (see Clipboard Search-Replace). You can do simple searches in the Search Results list (press F3) and you can also limit follow-up search &/or replace to only those files currently listed in the Search Results list.

• Unicode files are detected automatically for seamless search/replacing.

• UTF-8 encoded files are handled directly if the name extension is .xml.

• Perform replacements that do math operations on strings that consist of numbers.

• The Internal context viewer allows you to edit text files (See Main Window). You can also launch a user configurable external viewer with optional special commands (see General Options), launch associated programs on "found" files and automatically view binary files using our freeware companion utility, HexView. You can also disable the internal context viewer and use an external viewer/editor.

• Binary Mode search and replace lets you process binary files &/or text files with special characters such as tabs, line feed, carriage returns. Binary mode also allows you to prepend or append the replace string to files and reformat files at a specified column.

• HTML Mode permits the program to automatically handle character code transformations for html special characters. For example, find "Search & Replace" even though the raw string is "Search & Replace" in your html document.

• Simple boolean searches using &, |, or ~ characters for 'AND', 'OR' and 'NOT' can be used in the main dialog search field when 'Whole Word' mode is enabled and 'Regular Expressions' and HTML Mode' are disabled.

• Ignore Whitespace mode allows you to ignore extra space and \r \n \t characters without needing to use a regular expression.

• File operations (copy, move, delete) can be done on files in the search results list.

• Search (replace) subdirectories or not and also limit how far the program will go with subdirectories.

• 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. In addition, Filter Options allow you, for example, to include only files created after a set date that are smaller than the size you specify.

• The program will search all local hard disks if 'Local Hard Drives' (no quotes) is specified in the Path field. To search shares you have access to on a UNC path, specify the UNC machine name in the Path field. See Search Path for more information.

• 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.

• Scripts let you easily 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. Scripts can also be caused to repeated via an Iteration Operator and you can chain scripts using Linked Script references.

• Shortcut keys for scripts include: a) CTRL + Main Dialog Script Button - writes all program settings to SRDUMP.SRS in the same path as sr32.exe, b) CTRL+ Insert in Script Dialog - Inserts the respective lines from the main dialog into that script dialog tab, c) CTRL+ Remove All in Script Dialog - Deletes all current entries and add respective lines from the main dialog into that script dialog tab.

• Scripts can be applied to the Search &/or Replace strings in advance of an operation. Activated via the Apply Script function, you can, for example, use a conversion script to deal with the plain text equivalents of html special characters or rtf 'escape' codes.

• Replacements, including those in script and binary operations, can be visualized in context before they are made.

• 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 (see Replace Options).

• Undo the last replacement(s) made via the Undo function.

• Searching can be halted after the first hit in a file - useful for when you have to search large or many files (See Search Options).

• Write files changed by a replacement operation to a backup directory and preserve original file time/date stamps during replacements (see Replace Options).

• Add text to the top of a file or the end of the file (see Binary Mode Dialog).

• Insert the path & filename in replacements via Special Replacement Operators.

• Use Environment Variables in the search &/or replace strings.

• Output in the Search & Replace "Results List" can be directed to your printer, saved to a text file, or viewed automatically in your web browser.

• Files &/or directories dropped from Explorer or File Manger into the Search & Replace main window are automatically recognized for processing. Just drag a file into the Search and Replace window!

• Launch Search and Replace from a program menu item on the Find Menu. The Explorer shell extension lets you launch Search & Replace on a specific file or group of selected files.

• A full complement of command line switches - ideal for power users. A switch is available to cause the program to run without any user interface (/u switch).

• User configurable fonts & colors.

• Touch to change the date and time of the files you specify. Touch also allows you to set the file attribute bit (Archive, Read Only, Hidden, System).