1.1.4 Manual - TextCrawler 2.0 specific manual coming soon
Requirements
Microsoft Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP. Windows 95 and Windows Vista installations are currently untested/unsupported.
Microsoft VBScript Regular Expressions library 5.5 - this will usually already be available if you have IE5.5 or above installed.
Requires minimum 800x600 screen resolution
Installation
Double click on the TextCrawler_Setup.exe file in Windows Explorer. You will be guided through a simple automatic install process to the location of your choice.
Usage
TextCrawler is a tool for search and replace over multiple plain text files. It can search for straight text and supports advanced search/replace via regular expressions.
Main Components
Filename Filter - Type of files to find (e.g. - *.txt - all text files). Multiple types supported, separated by semicolon (;).
Start Location - The base folder to begin the search. Click on the folder icon to select.
Find - The text to search for, or a Regular Expression. Click on the Star icon for the regular expression library function.
Replace - The replacement text.
Extract - Extracts all occurrences of regular expression matches to a separate text window. This text can then be copied or saved. For instance, you could use this function to rip all email addresses from a folder of files.
Marked Files - If a file in the results list is ticked and 'In Marked files only' is selected, then the next operation will only take place on the selected file(s).
Results List- A detailed list of files which match the search. Right click on file for more options.
Preview Pane - List of matches within selected file, by line number. Matches are highlighted in red. Click on the < and > buttons to cycle through matches.
Always be careful when performing large scale replace options. If in doubt back up first, and don't forget you can specify to automatically create .bak (backup) files from the Options window.
View Modes
-Only list files with matches - When enabled, this option causes every file searched to be listed, even if nothing was found.
-Preview all matches together - All matches from all files searched are displayed in the preview window at the same time.
Batch Replace Tool
This tool allows you to build a batch process out of find/replace pairs which have been saved in the library. These batch processed can be loaded and saved. When the 'Use' button is clicked the commands are queued, and find/replace searches can be performed as normal - however the queued multiple operations are performed on each file in turn.
Regular Expressions
A regular expression is a string of characters which can describe a wider set of strings. For instance the expression gr(a|e)y could match the words grey or gray.
The RE test tool (View menu->Regular Expression Tester) allows you to try out Regular Expressions in a safe environment.
Usage Glossary:-
Note: TextCrawler implements VBScript / JavaScript ECMA-262 regular expressions.
| Position Matching |
|
^
|
Only match the beginning of a file.
|
|
$
|
Only match the ending of a file.
|
|
\b
|
Matches any word boundary
|
|
\B
|
Matches any non-word boundary
|
| Literals (for matching special characters) |
| Alphanumeric |
Matches alphabetical and numerical characters literally. |
| \n |
Matches a new line |
| \f |
Matches a form feed |
| \r |
Matches carriage return |
| \t |
Matches horizontal tab |
| \v |
Matches vertical tab |
| \? |
Matches ? |
| \* |
Matches * |
| \+ |
Matches + |
| \. |
Matches . |
| \| |
Matches | |
| \{ |
Matches { |
| \} |
Matches } |
| \\ |
Matches \ |
| \[ |
Matches [ |
| \] |
Matches ] |
| \( |
Matches ( |
| \) |
Matches ) |
| \xxx |
Matches the ASCII character expressed by the octal number xxx.
|
| \xdd |
Matches the ASCII character expressed by the hex number dd. |
| \uxxxx |
Matches the ASCII character expressed by the UNICODE xxxx.
|
| Character Classes |
| [xyz] |
Match any one character enclosed in the character set." |
| [^xyz] |
Match any one character not enclosed in the character set.
|
| . |
Match any character except \n. |
| \w |
Match any word character. Equivalent to [a-zA-Z_0-9]. |
| \W |
Match any non-word character. Equivalent to [^a-zA-Z_0-9]. |
| \d |
Match any digit. Equivalent to [0-9]. |
| \D |
Match any non-digit. Equivalent to [^0-9]. |
| \s |
Match any space character. Equivalent to [ \t\r\n\v\f]. |
| \S |
Match any non-space character. Equivalent to [^ \t\r\n\v\f]. |
| Repetition and Grouping |
| {x} |
Match exactly x occurrences of a regular expression. |
| {x,} |
Match x or more occurrences of a regular expression.
|
| {x,y} |
Matches x to y number of occurrences of a regular expression. |
| ? |
Match zero or one occurrences. Equivalent to {0,1}. |
| * |
Match zero or more occurrences. Equivalent to {0,}. |
| + |
Match one or more occurrences. Equivalent to {1,}. |
|
Alternation & Grouping
|
| () |
Grouping a clause to create a clause. May be nested. "(ab)?(c)" matches "abc" or "c". |
| | |
Alternation combines clauses into one regular expression and then matches any of the individual clauses. "(ab)|(cd)|(ef)" matches "ab" or "cd" or "ef". |
| $1 - $9 (In replace expression) |
Reference a group. |
| Backreferences |
| ()\n |
Matches a clause as numbered by the left parenthesis
|
|
In Replace Strings (Regular expression mode only) |
| \r |
Carriage Return |
| \n |
Newline |
| \t |
Tab |
| \\ |
Slash character |
| $1 - $9 |
Reference a group captured in Regular Expression |
Issues and Future Plans
- ANSI text files only. Currently no Unicode support.
- Maximum file size is currently limited. Files larger than approx. 500MB may be ignored in search.
- Language files for localization
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TextCrawler