Program to search multiple PM backup text files?

[LuxLuthor]

I regularly backup my PM's from CPF as txt files. I now have about 200 of these files adding up to about 20MB.

Do you guys know of a program that can search out a specific string of characters (i.e. a member's name and/or some key word) and find all occurances in these files, without having to open them individually and search each one?

I'm using XP Pro SP3

Thanks

 

[sygyzy]

What format did you save them in Luthor?

 

[Torque1st]

Since you saved them as text files you can use an good text editor. I think Note Tab lite will handle large files. You can try it free:
http://www.notetab.com/overview.php

I used the lite freeware version for years but I recently upgraded to the PRO version just to get real time formatting. I figure for all the years I have used the free version I need to support the programming effort. I keep several files full of information and used the lite editor.

The STD and PRO versions will do disk file search and replace which may help you or you can combine all of your files into one file and search them that way with Lite.

 

[matrixshaman]

Welcome back Lux - noticed you were MIA for a while after I told someone to see you about a custom battery. I use a 48 Megabyte Ramdisk that loads up each time I boot up. I use this to keep hard disk fragmentation down and use it for unzipping files etc. However it would be ideal for your purposes or if you have a flash disk or a small partition on your hard drive. You could create a small partition also if you have space and assign it a drive letter. Then what you do is just copy all your downloaded files to this Ramdisk, partition or flash drive. Then use a search tool that scans the entire disk for your particular word or phrase. Such search tools can scan a regular hard disk too but with the size of todays disks it would take a long time on most. I don't remember the name of the program I used to use for this but it was easy and fast. I can do essentially the same thing now with a program called Forensic replicator which makes an image of any disk and saves it as a file. Searching the file is easy with a program like lister or the lister in Total Commander. Notepad or Wordpad might also work to search it if it's normal text you are looking for. All this might sound a bit complicated but it's easy once you have things set up and are familiar with the programs. There are probably a dozen ways to go about this but with these programs it's fairly easy.
I just remembered one other program that will low level search a ramdisk, hard disk or flash drive. It's called WinHex.
I also found an old DOS program - very basic but it would work for you in a similar way to the other ones. It's called File Sniffer and is a whopping 11 kilobytes in size :lolsign: Let me know if you want it or can't find it around and I'll send it via email as a zip file if you want. It essentially just finds any files on a drive that contain a particular text string. You then open that file with any text viewer that can search out the string.

 

[Empath]

Since the problem seems to be something addressed more to the realm of fellow members, rather than administration, I'm moving it from Questions/Problems/Suggestion to the Cafe.

Personally I just use the OS search feature for the text involved in the folder that contains the files.

 

[Dr Jekell]

Since you saved them as text files you can use an good text editor. I think Note Tab lite will handle large files. You can try it free:
http://www.notetab.com/overview.php

+1

You can open all of the files in Notetab lite then use the find feature to search all of the files.

 

[dilbert]

I use Windows Search to search through e-mail and files on my computer. It's an add-on search tool and it works really well for me. Since it creates an index of your files, the searches are really quick.

 

[LuxLuthor]

I have been using Note Tab Pro for many years, but I was thinking there was a utility that can search the content of all the text files in a folder without opening all 200 of them. I don't mean to search for the file name, since they are all the same, but rather the text content of a large number of text files without opening them, and without making a RAM disk. Windows search finds names of files. I need something that will find content within a boatload of simple txt files with names that give no clue what is in them.

Edit: It looks like a program such as this may be what I need, but users don't give it a very high stars rating.

This other one, File Boss looks like it does this, but costs $50. I figured this would have been a common issue with all of us saving our PM's and trying to find an item later, and everyone would know what works best. Guess not.

​

 

[Torque1st]

Windows search will look for text within files in a folder or drive and report out the file names of the files that contain that text. You can then open the resulting files in any editor.

As I said before the files can all be combined into one big file and searched. Use the DOS TYPE command and pipes to combine them. If I prod my brain enough I could probably remember how I did that back in the old days. A batch file would do it complete with file names. DOS still has it's uses.

 

[LuxLuthor]

OK, for some reason my windows explorer in XP Pro is not giving me a field to search for text, only file names. I probably would also need some qualifiers for example to search for occurrances that have both "Surefire" AND "FiveMega," and ideally would then display the actual found text to avoid having to open a number of files.

I'll keep looking for utilities out there. PRGrep is one.

 

[carrot]

OK, for some reason my windows explorer in XP Pro is not giving me a field to search for text, only file names. I probably would also need some qualifiers for example to search for occurrances that have both "Surefire" AND "FiveMega," and ideally would then display the actual found text to avoid having to open a number of files.

I'll keep looking for utilities out there. PRGrep is one.

I use grep. You need to be running a Cygwin environment, but there are Windows tools based on grep that are also equally effective.

 

[Torque1st]

OK, for some reason my windows explorer in XP Pro is not giving me a field to search for text, only file names. I probably would also need some qualifiers for example to search for occurrances that have both "Surefire" AND "FiveMega," and ideally would then display the actual found text to avoid having to open a number of files.

I'll keep looking for utilities out there. PRGrep is one.

I use XP pro and explorer gives me two options:
Search for files and folders named
Containing text
Then of course:
Look in

My Computer search also gives me the same options.

I do use windows in the classic mode, not the modern crap mode.

Just pipe the files together, use NoteTab, and forget it. It should take you about 10 minutes at the DOS command line. When you get more files just copy and paste them into the big file or pipe them together again.

In case you do not remember or know DOS commands here is a list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_DOS_commands

Here is an explanation of the pipe function:
http://www.lagmonster.org/docs/DOS7/pipes.html