Find multiple strings with one search and output them to a file

kapaoke · Sep 16, 2009#12009-09-16T23:09+00:00

Hi,

I tried to search forum for this but had a hard time to find what I was looking for.
If anyone could point me to some existing post on this forum, it would be great.
I am trying to find a way to search for multiple strings of data at the same time, for example DATETIME, SYNTAX, DECLARE, in q file with more then 1 million rows and if possible extract those lines which contain one of those strings to a file with a line number.

Thanks

Mofi · Sep 17, 2009#22009-09-17T05:48+00:00

If you need this only once, do following after opening the file:

Press Ctrl+F to open the Find dialog.
Enter in Find What the string word 1|string 2|word3|string4 .
Check the option Match Case if it is not important to search not case sensitive. A case sensitive search is faster than a search ignoring the case of letters.
Check the option Regular Expressions which is required for this search because | is a Perl regular expression character which means OR.
Click on button Advanced if you do not already see the advanced options.
Select the regular expression engine Perl which is the only regexp engine supporting more than 2 arguments in an OR expression.
Check the option List Lines Containing String.
Find Where should be set to Current File and the other 3 options should not be enabled.
Run the search now with pressing button Next.
A dialog opens showing you the lines with one of the words / strings you entered.
If you don't see the line numbers in this dialog, check the option Show Line Numbers in the bottom right corner of the dialog.
Press the button Clipboard to copy what you see in the dialog to the clipboard and close the dialog with a click on button Close.
Press Ctrl+N to open a new file and press Ctrl+V to paste into the new file the just copied lines with the line number.

That's it. If you need this often, it would be better to do the same with a script or a macro. There are already some macros and scripts for the List Lines Containing String feature in the macro and script forums.

Update: Take also a look on find strings with a regular expression and output them to new file which is a very fast scripting solution for such a task.

coder03 · Sep 28, 2009#32009-09-28T17:32+00:00

I have a somewhat similar problem that I am having difficulty with. I have an environment where I'm regularly trying to locate all source members of a project (over 1,900 members) of a given set of strings. for instance... $810blah|$910blah|$verblah I have tried using the Find In Files, setting to regular expression search (perl engine) and putting the string exactly as shown above. I yeild no results. although I know there are many but need to get an exhaustive listing of them. I have tried unsuccessfully many different types but have come up empty. Can you give me a boost on this? Thanks -- Paul

Mofi · Sep 29, 2009#42009-09-29T05:01+00:00

The character $ has a special meaning when running a regular expression search, see in help of UltraEdit the page Regular Expressions (Perl Style). It means end of line. So you have to put the escape character \ left to every $ to force the engine to interpret the character $ as character $ and not as end of line anchor. Your search string must be therefore \$810blah|\$910blah|\$verblah

coder03 · Sep 30, 2009#52009-09-30T19:25+00:00

Thanks!