Search for 2 strings with AND not OR

John Currey

Hi,

I like to search files and find all files that contain line that have "def " AND “phone”.

I tried searching using def |phone and I get all results where "def " or “phone are found”. I need only results where both exist on a line.

Thanks.

Alan Kilborn

@John-Currey

Something like this could do it:

Find what box: (?-is)^(?=.*def)(?=.*phone).+
Search mode radiobutton: Regular expression

Note that this works regardless of whether def or phone occurs first on the line.

John Currey

@Alan-Kilborn said in Search for 2 strings with AND not OR:

(?-is)^(?=.*def)(?=.*phone).+

Hi Alan,

Thanks for your response. I’m looking to search the entire content of the file. I want the results to show any file and any line in that file that contains both strings.

I tried your suggestion with the radio button set to Regular Expression and only received 2 results. I’m certiain there are more.

Thanks again.

Alan Kilborn

@John-Currey said in Search for 2 strings with AND not OR:

I’m looking to search the entire content of the file. I want the results to show any file and any line in that file that contains both strings.

These two things aren’t related to the “and” nature of your desired search.

search the entire content of the file

So use Find All in Current Document button to run the search?

show any file and any line in that file

So use Find All button on Find in Files tab to run the search?

Your statements make me believe you don’t really know how to do searching in Notepad++, and go beyond the original question.

Anyway, to show that what I provided does indeed work, I took this data:

Alan
Alan Carol
Alan Bob
Carol Alan Bob
Bob
Alice Ted Carol
Ted Carol Alan
Ted Carol Bob
Alice Carol Bob
Ted Carol
Ted Alice
Ted Bob
Alice Alan Bob
Alice
Bob Alan Ted Alice
Bob Carol
Alice Carol Alan
Carol
Alan Ted
Bob Alice
Bob Alice Alan Ted Carol
Bob Carol Ted Alice
Alan Alice
Alice Ted Alan
Ted
Ted Alan Bob
Carol Alan Ted Alice
Bob Carol Alan Alice
Alice Ted Bob
Bob Carol Alan Ted
Carol Alice

And I ran this search on it:

Find what box: (?i-s)^(?=.*Bob)(?=.*Alan).+
Search mode radiobutton: Regular expression
Press the Find All in Current Document button

Which is a search for “Bob and Alan on a line, in either order”.

And I obtained these results:

John Currey

Alan,

I appreciate your assistance. As you’ll notice, the PHONELIB.WBS file contains both “DEF” and “PHONE” on lines 1 and 22 and is located in my search folder, yet the search string you provided did not find it as you can see from the results. Any thoughts on what I may have done wrong?

Thanks.

astrosofista

Hi @John-Currey, @Alan-Kilborn, All:

I think I understand where is the issue: you are searching in a non-insensitive mode (?-is), that is, in a sensitive way, when the correct mode is an insensitive mode, as (?i-s).

HTH

John Currey

HTH,

Ahhhh, yes, that did the trick!

Thanks to you and Alan for the help.

Alan Kilborn

My bad. I should have stated the original search like this, I suppose:

Find what box: (?-s)^(?=.*def)(?=.*phone).+
Match case checkbox: unticked or ticked <------ as you need

Not everyone knows that:

leading off your regex with a variant of (?i) will search case INSENSITIVELY (the i is for Insensitive)
leading off your regex with a variant of (?-i) will search case SENSITIVELY (the -i is for NOT [or “minus”] Insensive)

and that these little strings, if used, override the setting of the Match case checkbox, since they are logically processed after the checkbox setting.

However, the misunderstanding could have been avoided had some sample data been provided along with the original question.

Janica Williams

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