Search++: A work in progress

guy038

Hello, @coises and All,

@coises, I recommend that you read this GithHub thread about the multiReplace plugin, specifically my following two replies :

In the first post, I asked @thomas-knoefel if the Find in Files search could scan the N++ buffers rather that their equivalents on disk !

You can verify that, in the table, at that time, the Search++ and Multiplace plugins, unlike N++, did a Find in Files search on the saved files on disk and not on the N++ buffers possibly modified

And, in the second post, I verified that the attached new build, provided by @thomas-knoefel, do scan the N++ buffers, by default !

Could you implement such behavior and add an option to search on N++ buffers, by default OR on saved files on disk, like within N++ v8.9.8 and MultiReplace ?

TIA for your time and work on this topic !

Best Regards,

guy038

Coises

@guy038 said:

You can verify that, in the table, at that time, the Search++ and Multiplace plugins, unlike N++, did a Find in Files search on the saved files on disk and not on the N++ buffers possibly modified

Yes, that is a condition I have not yet addressed, and it is good that you call it to my attention.

I am more inclined to raise a warning box telling the user that some of the files to be searched are currently open in Notepad++, and the search results (and modifications, when I get Replace in Files done) will apply to the stored files, not to the edits in progress in Notepad++.

The way these searches work would make it difficult (probably not impossible, but difficult) to attempt to insert open document searches into the multi-threaded file-based search process. There are significant differences in how the two are implemented.

Do you see much practical application for searching the files in a folder, some of which are modified and not saved in Notepad++, merging the search of the unsaved open documents with the search of the unopened files on disk? (For replace I can see the value of skipping open files, as you might have tested the change on a couple files before choosing to apply it to the remaining files. If you already saved the files, you’d be applying the change twice; if you hadn’t saved them, you’d have a bunch of “File has changed, do you want to reload?” prompts to dismiss.)

I wonder if any of this works properly when users have multiple instances of Notepad++ open and the files are open in a different instance than the one doing the search?

guy038

Hello, @coises and All,

I understand that focusing on N++ buffers, instead of on saved files on disk, is not really appropriate for your multithreaded approach !

You said :

I am more inclined to raise a warning box telling the user that some of the files to be searched are currently open in Notepad++, and the search results (and modifications, when I get Replace in Files done) will apply to the stored files, not to the edits in progress in Notepad++.

So, given, your constraints, I totally agree ! That seems the more simple and obvious solution, with a Cancel button in case some concerned and opened files are dirty, in current N++ session

On the other hand, you said :

I wonder if any of this works properly when users have multiple instances of Notepad++ open and the files are open in a different instance than the one doing the search?

I personally mainly use N++ in a N++ mono instance so I can’t speak properly of that case. But I agree with you that managing several instances must be a challenge for the Find in Files or Replace in Files feature !

Best Regards,

guy038

Coises

Search++ version 0.6.6 is available:

Add tab icons to the docking search dialog and the results list. (When you have more than one dialog docked to the same edge in Notepad++, the icon shows on the tabs that are not active.)
Fix an error (present since version 0.6) that caused the count of files containing a match in the status message when counting or searching in Files in View or in Open Documents to be one too large.
Various internal updates to Find in Files to make it more robust against I/O errors, with better error reporting.

Thank you to everyone willing to try this work in progress. Comments, critiques and suggestions are always welcome.

Progress on the 0.6.x releases has been slow. Much of that was because I decided to introduce Search in Files in version 0.6 as a multi-threaded process, and I had no real experience writing multi-threaded code. After adding Find in Files, I spent a lot of time trying to improve performance. My eventual conclusion, after much trial and error, is that either it can’t be done, or I can’t figure out how to do it.

Hopefully the next few weeks will produce some visible progress.

To that end, I want to list some things that are on my mind at present. Please comment if you have any thoughts about these (which are important, which are unimportant or misguided, thoughts about how they should work, thoughts about things I’ve missed… and I am pretty sure I’m forgetting something):

Obvious missing features

Implement Replace in Files in the Search in Files dialog.
Ability to save and recall search strings.
- There is already history on the right-click menus. I’m not sure if it should be longer, be longer but on a flyout menu, longer with the first n items on the menu and the rest on a flyout, have a configurable number of items…?
- Would the ability to “pin” history items be useful? (Simpler and faster than a save process.)
- For saving I’m thinking of controlling that through a dialog that would let you name what you save, so you would then recall it by name. Saving would save the Find and Replace strings and the associated settings. It would have to be possible to edit, rename or delete a saved search as well. Recalling would probably be by selecting from a flyout on the right-click menu. Thoughts? Is that too complicated? Should the regular dialog (for searching in documents) and the Search in Files dialog share a single set of saved searches?

Features under consideration

Context in search results: that is, showing one or more lines before or after the line(s) containing a match.
- This would be optional and configurable, but a tricky question is whether it is sufficient to configure it before the search or whether you should be able to request context — either for a specific match or for all matches — directly in the search results window, after the search.
- It seems like it would make sense for this to be available for Show actions, too.
Warn or block when characters used in the find or replace fields are inconsistent with the character encoding of files to be searched. (Right now find proceeds without a warning, and replace uses the substitution character, usually a question mark.)
- Find is tricky, because I would have to parse the regular expression to attempt to determine whether the inconsistent characters are required for a match (so no match is possible) or whether they are only required by some alternatives (which might be intentional, if the same expression is used with files in different encodings). Is it worth doing at all? Would a warning (so I didn’t have to parse, since you could just say to search anyway) be more annoying than helpful?
- Replacing can also be conditional, so do I try to detect that, and if it’s conditional, only warn or block if it actually happens? If replacing in multiple files, it could vastly slow down the process if I have to examine each file first to determine its encoding before beginning the actual replace operation. Is it worth it? Or do I only raise the warning if and when I encounter a file that can’t do the replace as written?
In the main search dialog, when the default action is active for a button (e.g., Find, Count, etc. without a scope qualification like “in Selection” or “in Marked Text”), somehow indicate what the default action would be if you pressed the button right now. That is, Find adapts to work in selection if you have a selection large enough, or in marked text, or in the whole document, but what will it actually do right now? This feels like a big missing thing to me, but I’m a bit stumped as to how to indicate it.
- If a put a general indicator somewhere (it will always be the same for all buttons with default scope), where, and how should it appear? I am very hesitant to take up additional space in the dialog, or to make it any more “busy” than it already is.
- If I show it on each button, how would I distinguish it from the marker that tells you the direct action for the button is a command with a specified scope? (Remember, this has to work for any dark mode color combination the user might pick, and some users are colorblind.)
- Would it be better to show it on the buttons and remove the ability to select an action with other than default scope as the action for a button by shift-clicking the drop-down menu? Does anyone even realize they can shift-click the drop-down menus (the only way to know is to do it by accident or read the help)?
Figure out how to modify Boost.regex to get rid of the dreaded “complexity” message. Make progress responsive during a search (not just between finds, as it is now: Boost.regex as built has no progress callback, so you can only estimate progress after it succeeds or fails to find a match, not while it’s working) and let the user cancel if it’s taking too long.
Figure out how to modify Boost.regex to support Unicode word boundaries, and extend that to plain text searches by translating them into regex searches. (Unicode word boundaries recognize that sequences like “can’t” are a single word; for example, if implemented, a whole word match for “can” wouldn’t match the first three letters of ”can’t”; at present, it does.)
Implement “Unicode compatibility forms” matching. This means being able to search for something like “naive” and have it match “naïve” (or vice versa). I think I would only attempt to implement this, at least at first, for plain text searches (which would be translated to a regular expression the user would not see).

Deficiencies and bugs

Personally, I really like the Show function. It hides all lines and then shows the ones that have matches, also marking the matches. A bit like a Find All with the results list right in the document instead of in a tiny little window at the bottom. But there are problems. I use Scintilla’s hidden lines feature directly. Notepad++ also uses that feature, but it doesn’t provide a way for plugins to use it through Notepad++, and it keeps internal status information that assumes only it is using hidden lines. There appears to be no way to make Notepad++ synchronize its own idea of which lines it thinks are hidden with the actual state of Scintilla. Various bizarre things happen because of this. That leaves me with four choices, none of which are great:
- Remove the Show function entirely.
- Accept that if you use Show, unintended and illogical things can and will happen.
- Petition Don to provide a way for plugins to use hidden lines without confusing Notepad++, which might not be accepted, would probably take a long time even if it is accepted, and even when completed would mean this would only work correctly on versions of Notepad++ at least that new.
- Get “creative” and look for some back-door, hacky way to fix it (which might or might not be possible, and might break without warning when Notepad++ changes something).
Keyboard navigation in the Search++ dialog (the main one that can be docked, not the Search in Files dialog) is clunky and not comprehensive.
- There’s no straightforward way to invoke something like “Select in Marked Text” without using the mouse.
- There’s a setting to focus the document after stepwise Find and Replace, but if you check that then there’s no way to do the next Find or Replace without switching back to the Search++ dialog first. The only way I can think of to manage that would be to add two more menu items, which you could assign to free keyboard shortcuts… as if anyone has any free yet memorable keyboard shortcuts. Doing repeated Find actions while being able to edit immediately in the document after a Find seems like a common task. It should be natural and fluid, but it isn’t.
For Search in Files actions, there is presently no warning about files that are open in Notepad++; the files are processed on disk. This will be more critical when Replace in Files is implemented.
- My thought is to present a warning, with OK and Cancel options, noting that Search in Files only processes files on disk. Note that for Find in Files, the impact is that files that were open with changes would search based on the data on disk, not the live version of the document. Documents that are open in Notepad++ (with or without changes) and are also changed on disk by Replace in Files would show a “File changed” notification when activated in Notepad++.
- Because of the way Search in Files works, it would be complicated to treat files open in Notepad++ differently, but is that something that is really important… important enough to go ahead and make the code more complicated in order to do it, so that files open in Notepad++ are processed as open documents and not as files on disk?
The date selection controls in the Search in Files dialog look awful in dark mode. Unfortunately, it turns out the Windows control I used is just about impossible to render in dark mode. (At least, I haven’t found a single example in open source of someone doing it successfully.) So I expect to replace it with something simpler, more like a text control with a drop-down history, where you just type the date.
- Would it be useful to be able to enter the time, and not just the date, to limit which files are examined?
- Would a single universal format (yyyy-mm-dd) be good, or is it an important user amenity to be able to enter dates in your locale format (e.g., mm-dd-yy in the US, dd-mm-yy in most other places)?
- Would you miss the drop-down calendar control? Would you miss having up/down arrows (spin control) for the elements of the date and thus needing to type the numbers to change the date?
- Does anybody even think the date filter is useful in the first place? Do I need a way to take a date from a specific file, rather than the user knowing what dates are wanted, to make it useful?

guy038

Hello, @coises and All,

This morning, I just downloaded your last v0.6.6 release. I was studying your post in order to give you my suggestions and preferences when I came across three bugs :

When you perform a Find All operation and do a right click in the Search++ Results panel, either on an Occurrence(s) line, on a File line ( green line ), or the Title line of the search ( olive line ), the context menu begins with these two lines :

Locate in Document        Enter

Move Here in Document     Shift + Enter

Personally, this case should occur on numbered lines only and not on any green/olive line !?

Now, right click, on either the EMPTY olive/green zone : the context menu begins, now, with the lines :

Expand/Collapse Search       Enter

Expand/Collapse Documents    Shift Enter

This is the expected behavior

But, if you right click again on any numbered line, you get :

Expand/Collapse Search       Enter

Expand/Collapse Documents    Shift Enter

and NOT :

Locate in Document        Enter

Move Here in Document     Shift + Enter

Finally, right click on the grey zone of line numbers. Again, the first two options of the context menu are :

Locate in Document        Enter

Move Here in Document     Shift + Enter

Move the mouse and right click on any line : again, you get the expected result :

Locate in Document        Enter

Move Here in Document     Shift + Enter

The second bug is a bit strange : it modifies the vertical navigation within the N++ files !

Click on the ▼ on the right of the Find All button and run the default Show option

Now, at the top, click on the Tools button and run Show All Lines option

From now on, if you hit the ↑ or ↓ keys, the caret does not move : it’s the document which go upward or downward !?

Swapping to an other file does not change the navgation, even choosing again the Search++ Select or Mark options. Nor closing and re-opening the file. The only way is to close and re-open our beloved editor !

Now, if you change the search string and try again to select the default Show option, NO change occurs at all. You need to first cancel the previous Show operation by running, within the Tools dialog, the Remove marks and bookmarks from active document option

Then the Show feature applied to the modified search is correctly performed !

I just hope that all the oddities will be easy enough to fix !

Best Regards,

guy038

P.S. :

Once I’ve finished reading your latest post, I’ll let you know what I think !

Coises

@guy038 said:
When you perform a Find All operation and do a right click in the Search++ Results panel, either on an Occurrence(s) line, on a File line ( green line ), or the Title line of the search ( olive line ), the context menu begins with these two lines :
Locate in Document        Enter

Move Here in Document     Shift + Enter

I can’t reproduce this one. What should happens is that search (gold) lines should show:
    Expand/Collapse Search
    Expand/Collapse Documents
while file (green) lines should show:
    Expand/Collapse Document
    Open Document
and match (numbered) lines should show:
    Locate in Document
    Move Here in Document
when you right-click. That is what is happening on my machine.

I wonder if you could check something for me. When you press the right mouse button down in the Search++ Results window, does the caret indicator immediately move to the place where you clicked (even before the menu displays, which happens when you release the mouse button)? (Note: if you click in the left margin or past the right end of the text on a line, the caret is expected to move to the beginning or end of the line, respectively.)

If that’s not happening, it would explain why you’re getting unexpected options on the menu (since the menu is based on the caret location), but then I need to figure out why your caret isn’t following the right-click. The only time that’s expected is if you right-click within an existing selection: in that case, the selection should remain as is.

The second bug is a bit strange : it modifies the vertical navigation within the N++ files !

Click on the ▼ on the right of the Find All button and run the default Show option

Now, at the top, click on the Tools button and run Show All Lines option

From now on, if you hit the ↑ or ↓ keys, the caret does not move : it’s the document which go upward or downward !?

Thank you for the report! I can reproduce that. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I suspect it is related to a different bug that’s been puzzling me: when I use Show and then later Show All Lines, afterward whenever I make an alteration in the text (type something new) the text jumps to a new position on the screen. Hopefully I’ll be able to put what you’ve just told me together with that and find the cause, and a way to fix it.

Edit to add: How did I not find this before? In Show All Lines I change something called the caret policy in order to make sure that when I show the lines, the place where you had the caret will still be on the screen. I neglected to change it back to what it was afterward.

I will fix that for the next release. Thank you for the report… I don’t know why I didn’t recognize where the problem was before, but something in the way you described it jogged my brain cells.

guy038

Hello, @coises and All,

As for the first bug, I humbly apologize for the inconvenience caused : it’s my own fault. There’s no bug at all !

Indeed, in all my previous manipulations, I simply move the mouse around, to a specific location and immediately right click : thus some odd results !

As you said :

(since the menu is based on the caret location),

I understood that if I first clicked within a line, within a green line or within a gold line and THEN right clicked on the mouse I did get the same results as yours , i.e. :

search (gold) lines should show:
    Expand/Collapse Search
    Expand/Collapse Documents

file (green) lines should show:
    Expand/Collapse Document
    Open Document

match (numbered) lines should show:
    Locate in Document
    Move Here in Document

Again, sorry for the moise !

To end, could you verify if you can reproduce the third bug or if I forgot something obvious ?

Best Regards,

guy038

Coises

@guy038 said:
As for the first bug, I humbly apologize for the inconvenience caused : it’s my own fault. There’s no bug at all !

Maybe, maybe not. I forgot about a Notepad++ setting. I would guess that you have Settings | Preferences… | Editing 1 | Keep selection when right-click outside of selection checked. If I check that box, behavior is consistent with what you reported.

Is that a bug? Scintilla normally responds to a right-click by clearing any selection and placing the caret at the position of the right-click, unless the right-click is within an existing selection. Notepad++ specifically captures right-clicks and overrides that behavior when that box is checked, so that right-click effectively behaves just like pressing the context menu key or Shift+F10, ignoring where you right-clicked and basing the context menu on the selection or caret location.

I’m inclined to think that if someone has that box checked they probably know what to expect… but then, you didn’t. I haven’t yet investigated, but I suspect it would be possible to bypass that setting by capturing the actual screen location of the right-click, converting that to a character position, and acting accordingly. The question is, should I?

To end, could you verify if you can reproduce the third bug or if I forgot something obvious ?

Now, if you change the search string and try again to select the default Show option, NO change occurs at all. You need to first cancel the previous Show operation by running, within the Tools dialog, the Remove marks and bookmarks from active document option

Then the Show feature applied to the modified search is correctly performed !

This isn’t really a bug, but a “feature” of questionable utility. Commands with default scope apply to marked text if there is any marked text, unless Settings | Marked Text | Default commands automatically search within marked text. is not checked. So most likely you see “No matches found in marked text.” at the bottom of the dialog when you attempt your second Show. If you used Show in Whole Document it would have worked.

I agree, this is probably confusing. I didn’t want different default scope commands to behave differently, but this does seem like an exceptional case. I already have a checkbox for Allow default Mark command to Mark in Marked Text; I should probably have a similar Allow default Show command to Show in Marked Text, unchecked by default.

Perhaps I should redesign this whole default scope concept. I just don’t know how to keep it flexible and convenient and user-friendly all at once.

(I include a reasonably clean design, as in “dialog not so cluttered with buttons and options that your eyes hurt just looking at it” as part of user-friendly. Yet so is minimizing the “User Astonishment Factor”: as in, “Wow, I never expected that to happen!”)

guy038

Hello, @coises and All,

Sorry, @coises, but I came acroos some differences of counting, in regex mode, between your two plugins Columns++ and Search++

For my tests, I used my Total_Chars.txt file that you can download from this location :

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DTDQdUMgC-c2Fkc-LvlQghvtwMYyoWi3/view?usp=sharing

All countings are run in regex mode with the Match case option enabled

Some time ago, I made a list of all Unicode blocks of the last version 17.0. Presently, while testing the MultiReplace plugin of @thomas-knoefel, I updated this list and took the opportunity to include the count results obtained with Search++ alongside those already provided by Columns++

And I was very surprised because there are a lot of differences in the results between your two plugins Columns++ and Search++ !?

Here is a non-exhaustive list of the différenes observed :

•-------------------------------•----------------------------------------------------•----------•----------•    •------------•-----------•-----------•
|          Block range          |                     Block name                     |  Total   | Assigned |    | N++ / MRep | Columns++ | Search++  |
|                               |                                                    | Code-Pts | Code-Pts |    | Word Chrs  | Word Chrs | Word Chrs |
•-------------------------------•----------------------------------------------------•----------•----------•    •------------•-----------•-----------•
|  (?=\w)[\x{0400}-\x{04FF}]    |  Cyrillic                                          |     256  |     256  |    |      248   !      248  |      255  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0590}-\x{05FF}]    |  Hebrew                                            |     112  |      88  |    |       30   !       31  |       82  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0600}-\x{06FF}]    |  Arabic                                            |     256  |     256  |    |      172   !      173  |      225  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0700}-\x{074F}]    |  Syriac                                            |      80  |      77  |    |       34   !       34  |       62  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0780}-\x{07BF}]    |  Thaana                                            |      64  |      50  |    |       39   !       39  |       50  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{07C0}-\x{07FF}]    |  NKo                                               |      64  |      62  |    |       46   !       46  |       56  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0800}-\x{083F}]    |  Samaritan                                         |      64  |      61  |    |        0   !       25  |       46  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0840}-\x{085F}]    |  Mandaic                                           |      32  |      29  |    |        0   !       25  |       28  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0870}-\x{089F}]    |  Arabic Extended-B                                 |      48  |      43  |    |        0   !       31  |       40  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{08A0}-\x{08FF}]    |  Arabic Extended-A                                 |      96  |      96  |    |        0   !       42  |       95  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0900}-\x{097F}]    |  Devanagari                                        |     128  |     128  |    |       83   !       91  |      125  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0980}-\x{09FF}]    |  Bengali                                           |     128  |      96  |    |       63   !       65  |       85  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0A00}-\x{0A7F}]    |  Gurmukhi                                          |     128  |      80  |    |       61   !       61  |       79  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0A80}-\x{0AFF}]    |  Gujarati                                          |     128  |      91  |    |       62   !       63  |       89  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0B00}-\x{0B7F}]    |  Oriya                                             |     128  |      91  |    |       63   !       63  |       84  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0B80}-\x{0BFF}]    |  Tamil                                             |     128  |      72  |    |       47   !       47  |       61  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0C00}-\x{0C7F}]    |  Telugu                                            |     128  |     101  |    |       64   !       68  |       92  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0C80}-\x{0CFF}]    |  Kannada                                           |     128  |      92  |    |       63   !       68  |       91  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0D00}-\x{0D7F}]    |  Malayalam                                         |     128  |     118  |    |       69   !       77  |      100  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0D80}-\x{0DFF}]    |  Sinhala                                           |     128  |      91  |    |       59   !       69  |       90  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0E00}-\x{0E7F}]    |  Thai                                              |     128  |      87  |    |       83   !       67  |       83  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0E80}-\x{0EFF}]    |  Lao                                               |     128  |      83  |    |       50   !       66  |       83  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{0F00}-\x{0FFF}]    |  Tibetan                                           |     256  |     211  |    |       59   !       60  |      137  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1000}-\x{109F}]    |  Myanmar                                           |     160  |     160  |    |       94   !       94  |      152  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1200}-\x{137F}]    |  Ethiopic                                          |     384  |     358  |    |      326   !      326  |      329  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{16A0}-\x{16FF}]    |  Runic                                             |      96  |      89  |    |       78   !       83  |       86  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1700}-\x{171F}]    |  Tagalog                                           |      32  |      23  |    |       17   !       19  |       23  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1720}-\x{173F}]    |  Hanunoo                                           |      32  |      23  |    |       18   !       18  |       21  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1740}-\x{175F}]    |  Buhid                                             |      32  |      20  |    |       18   !       18  |       20  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1760}-\x{177F}]    |  Tagbanwa                                          |      32  |      18  |    |       16   !       16  |       18  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1780}-\x{17FF}]    |  Khmer                                             |     128  |     114  |    |       64   !       64  |       97  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1800}-\x{18AF}]    |  Mongolian                                         |     176  |     158  |    |      140   !      139  |      146  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1900}-\x{194F}]    |  Limbu                                             |      80  |      68  |    |       39   !       41  |       65  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1A00}-\x{1A1F}]    |  Buginese                                          |      32  |      30  |    |       23   !       23  |       28  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1A20}-\x{1AAF}]    |  Tai Tham                                          |     144  |     127  |    |        0   !       74  |      114  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1AB0}-\x{1AFF}]    |  Combining Diacritical Marks Extended              |      80  |      58  |    |        0   !        0  |       58  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1B00}-\x{1B7F}]    |  Balinese                                          |     128  |     127  |    |       64   !       65  |       96  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1B80}-\x{1BBF}]    |  Sundanese                                         |      64  |      64  |    |       42   !       48  |       64  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1BC0}-\x{1BFF}]    |  Batak                                             |      64  |      56  |    |        0   !       38  |       52  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1C00}-\x{1C4F}]    |  Lepcha                                            |      80  |      74  |    |       49   !       49  |       69  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1CD0}-\x{1CFF}]    |  Vedic Extensions                                  |      48  |      43  |    |        0   !       13  |       42  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1DC0}-\x{1DFF}]    |  Combining Diacritical Marks Supplement            |      64  |      64  |    |        0   !        0  |       64  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{2000}-\x{206F}]    |  General Punctuation                               |     112  |     111  |    |        0   !        0  |        5  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{20D0}-\x{20FF}]    |  Combining Diacritical Marks for Symbols           |      48  |      33  |    |        0   !        0  |       33  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{2150}-\x{218F}]    |  Number Forms                                      |      64  |      60  |    |       41   !        2  |       41  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{2460}-\x{24FF}]    |  Enclosed Alphanumerics                            |     160  |     160  |    |        0   !        0  |       52  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{2C80}-\x{2CFF}]    |  Coptic                                            |     128  |     123  |    |      101   !      107  |      110  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{2D30}-\x{2D7F}]    |  Tifinagh                                          |      80  |      59  |    |       55   !       57  |       58  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{2DE0}-\x{2DFF}]    |  Cyrillic Extended-A                               |      32  |      32  |    |        0   !        0  |       32  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{3000}-\x{303F}]    |  CJK Symbols and Punctuation                       |      64  |      64  |    |       22   !        9  |       28  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{3040}-\x{309F}]    |  Hiragana                                          |      96  |      93  |    |       89   !       89  |       91  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{A640}-\x{A69F}]    |  Cyrillic Extended-B                               |      96  |      96  |    |       69   !       78  |       94  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{A6A0}-\x{A6FF}]    |  Bamum                                             |      96  |      88  |    |        0   !       70  |       82  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{A800}-\x{A82F}]    |  Syloti Nagri                                      |      48  |      45  |    |       32   !       32  |       41  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{A880}-\x{A8DF}]    |  Saurashtra                                        |      96  |      82  |    |       60   !       60  |       80  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{A8E0}-\x{A8FF}]    |  Devanagari Extended                               |      32  |      32  |    |        0   !        9  |       28  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{A900}-\x{A92F}]    |  Kayah Li                                          |      48  |      48  |    |       38   !       38  |       46  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{A930}-\x{A95F}]    |  Rejang                                            |      48  |      37  |    |       23   !       23  |       36  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{A980}-\x{A9DF}]    |  Javanese                                          |      96  |      91  |    |        0   !       58  |       76  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{A9E0}-\x{A9FF}]    |  Myanmar Extended-B                                |      32  |      31  |    |        0   !       30  |       31  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{AA00}-\x{AA5F}]    |  Cham                                              |      96  |      83  |    |       62   !       62  |       79  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{AA60}-\x{AA7F}]    |  Myanmar Extended-A                                |      32  |      32  |    |        0   !       26  |       29  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{AA80}-\x{AADF}]    |  Tai Viet                                          |      96  |      72  |    |        0   !       61  |       70  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{AAE0}-\x{AAFF}]    |  Meetei Mayek Extensions                           |      32  |      23  |    |        0   !       14  |       21  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{ABC0}-\x{ABFF}]    |  Meetei Mayek                                      |      64  |      56  |    |        0   !       45  |       55  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{FB00}-\x{FB4F}]    |  Alphabetic Presentation Forms                     |      80  |      58  |    |       56   !       56  |       57  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{FE00}-\x{FE0F}]    |  Variation Selectors                               |      16  |      16  |    |        0   !        0  |       16  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{FE20}-\x{FE2F}]    |  Combining Half Marks                              |      16  |      16  |    |        0   !        0  |       16  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{FE30}-\x{FE4F}]    |  CJK Compatibility Forms                           |      32  |      32  |    |        0   !        0  |        5  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{FF00}-\x{FFEF}]    |  Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms                     |     240  |     225  |    |      172   !      172  |      173  |
•-------------------------------•----------------------------------------------------•----------•----------•    •------------•-----------•-----------•
|  (?=\w)[\x{102E0}-\x{102FF}]  |  Coptic Epact Numbers                              |      32  |      28  |    |        0   |        0  |        1  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{10330}-\x{1034F}]  |  Gothic                                            |      32  |      27  |    |        0   |       25  |       27  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{10350}-\x{1037F}]  |  Old Permic                                        |      48  |      43  |    |        0   |       38  |       43  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{103A0}-\x{103DF}]  |  Old Persian                                       |      64  |      50  |    |        0   |       44  |       49  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1CF00}-\x{1CFCF}]  |  Znamenny Musical Notation                         |     208  |     185  |    |        0   |        0  |       69  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1D100}-\x{1D1FF}]  |  Musical Symbols                                   |     256  |     233  |    |        0   |        0  |       30  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1D800}-\x{1DAAF}]  |  Sutton SignWriting                                |     688  |     672  |    |        0   |        0  |      127  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1E000}-\x{1E02F}]  |  Glagolitic Supplement                             |      48  |      38  |    |        0   |        0  |       38  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1E030}-\x{1E08F}]  |  Cyrillic Extended-D                               |      96  |      63  |    |        0   |       62  |       63  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1E100}-\x{1E14F}]  |  Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong                            |      80  |      71  |    |        0   |       63  |       70  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1E290}-\x{1E2BF}]  |  Toto                                              |      48  |      31  |    |        0   |       30  |       31  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1E2C0}-\x{1E2FF}]  |  Wancho                                            |      64  |      59  |    |        0   |       54  |       58  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1E4D0}-\x{1E4FF}]  |  Nag Mundari                                       |      48  |      42  |    |        0   |       38  |       42  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1E5D0}-\x{1E5FF}]  |  Ol Onal                                           |      48  |      44  |    |        0   |       41  |       43  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1E6C0}-\x{1E6FF}]  |  Tai Yo                                            |      64  |      55  |    |        0   |       50  |       55  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1E800}-\x{1E8DF}]  |  Mende Kikakui                                     |     224  |     213  |    |        0   |      197  |      204  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1E900}-\x{1E95F}]  |  Adlam                                             |      96  |      88  |    |        0   |       79  |       86  |
|  (?=\w)[\x{1F100}-\x{1F1FF}]  |  Enclosed Alphanumeric Supplement                  |     256  |     200  |    |        0   |        0  |       78  |
•-------------------------------•----------------------------------------------------•----------•----------•    •------------•-----------•-----------•
|  (?=\w)[\x{E0100}-\x{E01EF}]  |  Variation Selectors Supplement                    |     240  |     240  |    |        0   |        0  |      240  |
•-------------------------------•----------------------------------------------------•----------•----------•    •------------•-----------•-----------•

Notes :

Unlike the Plane 0 and Plane 14, the Unicode Plane 1 does not include all the différences : it’s just for testing !
The Plane 2 and Plane 3 give identical results.
Although this post focuses on differences between your two plugins, remark that the native Notepad++ search and the MultiReplace search give identical results, throughout all the Unicode planes and blocks.

As promised, I’ll give you, very soon, my suggestions and preferences regarding your post !

Best Regards,

guy038

Coises

@guy038 said:

Sorry, @coises, but I came acroos some differences of counting, in regex mode, between your two plugins Columns++ and Search++

It will take me some time to test, but my guess is that the differences come from this:

Search++ uses the properties returned by the ICU 78.3 (Unicode 17) API directly.
Columns++ uses a Python script to condense information from the Unicode Character Database tables into static C++ structures which can be searched quickly at run time. Subsequent tests (I think it was you who first ran them) showed that my method does not capture all relevant Unicode properties for all characters correctly.
Notepad++ and MultiReplace use whatever Boost.regex does by default when matching UTF-16 or a legacy codepage. I think this relies entirely on Windows character classification routines.

I expect that the results in Search++ using Regex and ICU will be identical. Any discrepancies would probably indicate bugs in the Regex implementation; the possibility of running tests like that is why I included ICU in the first place.