Search for. Search In Search in Zip Archives Search text. Exclude binaries check box. Date and size The result list Searching with "following the links"

Click on an item you are interested in:

About. You can search files and directories with Search Files tool (Alt+F7, or Ctrl+E). You can search using regular expression, search inside archives, search for text in files. Here are described the elements of the dialog.

Search for.

    In here you can define file names to find. You can use wildcards. More, you can use all the possibilities of Regular Expression searching provided by AC Browser. Examples:

*.jpg defines jpg files to find.

[a-zA-Z]*.* - files beginning with a letter. So ‘program.exe’ will be shown, but ‘01.zip’, or ‘$tmp’ will not be.

*.[0-9][0-9] – files of any name, with the extension which is two digits, like ‘file.01’, ‘file.45’ – ‘file.0’ or’ file.-0’ will not be found.

*.* - means all files.

sys – all files having word ‘sys’ will be found, eg. system, system.ini, a_sys_bleble.txt, info.sys

But sys.* - only files whose title is sys, with any extension.

sys.txt – only files sys.txt will be found.

*sys*.txt – files having word ‘sys’ with txt extension.

my_great_program.c - my_great_program.c will be found, my_great_program.cpp will not be.

*.c – as above, files with c extension will be found, cpp, cdx will not be.

*.c?? - my_great_program.c will not be found, my_great_program.cpp will be.

    You can define many such definitions, just separate them with semicolon – ‘;’ e.g. *.jpg; *.tif; *.gif – jpg, tif, gif files will be found.

    With the combo box on the right you can select the predefined files’ extensions. If you will select a new group with CTRL down, it will be ADDED to the current list.

More about Regular Expression searching in AC Browser here.

Search In

In here you can define directories in which searching will be done. Separate them with asemicolon (;). Current directory is a directory from which searching was started. Selected directories are the directories which were selected, when searching was started.

You can use UNC paths, like \\server\share. To search all the machines in the network, simply use \\.

Search in Zip Archives

Three possibilities. Don't search : ACB will not look inside the archives, this is the default. Search :ACB will open an archive and search for files inside it. Also, if Search Text button is checked, then ACB will search for text in files being inside an archive. Search in nested archives too : Ha! As I know, there is no other file manager which can do that (but I may be wrong of course, I checked out only those I know). If there is archive inside another archive (which may be in another yet archive, there is no depth limit) then also this nested archive will be searched. But there is one thing you must remember - this is done by extracting those nested archives to the temporary folders. These temporary folders are deleted when you close the File Finder. So if you want to do something with these files, first do it, then close the window. Example - you searched for files (or text in files) with nested archives ON, then you created the ACL with these files, because you want to extract the found files somewhere, or view them with one of the Quick Viewers. If you close the File Finder window, then the ACL is not valid any more. So first do what you want to do, then close the window.

Search for text.

In here you can define text to find in files. You can define if it’s case sensitive comparing, and if using Regular Expression. Also if it’s only one sentence or a number of, separated with a semicolon. Let’s take two files as an example :

a1.txt – which consists of “C++ is the best programming language in the whole world”

a2.txt – “AC Browser will be the most popular file manager in the world”. (I’m an optimist :)

Now , in the ‘search text’ edit box:

“world”, both files will be found.

“best” a1.txt will be found.

“Best”, with Match Case checked – none will be found.

“in*world”, if Regular Expression checked – both files will be found.

“world*in” – nothing will be found.

“[A-C][A-C]” – a2.txt will be found, because only there two characters in the range from ‘A’ to ‘C’, one by one, would be found.

Search type combo box.

Now, take a look at the combo box, three possibilities, SIMPLE – the default, means that there is just one sentence to find. It’s assumed in the above examples. AND – there is a number of words (or whole sentences) separated with a semicolon. ALL of them must be found in the file. The order doesn’t matter. OR – also there is a number of sentences, but it’s enough that one of them will be found. You must separate them with a semicolon - ; Examples :

“world;C++” with AND operator – only a1.txt will be found. Only this file has both words (in different order, but it doesn’t matter). a2.txt has “world”, but there is no “C++”.

“world;C++” with OR operator – a1.txt and a2.txt will be found. The first of them has both of the words, the second one – only ‘world’ – but will be found because OR operator is used.

“The most popular;AC; manager” with AND operator – a2.txt will be found. The order is so different but it doesn’t matter.

“will be*in the*world;is*in the*world” with OR operator and Regular Expression checked – both files will be found.

In other words – OR extends the search criteria, AND limits them. OR finds ‘one of”, AND ‘All of”. The main advantage is – the order doesn’t matter.

Match case

When checked, ACB will care about the case while searching for text in files.

Regular Expression

If checked then you can find text using regular expression notation while searching for text in files.

Exclude binaries check box.

The default is : unchecked. When checked, binary files are not searched while searching text. In the versions 1.0 and 1.01 you had to define which files are "binary" and which are not. Since version 2.0 it is done automatically. This is how this is done : first 512 characters of a file is first read, and AC Browser checks out how many "printable" characters is there. Printable means : letters, numbers, !@#$%^&*()-=_+\';":/?.,><`~. Also newlines and carriage returns (codes 0x10, 0x0D) are counted. And IF there is less that 80% of those characters in the read part of a file, this file is marked as "binary", and therefore ACB will not search for text in this file, if Exlude binaries is checked.

Find text in comments

If you are using the comments (more) then here you can search for text in them.

Date and size

It’s clear, isn’t it ? Some notes – date between – dates given ARE INCLUDED. If you have a file which modification date is 2002.10.10 and you start searching file with Date Between defined as follows : from 2002.10.05 to 2002.10.10 the file WILL be found (also the file modified in 2002.10.05).

The same with sizes.

Follow the links option.

Causes AC to read directories pointed by links (*.lnk files). Read more.

Attributes

    Here you can specify the attributes of files and directories. Evey check box is three-state, you can define if
    (a-grey state) ACB shouldn't care about the attribute (the default) (so e.g. if directory is in this state, both files, and directories are found).
    (b-unchecked) The file must not have the attribute (so if e.g. directory is unchecked, then only files will be found)
    (c-checked) the file must have the attribute to be found (if e.g. directory is checked, then only directories will be found).

The result list

Here you can find found files. You can click one with alt pressed – then AC Browser will go to this file (in the current browse window, if any – if not - new will be open). Note that this happens in background – you will still see the searching tool. You can run the file – by double clicking. You can also View the file with F3. You can sort the result with any column. If you searched text – you will find the sample – in the last column. You can also copy the files to the clipboard, copy their paths or names to the clipboard. Note that you must select the files you want to be copied. You can also create AC list.

You can create a list of certain files in the current directory in one step, use ‘?’ in the address bar to 1. find specified files, 2. create AC List, 3. Close the search window. E.g., in the address bar : ?*.bmp;*,jpg – will find these files, and create a list of them.

Searching with "following the links" option

    When searching files (Alt+F7) you can tell AC to follow the links. It means, that AC will search directories pointed by *.lnk files (which you can create with F9, or dropping with Alt down).

    The idea is like that : with this ability, you can create folders, which consist such links, which then can be used to search concrete directories, which can be anywhere. In other words, you may create a set of directories to be searched (e.g. for a text), and then use it. In my situation, it would be for example a group of directories consisting C++ source codes. These directories are everywhere – these are many samples (e.g. from Microsoft Visual C++), these are downloaded programs, source codes, these are my own programs, and many other. Well, many times I wanted to find some expression, some example of use of some part of a language etc. I wanted to simply search ALL source code files on my disk. But these directories aren’t in one place. So the idea of entering links appeared. I’ve created ONE directory. There I’ve created links to all the directories consisting files of C++ implementation. With one keystroke (Alt+F7) I can now search all of it.

    Other example : You can create a set of image directories, music directories. They can be anywhere on your disk(s). You can search all of them for a specified text, file name etc. Simply create links to them in one place.

    All what was said until now was about links to directories. Simply – these links are treated as usual directories, - AC enters into them. But if follow the links is checked, also links to files are treated differently. The target of a link is checked for the conditions defined in the search dialog. So, if you look for *.cpp files, bigger than 10 kb, having words “Hello world!”, and in the searched directory is a link to the file in a different directory, - hi.cpp, which is 11 kb. size and has mentioned words, it will appear in a result list. The reason is the same, although this is less useful. You can create a set of files to be searched.

In other words, when following the links is checked, links are read and their targets are searched.

Some notes.

    The depth of reading links = 1. It's because ACB would fall in a circle with his job, if a link would point to a directory where is another link which points back to the directory where the first link was found.


    It’s good to have one directory, let’s say ‘searching’ and there directories like ‘images’, ‘music’, ‘source codes’ etc. That would be the categories for searching. In these directories you would create links to the corresponding directories on all of your hard disks…. Then add ‘searching’ directory to your favorites, and… done! In two seconds you can start searching in the category you want…