SEARCHMONKEY(1)

NAME
SEARCHMONKEY - search files using regular expressions aiming to replace find/grep tools

INTRODUCTION
searchMonkey is a GTK+ application designed to replace the find/grep command line tools. The aim of this utility it to provide fast, slick text search ability to the GTK community.

The User Interface
This section describes every button, window, table and what it shows or does.

  File Menu

  New
Starts a brand new search (losing previous search history).

Open Criteria
    Opens a previously saved search criteria.

Close
    Close a child criteria window, but not the main application.

Save Criteria
    Saves a search criteria (excluding the results). Save Criteria As As Save Criteria, but brings up a save-as dialog.

Save Results
    Saves the results to a custom XML file. Only available when search complete.

Print
    Print the search results in a well formatted way.

Print Preview
    Brings up a display of what would have been printed.

Print Setup
    Brings up the system's printer setup dialog.

  Edit Menu

  Word Wrap
When selected, allow the results text to wrap instead of keeping to
    strict lines.

Set Font
    Brings up a font dialog to adjust the results window base font.

Set Color
    Brings up a color selection dialog to adjust the highlight colour for the match results.

Clear History
    Remove search history from drop down criteria.

Select All
    Selects all file name matches in the left results pane.

Delete
    Deletes the selected file name(s) forever (once confirmed).

Copy
    Copies the selected file name(s) to clipboard.

  View Menu

  Toolbar
If selected, the tool bar is shown.

Status Bar
    If selected, the status bar is shown.

Sort by
    Within sub-menu, choose sort criteria e.g. file name, file size, modified date.

  Search Menu

  Start
Starts the search.

Stop
    Stops the search. Enabled when search is running.

One phase searching
    Allows content matches to be displayed immediately, instead of waiting for all files to be found.

Configuration
    Brings up application configuration dialog.

  Test Menu

  Reg. Expression
Allows a regular expression to be entered, along with sample text as a
    way of checking that your expression returns the expected results.

  Window Menu

  SearchXX
Allows quick switching between open search
    criteria/results windows.

Help Menu
    Description

User Guide
    Brings up this web address from your default browser

Support
    Brings up the searchMonkey support page from Sourceforge

About
    Brings up a dialog showing version number, license, and author's email.

The Toolbar
Can be hidden from the main-menu (view->toolbar).

New Starts a brand new search (losing previous search history).

Open
    Opens a previously saved search criteria.

Save
    Saves a search criteria (excluding the results).

Save Results
    Saves the results to a custom XML file. Only available when search complete.

Play
    Start the search.

Stop
    Stop the search. Only available when search in progress.

Print
    Print the search results in a well formatted way.

Forums
    Starts a new browser instance to the searchMonkey Forums

The Advanced Search Tab
Displayed when Expert User is enabled.

File Name
    Type a new regular expression for file name searching.

Containing Text
    Type a new regular expression for (text-only) contents searching. Disable this field with check button.

Expr. Wizard
    Brings up a regular expression helper dialog. Makes typing new regular expressions easier.

Look In
    Type a new starting location for search. Disable recurse directories with check button.

Open/Multi
    Brings up a folder search dialog. Multi allows multiple folders to be selected for expert searches.

More/Less Than
    Type a file size (in KBytes) to narrow searches to files less-than and/or more-than specified size.

More/Less Than
    Type a date expression (e.g. dd/mm/yyyy or dd mmm yyyy) to narrow searches to files modified before and/or after specified date.

The Options Tab
Available at all times from the main screen.

Specifies Not Expression
    Inverts the search i.e. finds everything except your regular expression. Status bar shows [INV] to indicate inverted.

Match case
    When disabled allows case insensitive searching of file names and/or content.

Regular Expression
    When selected allows regular expressions to be used.

DOS Expression
    When selected allows file names to be found using DOS/Glob style pattern matching i.e. * and ?.

Open/Multi
    Brings up a folder search dialog. Multi allows multiple folders to be selected for expert searches.

More/Less Than
    Type a file size (in KBytes) to narrow searches to files less-than and/or more-than specified size.

More/Less Than
    Type a date expression (e.g. dd/mm/yyyy or dd mmm yyyy) to narrow searches to files modified before and/or after specified date.

File Name Results
This pane is only filled when matches are found. Left clicking on a match will bring up content matches (displayed in the Context Results pane, if any), and right-clicking the row will bring up a sub-menu.

  Right Click Menu

  Open
Opens the file name in your preferred text editor. See configuration.

Copy
    Copies the full file name into the clipboard for use elsewhere.

Delete
    Deletes the selected file forever, once confirmed.

Explore
    Opens your preferred file browser that contains the selected file

Context Results
This pane is only filled when text matches are found, and a result has been selected.

The line that matches the search expression will be shown in full, and the actual match text will be highlighted. Once text has been selected with the left-button, the right button will allow copy options, or select-all to be performed on the text. These allow text to be copied from the results window, and pasted elsewhere.

Advanced File Name and/or Contents Searching
To find files, using regular expressions can be achieved by filling out the File Name and Look In boxes. The starting file name can be typed, copied or selected by using the Open dialog. To search a single folder, uncheck the Search Subfolders box.

If you want to find a specific regular expression within a text file, then fill out the Containing Text box with a regular expression. Note: significantly less files are shown when Containing Text is added because binary files are skipped.

For a more specific search, add in min/max file size, and the after/before modified date (if known).

Once ready, press Play to start the search process.

Results (if any) immediately start appearing in the File name results table, and once complete the total number of matches is shown in the status bar

Status Bar
Describes what is currently going on.

    * Phase 1 searching is the gathering of files that match the filename, size and modified date criteria.

    * Phase 2 searching is the internal checking of text files to match the search strings.

    * Upon completion, the number of hits is displayed, along with whether this was an inverse filename search [inv] or [cancelled] by the user

Tips and Tricks
This section gives examples of some cool things to do with searchMonkey.

  Regular Expressions

  Some examples of regular expressions are given here:

(\.[ch])$
    Finds all of the C source code, plus headers.

^(make)
    Finds every make file instance.

^(void function_name)(;)$
    Finds a function declaration, as opposed to the definition

\([a-zA-Z0-9\s]+\)
    Highlights all text within brackets

SearchMonkey User Guide Online
To view the same guide in HTML please visit <http://searchmonkey.sourceforge.net/index.php/SearchMonkey_User_Guide>

AUTHOR
This manual page was written by Varun Hiremath <varunhiremath@gmail.com>, for the Debian project (but may be used by others).