Search++: A work in progress

Coises

OR the options :

Clear all marks, then mark all text and EOLs of the bookmarked lines

Clear all marks, then mark all text of the bookmarked lines, excluding EOLs

From my suggested Synchronize marks and bookmarks sub-menu !

Previously you suggested:

So, most of the time, taking the line-breaks in account is not necessary ! However, adding the line-breaks characters is useful as it also includes the true empty lines !

Thus, this would simplify the Synchronize marks and bookmarks sub-menu to the following one :
Bookmark only lines containing marked text
Clear all bookmarks, then bookmark only lines containing marked text

Bookmark visible lines

Mark all text and EOLs of the bookmarked lines
Clear all marks, then mark all text and EOLs of the bookmarked lines

But then, just a moment ago, you wrote:

Personally, after an Invert bookmarks action, I would expect a Mark only text in bookmarked lines action OR a Mark only text in bookmarked lines, excluding line endings action,as I explained in my last post !

so it sounds like you have changed your mind (unless I misunderstood your first suggestion) and believe users do need the ability to control whether line endings are included.

The ideas at the front of my mind now are:

Make Invert marked text a single command (no Invert sub-menu) which does only and exactly that one thing: mark every unmarked character and unmark every marked character. No bookmark changes, and no special treatment for line ending characters.
Eliminate the “Bookmark first line of marked text” options. If you’re manipulating bookmarks based on marked text, trying to keep track of what is the “first line” is probably useless, confusing or both. (I still might remove that whole section of the Configure bookmarks dialog, too.)
For the Synchronize commands which Bookmark lines containing marked text, apply these rules:
- Lines containing only a line ending (empty lines) are bookmarked if the line ending is marked.
- Lines containing characters other than the line ending character(s) are bookmarked if any character other than the line ending character(s) is marked; the line ending is ignored.

That third point is clumsy to explain (and certainly won’t fit in a menu item), but I think it makes synchronizing bookmarks to marks behave sensibly without introducing variants in either Invert marked text or [Clear bookmarks and] Bookmark lines containing marked text.

I’m curious if you can think of situations where that would not behave as a user would expect.

So, back to the situation where it’s the bookmarks that are primary, and you want update marks to follow bookmarks. I gather you do think it’s important to give the user control of whether line endings are included or not.

Do you have specific cases or workflows in mind where each of these is useful? (I know, I’m the one that included the distinction in the first place, and now I’m trying to get rid of it if I can.)

And/or perhaps there should be a separate option to expand marks to full lines (that is, if there is any marked text on a line, mark the entire line), with a choice to include or exclude line endings.

There is also the possibility of turning Synchronize into a dialog instead of a sub-menu. That would allow for more options that could work separately or together without a huge menu of hard-to-read items, at the expense of slowing users’ workflow a bit more than a sub-menu.

I’m still undecided; all observations and ideas are welcome.

guy038

Hello, @coises and All,

I’m really sorry for the confusion. Actually, overall, I think of bookmarks in Search++ more or less the same way they’re used in N++. That is to say:

Lines with bookmarks may or may not end with a line break ( cases : Mark ^.* or Mark ^.*\R )
The marked text may be present or not :

For example, within N++, with the Bookmark line option checked, mark all lines with ^.*\R, first, then uncheck the Bookmark line option and finally use the Clear all marks button => The bookmarked lines are still present and you can act on them although no marked text exists anymore !

In all cases, once these bookmarked lines are copied / cutted to another location or into another file, you’ll find the exact same text !

Of course, the case ^.*\R should be preferred, when necessary, as it takes in account true empty lines. If the empty lines are not needed, just use the ^.+\R regex to mark the text !

Thus, in my previous post, I made a mistake. I should have written :

Personally, after an Invert bookmarks action, you may possibly use the Mark only text in bookmarked lines option, for a better coherence and readability !

You said :

The ideas at the front of my mind now are:

Make Invert marked text a single command (no Invert sub-menu) which does only and exactly that one thing: mark every unmarked character and unmark every marked character. No bookmark changes, and no special treatment for line ending characters.

Eliminate the “Bookmark first line of marked text” options. If you’re manipulating bookmarks based on marked text, trying to keep track of what is the “first line” is probably useless, confusing or both. (I still might remove that whole section of the Configure bookmarks dialog, too.)

For the Synchronize commands which Bookmark lines containing marked text, apply these rules:

Lines containing only a line ending (empty lines) are bookmarked if the line ending is marked.
Lines containing characters other than the line ending character(s) are bookmarked if any character other than the line ending character(s) is marked; the line ending is ignored.

I totally agree to these three expectations !

You said :

I’m curious if you can think of situations where that would not behave as a user would expect.

No, up to now, I cannot think about such situations, either !

You said, near the end of you post :

So, back to the situation where it’s the bookmarks that are primary, and you want update marks to follow bookmarks. I gather you do think it’s important to give the user control of whether line endings are included or not.

No, I don’t think the user control of line-endings is that important. Again, @coises, sorry for the confusion ! Actually, I think it’s better to take EOLs in account, in all cases !

So, don’t worry, anymore, about the necessity of distinguish the cases with OR without EOL characters ! Anyway, once the bookmarked lines are copied / cutted, it’s not the marked text which is copied / cutted but the bookmarked lines THEMSELVES !

Best Regards

guy038

Coises

Search++ version 0.7.1 is available:

Fix incorrect decoding of surrogate pairs in UTF-16 files when using Search in Files.
Fix failure to apply regex customizations (named classes ignore case insensitivity, \X follows Unicode standard) when searching UTF-16 files using Search in Files.
Fix Replace All doesn’t add to replace box history.
Improve efficiency of search in files for file encodings other than UTF-8 when the files have long lines with multiple matches per line.
More accurate updates to progress (percent) monitoring in Search in Files when there are long lines with multiple matches per line.
Make right-click equivalent to Shift+click in menus.
Add Configure bookmarks dialog, accessible from the Tools menu, offering options regarding bookmark handling when Bookmark lines when marking text is active.
Add Synchronize marks and bookmarks sub-menu on the Tools menu.

Help has been updated. See especially the Tools menu section for a full description the menu commands and the Configure bookmarks dialog options.

Comments, observations, suggestions and criticisms are most welcome!

Thanks to all who provided feedback on the enhanced bookmark handling design. It’s not “set in stone,” so please continue to tell me about anything that doesn’t seem right.

astewart77

@Coises said:

Add Synchronize marks and bookmarks sub-menu on the Tools menu.

I see that the new Synchronize menu item

Bookmark visible lines

has changed to

Bookmark visible lines, and clear other bookmarks

In the prior version, it did not always clear other bookmarks and still does not clear them. I have been using

[Show]

followed by

Bookmark visible lines

to add bookmarks, so I like the behavior being the same as it was, but the item title doesn’t match. If it’s going to clear bookmarks, there needs to be a non-clearing item.

Bookmark lines when marking text
Add bookmarks but do not remove them.

made no difference.

Coises

@astewart77 said:

I see that the new Synchronize menu item
Bookmark visible lines
has changed to
Bookmark visible lines, and clear other bookmarks
In the prior version, it did not always clear other bookmarks and still does not clear them. I have been using
[Show]
followed by
Bookmark visible lines
to add bookmarks, so I like the behavior being the same as it was, but the item title doesn’t match. If it’s going to clear bookmarks, there needs to be a non-clearing item.

Thank you for catching that! You’re right: a quick check in the code shows that it does not clear preexisting bookmarks.

For symmetry with the other items, I think I’ll split it into two items, like the rest. When the next version comes out this item will clear old bookmarks, and there will be an Add bookmarks to visible lines that doesn’t clear.

guy038

Hi, @coises,

I’ve just tested your new v.0.7.1 release !

Let’s suppose that we marked the occurrences of the word test in the text below, that you’ll paste in a new tab :


bla
blah
This is the test to do
bla
blah
test
bla
blah

And that we checked the Bookmark lines when marking text (Shift: configure option, in the Tools menu

=> The line 4 and 7 are bookmarked and the two occurrences of the word test are marked

In an old post, I said that, in order to get the complementary regex, we had to use the ^((?!test).)*$ regex as below :

Luckily, there’s no need to find out this complementary regex, anymore :

First, mark all the occurrences of the word test.

Right-click within the bookmark margin of N++ and choose the Inverse bookmarks option.

Then, go to the Synchronize marks and bookmarks option of the Tools menu and choose the Mark all text in bookmarked lines and clear other marks option

=> You should get this snapshot :

Which correctly bookmarked all the lines not containing the word test and then marked all contents of the bookmarked lines, including the EOLs, as well !

I tested, both :

The Bookmark lines with marked text, and clear other bookmarks option VS the Add bookmarks to lines with marked text option
The Mark all text in bookmarked lines, and clear other marks option VS the Add marks to all text in bookmarked lines option

And, if I understand you correctly, you mean that the Synchronize marks and bookmarks sub-menu, in your future release, will look as below :

Bookmark lines with marked text, and clear other bookmarks
Bookmark visible lines, and clear other bookmarks
Mark all text in bookmarked lines, and clear other marks

Add bookmarks to lines with marked text
Add bookmarks to visible lines
Add marks to all text in bookmarked lines

Yes, that’s totally coherent : The first three items do a clear operation whereas the last three items simply add bookmarks / marks to the existing layout !

Best Regards

guy038

P.S. :

Just a random question about regex. In the sample of text above :

If I try to mark the \z regex with your plugin, I do get the bookmarkred line 10, which is the final empty line of the text
If I mark all the occurrences of the (?-s)^((?!test).)*\R regex => All lines, but lines 4, 7, 10, are bookmarked and text with EOLs, in lines 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9 is marked

However, marking all occurrences of the ^(?-s)((?!test).)*\R|\z regex do not bookmark the final line 10, nor the (?-s)^((?!test).)*$\R? regex and nor the (?-s)^((?!test).)*(\R|\z) regex !

Not important, though. Do you have an explanation ?

Coises

@guy038 said:

Do you have an explanation ?

This is exceedingly odd. Thank you for identifying and describing it clearly. I do not have an explanation, but I think it has to be a bug (and not just a quirk of regex). Here’s why.

We can’t compare the same test in native Notepad++ search, because Mark doesn’t count or bookmark null matches. (The same with Count and Find All: in Notepad++ native search, they ignore null matches.)

However, single-step Find does identify null matches in both engines. In Notepad++ native search using Find Next, your expression (?-s)^((?!test).)*\R|\z identifies eight matches. The last is at the end of the file and shows the ^ zero length match message.

In Search++ Regex with Find, it only finds seven.

What is even more peculiar is if you switch to the ICU engine and Mark the same expressions. In ICU as in Regex, \z alone does as you would expect, bookmarking the last line and showing the message “Found 1 match (0 marked, 1 null).” ICU also does the same as Regex with (?-s)^((?!test).)*\R, marking and bookmarking seven lines, exactly as you would expect.

Adding the |\z to the end changes nothing in Regex, though you would expect to see “Found 8 matches (7 marked, 1 null)” and a bookmark on the last line. In ICU it not only doesn’t bookmark the last line, it finds and bookmarks nine matches, marking the LF, but not the CR or the rest of the line, on the lines containing test!

As far as I can tell (I might not have tested every possible combination yet), both Regex and ICU are self-consistent in that they Find and Count and Find All the same things they mark/bookmark.

Why adding |\z causes such strange behavior — in ICU even leading to new matches in the middle of the file — as yet I have no clue.

Coises

@guy038 said:

Do you have an explanation ?

and I wrote:

I think it has to be a bug

It is, and it’s a fairly simple error in my logic. If a match ends at the end of the file (or the end of a selection or a span of marked text, if you’re searching within one of those), the search ends (or moves on to the next selection or span of marked text) without checking whether the expression can match null there. It will be fixed in the next release.

Why adding |\z causes such strange behavior — in ICU even leading to new matches in the middle of the file — as yet I have no clue.

The code supporting ICU search has the same logic error as the Regex search does, but there’s an additional oddity which seems to be built into ICU’s regular expression search. As best I can tell, it treats the circumflex (^) differently when it is the first element of the only alternative and in all other contexts. As an example, see the difference between marking ^\n (which matches nothing in Guy’s test text) and ^\n|Q (which matches the line feed at the end of each of the first nine lines).

Note: I suggested using Mark to show this because Scintilla will not allow a selection to encompass only part of a line ending, so it’s less clear what is happening with Select or stepwise Find commands. The Search++ results list doesn’t have the option to show line endings — perhaps it should! — so Find All is also unclear.

I’m not sure if this is expected behavior. ICU describes the circumflex as “Match at the beginning of a line” but, as far as I can find, says nothing about it behaving differently in different positions or expressions.

guy038

Hi, @coises, @thomas-knoefel and All,

FIRST test :

The only way to bookmark the last empty line 10, that I found, is to use the regex ^((?!test).)*$ again my example text, below :


bla
blah
This is the test to do
bla
blah
test
bla
blah

Some observations :

Using Search++, in mode Regex, this regex counts 8 matches, whose line 1 with ONLY a small blue triangle at bottom of line 1 and the last empty line 10 with the calltip ^ zero length match
Using Columns++, this regex counts also 8 matches, but, this time, the first line returns, instead, the calltip ^ zero length match
Using Search++, in mode ICU this regex counts 7 matches, whose line 1 with ONLY a small blue triangle at bottom of line 1. So the line 10 is not a match

SECOND test :

Paste the text below in a new tab and search, in regex mode, for the regex ^abc

abc

abcabc    0011
abc       0012

abcabc   0085
 abc       2028
 abc       2029
abc         After the above \r\n
====================================
	abc     0009
 abc        0020
 abc     00A0
abc      00AD
 abc     2000
 abc      200A
 abc    202F
 abc     205F
　abc     3000
abc     200B
‌abc     200C
‍abc      200D
⁠abc       2060
abc   FEFF
￹abc      FFFA
￺abc      FFFB
￻abc      FFFC

May be, after pasting, you’ll have to change the line 2 which needs to be an LF char ONLY and line 5 which needs to be an CR char ONLY !

With N++ and MultiReplace the ^abc regex counts 8 matches. So a beginning of line is seen :
- At the very beginning of the file
- After a LF character
- After a FF character
- After a CR character
- After a NEL character
- After a LS character
- After a PS character
- After a \r\n string, in line 9
With the Columns++ and Search++ Regex the ^abc regex counts 4 matches. So a beginning of line is seen :
- At the very beginning of the file
- After a LF character
- After a CR character
- After a \r\n string, in line 9
With Search++ ICU, the ^abc counts 9 matches. So a beginning of line is seen, like with N++ and MultiReplace and, also, after a VT character.

Seemingly, in ICU mode, the \r\n couple is not considered as one char. Thus, the regex ^\n|Q do see the CR character as a beginning of line (^). However, in this case, I do not understand why the ^\n regex finds nothing at all !

THIRD test

Note that in Search++ Settings, I checked the Always unmark all text before Mark command. (Otherwise add to existing marked text.) option.
In addition, I chose the Bookmark lines when marking text option, in the Tools menu

Thus, in all cases, all the marked text and all the bookmarked lines should be wiped out before a new Mark command.

Using my example text, described above, I marked, in ICU mode, all the lines which match the regex ^\n|Q, as shown in the snapshot below :

Then, I simply searched for the ^\n regex. As noticed above, this regex finds nothing. However, after clicking on the Mark in Whole document option, the previous marks and bookmarks remain unchanged ?

I expected no marked text and no bookmrked line ! I suppose it’s a bug.

Best Regards

guy038

guy038

Hello, @coises,

I said, at the end of the second test section :

Thus, the regex ^\n|Q do see the CR character as a beginning of line (^)

I didn’t express myself clearly. I should have written :

Thus, the regex ^\n|Q do see the transition between each CR character to its next LF character as a beginning of line (^)

BR

guy038

Coises

@guy038 said:

The only way to bookmark the last empty line 10, that I found, is to use the regex ^((?!test).)*$

Yes, that’s the bug you found. The precise conditions are that if a match includes the last character in the file, Search++ fails to check for the possibility of a null match at the end of the file. That will be fixed in the next release.

Using Search++, in mode Regex, this regex counts 8 matches, whose line 1 with ONLY a small blue triangle at bottom of line 1 and the last empty line 10 with the calltip ^ zero length match

Yes. Where possible I use the small triangle to mark a zero-length match. There are two situations where that isn’t possible, due to Scintilla limitations: when the match is at the end of a line, before the line ending characters, and line ending characters are not shown; and when the match is at the very end of the file. In those cases, I use the ^ zero length match banner instead.

I use triangles for zero length matches in the Search++ results list and with the Show command, too. The same limitations apply with Show, but because call tips disappear when you interact with the text, I can’t really do anything about the indicators you can’t see. In the results list you can always see them because I can safely change some settings so that I can use line ending characters that Scintilla considers displayed, but that don’t actually show anything you can see.

Using Columns++, this regex counts also 8 matches, but, this time, the first line returns, instead, the calltip ^ zero length match

Yes, I hadn’t thought of the triangle method yet when I wrote Columns++.

Using Search++, in mode ICU this regex counts 7 matches, whose line 1 with ONLY a small blue triangle at bottom of line 1. So the line 10 is not a match

As best I can tell, ICU’s regex engine does not consider the position following the last character in the document to be the beginning of line, regardless of whether the last character is a line ending character. That makes sense, really, but it doesn’t conform to the way Scintilla lays out lines. So your expression doesn’t match because the circumflex doesn’t match.

With N++ and MultiReplace the ^abc regex counts 8 matches. So a beginning of line is seen :

At the very beginning of the file

After a LF character

After a FF character

After a CR character

After a NEL character

After a LS character

After a PS character

After a \r\n string, in line 9

With the Columns++ and Search++ Regex the ^abc regex counts 4 matches. So a beginning of line is seen :

At the very beginning of the file

After a LF character

After a CR character

After a \r\n string, in line 9

With Search++ ICU, the ^abc counts 9 matches. So a beginning of line is seen, like with N++ and MultiReplace and, also, after a VT character.

Yes, Columns++ and Search++ Regex do their best (I think they succeed) to treat the same things as line endings that are visible as line endings in Notepad++. So, for example, in your Total_Chars.txt, ^ matches 3 times in Columns++ and in Search++ Regex; it matches 13 times in Search++ ICU; and in Notepad++ native search, if you use Find Next (since Count ignores null matches) and count manually (making sure not to miss the match at the very beginning of the file) there are 7 matches.

Likewise, (?-s:(?!.))(?s:.) produces 6 matches in Notepad++ (you can use Count for this one), 2 matches in Columns++ and Search++ Regex, and 7 matches in Search++ ICU.

I’m not sure yet what causes the extra matches for ^ in ICU; it could be something I’ve done wrong in preparing the string, it could be a bug in ICU4C, or could just be something I don’t understand.

Seemingly, in ICU mode, the \r\n couple is not considered as one char. Thus, the regex ^\n|Q do see the CR character as a beginning of line (^). However, in this case, I do not understand why the ^\n regex finds nothing at all !

ICU appears to treat ^ differently in different expressions. So far, it looks to me as if, when it is the first thing to match in the only alternative, it treats CRLF as one, but when it’s anywhere else, it treats CR and LF each as line ending characters even when they are together in that order. That’s just from trying to infer a pattern behind what I’ve observed; I can’t find any documentation of such a thing. It could be a bug, or just something I don’t know.

Then, I simply searched for the ^\n regex. As noticed above, this regex finds nothing. However, after clicking on the Mark in Whole document option, the previous marks and bookmarks remain unchanged ?

I expected no marked text and no bookmrked line ! I suppose it’s a bug.

It is working as intended, but perhaps the design is confusing. I had to keep the text in the Settings dialog reasonably brief, but I see I didn’t describe the details correctly in the help.

Existing marks (and bookmarks, if applicable) are cleared if the command is successful, meaning it finds at least one match. (Internally, it waits until it finds the first match and only clears the existing marks after it has found the first match, but before it marks it.) If there is an error, or if no match is found, nothing is cleared.

Since you can’t “undo” changes in marks and bookmarks, I thought that at least in the case where someone mistypes a search string resulting in no matches, it would be better not to lose the marks (or selections, or shown text and lines, as the case might be), so one could easily try again.