When finding in files is it possible to show more than one line?

petey200

I looked around through AI and Google and did not see a solution to this. So apologize if this is an old rathole. However when searching using Find In Files. I would like to see more text above and/or below the keyword I am searching for. I am gathering with the default implementation of Notepad++ that is not possible but wondering if there was a plugin to help with this perhaps? Support for multiple keywords would be an additional plus.

I was looking at some other off the shelf tools and Notepad++ would be a better place to execute this type of search imo. The file extensions I am looking through are non-standard but do contain searchable text but the tool I looked at did not allow other non standard extensions. So Notepad++ had a leg up there.

Now if can get a bigger chunk of text surrounding the keyword returned. Problem is there are thousands of files I need to search through searching for the keyword “error” and I don’t have time to open each one to figure out more details about the error.

PeterJones

@petey200 ,

The Search Results panel is designed to only show one line per match (even if you do a search expression that matches text that crosses over lines, it will only show the first line of the match). There isn’t a way to increase context.

Support for multiple keywords would be an additional plus.

The existing regular expression (regex) feature already handles that.

Find What = \b(George|Gracie|whale)\b
- the \b matches “word boundary” so it would match George but not Georgene, etc.
- the (...) makes a group - without this logical group, the \b would have to be repeated at the beginning and end of each word, like \bGeorge\b|\bGracie\b|\bwhale\b
- the | means “OR”
- translated to english, this Find What means “match a boundary, then George or Gracie or whale, then another boundary”
Match Case = off
Search Mode = Regular Expression
. matches newline = off

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From our FAQ section, the Generic Regular Expression formula FAQ links to a post Generic Regex: Logic Gates for Regular Expressions which explains how to match lines with AND, OR, Exclusive-OR, and similar logical constructs.

Alan Kilborn

@PeterJones said:

Find What = \b(George|Gracie|whale)\b

Star Trek IV reference? :-)

PeterJones

Star Trek IV reference? :-)

It only took 5 years for people to finally understand me correctly. I guess I made it too obvious this time, with finally adding the third alternative. :-)

David Brigden52

@PeterJones Without the whale, it’s just Burns and Allen.

petey200

@PeterJones That works too! I like it actually better as the logs are fairly consistent in structure! thanks Peter!

petey200

@PeterJones Oh yes, one other question. This might be above and beyond. Any keywords to require all the hits (in your example of 3 hits). Or perhaps to require one of the keywords to gate whether results are shown? So I have a scenario where it is finding the error(s) which is great but I am also getting smaller hits that have to do with the process in the logfile which I don’t care to see in the results if there is also not an error keyword along with it in that file. As I mentioned there are thousands of files I am combing through. Thanks again!!!

PeterJones

@petey200 said:

Any keywords to require all the hits

The “logic gates” link I gave you includes how to do “AND” (“requires A and B and C”)

With logic, you can create any more complicated rules you want (like “(A AND B) BUT NOT (C OR D)”) by nesting inside the constructs. Play with the expressions from that “logic gates” page, see what they do; try nesting them; get a feel for how the logic works together. Soon, you’ll be able to craft the combinations that most help you with your data.