Execute N++ "Find in Files" via cmdline/script?

[Cameron Young]

Love the product, but curious to know if it is possible to execute the “Find in Files” from the command-line / batch / vbscript.

The output seen within N++ is something I like and I’d like to incorporate this output for some automated tasks if possible.

Cheers, Cam.

[Claudia Frank]

@Cameron-Young

not 100% sure what you want to achieve.

Do you have some automated tasks while npp is not running at all
and at some step you do want to search something in files and the
output should be similar to the one npp shows

or

do you have npp running, do something and then you want to run
find in files dialog and this output should be forwarded to
some automated task?

Maybe you wanna describe in more detail what exactly you want to do.

Cheers
Claudia

[Scott Sumner]

@Claudia-Frank

I also am not sure what @Cameron-Young is really wanting to do, but it got me to thinking about how to handle Find-in-Files output programmatically “within” Notepad++ via Pythonscript.

I came up with the following that will get the textual contents of the Find result panel (based upon the code ideas here –a pretty shallow rip-off in fact!). This could be prefaced with setting the Find dialog’s control fields and pressing the Find-in-Files (or Find-All-…) button (pressing a button example here ) under program control. Once you have the output text, it can be parsed at will to do whatever is needed from that.

Here’s FindResultPanelGetText.py:

import ctypes
from ctypes.wintypes import BOOL, HWND, LPARAM
WNDENUMPROC = ctypes.WINFUNCTYPE(BOOL, HWND,LPARAM)
FindWindow = ctypes.windll.user32.FindWindowW
GetWindowText = ctypes.windll.user32.GetWindowTextW
GetWindowTextLength = ctypes.windll.user32.GetWindowTextLengthW
EnumChildWindows = ctypes.windll.user32.EnumChildWindows
GetClassName = ctypes.windll.user32.GetClassNameW
curr_class = ctypes.create_unicode_buffer(256)

find_result_panel_complete_text = ''

def foreach_window(hwnd, lParam):
    global find_result_panel_complete_text
    length = GetWindowTextLength(hwnd)
    if length > 0:
        buff = ctypes.create_unicode_buffer(length + 1)
        GetWindowText(hwnd, buff, length + 1)
        if buff.value.startswith('Search "'):  # perhaps change to more rigorous test...
            find_result_panel_complete_text = buff.value
            return False
    return True

EnumChildWindows(FindWindow(u'Notepad++', None), WNDENUMPROC(foreach_window), 0)
editor.copyText(find_result_panel_complete_text)  # result in clipboard

[Claudia Frank]

@Scott-Sumner

nice one and could be already half the solution. :-)
Maybe we should think about python_automation_api_for_npp ;-)

Cheers
Claudia

[Scott Sumner]

@Claudia-Frank

python_automation_api_for_npp

Maybe not an all-encompasing automation API, but one focused on the ever-controversial Find functionality…
Are you up for a joint project with me on this?
:-D

[Claudia Frank]

@Scott-Sumner

in general yes, but not for the moment, currently I’m doing 3 projects in parallel
And I don’t see that this progresses. :-)

Cheers
Claudia

[Alan Kilborn]

This is a real necropost at roughly 6.5 years later, but I wanted to post an updated version of the earlier script made by @Scott-Sumner ; one that just feels a bit less hackish (sorry).

I call this variation SearchResultPanelGetText.py:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from __future__ import print_function

#########################################
#
#  SearchResultPanelGetText (SRPGT)
#
#########################################

# references:
#  https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/14181
#  for newbie info on PythonScripts, see https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/23039/faq-desk-how-to-install-and-run-a-script-in-pythonscript

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

from ctypes import ( create_unicode_buffer, WinDLL, WINFUNCTYPE, )
from ctypes.wintypes import ( BOOL, HWND, LPARAM, )
import re

user32 = WinDLL('user32')

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

class SRPGT(object):

    def __init__(self):
        self.search_results_hwnd = None
        WNDENUMPROC = WINFUNCTYPE(BOOL, HWND, LPARAM)
        user32.EnumChildWindows(user32.FindWindowW(u'Notepad++', None), WNDENUMPROC(self.foreach_child_window), 0)

    def foreach_child_window(self, hwnd, __):
        length = user32.GetWindowTextLengthW(hwnd)
        if length > 0:
            buff = create_unicode_buffer(length + 1)
            user32.GetWindowTextW(hwnd, buff, length + 1)
            if re.match(r'(?:Search) ".*?" \(\d+ hits? in \d+ files? of \d+ searched', buff.value):
                self.search_results_hwnd = hwnd
                return False  # stop searching windows
        return True  # continue searching windows

    def get_text(self):
        search_results_complete_text = ''
        if self.search_results_hwnd is not None:
            length = user32.GetWindowTextLengthW(self.search_results_hwnd)
            if length > 0:
                buff = create_unicode_buffer(length + 1)
                user32.GetWindowTextW(self.search_results_hwnd, buff, length + 1)
                search_results_complete_text = buff.value
        return search_results_complete_text

    def get_most_recent_search_result_text(self):
        recent_text = ''
        m = re.match(r'(?s)(?:Search) ".*?" \(\d+ hits? in \d+ files? of \d+ searched.*?(?=^Search|\Z)', self.get_text())
        if m: recent_text = m.group(0)
        return recent_text

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

if __name__ == '__main__': print(SRPGT().get_text())  # demo