How to? Search for Text Containing '[' with FSEARCH

[Jay Sage]

I wanted to use FSEARCH to find all files that contained the function UNQUOTE but not UNQUOTES, so I used the option

/t"@unquote["​

That failed because '[' was interpreted as the start of a character class. I tried escaping it as [ or ^[, but that did not help. I was forced to use a regular expression search instead. It seems to me that there should be some way to override the character class interpretation.

It's also worth noting that I got the error messages, such as TCC: premature end of char-class "(?i)@unquote`[`" , not just once but once for each matching file. And where did the (?i) come from?

 

[rconn]

All searches in FSEARCH are regular expressions. If you don't select the "Regular Expressions" option, FSEARCH will convert the search string to a regex.

If you want to match a literal [, you need to escape it with a backslash (\[).

The (?i) is the regular expression way of saying "ignore case".

 

[Jay Sage]

All searches in FSEARCH are regular expressions. If you don't select the "Regular Expressions" option, FSEARCH will convert the search string to a regex.

It would be helpful if that fact were included in the help information. So the /T option is for people who do not know regular expressions and want the program to convert their (mostly) plain text into one?

If you want to match a literal [, you need to escape it with a backslash (\[).

That doesn't work. I had tried it, though I did not say so in the original posting.

->fsearch /b /t"@unquote\[" a*.btm​

TCC: premature end of char-class "(?i)@unquote\\["​

​

It does work with the /E switch, but not with /T.

 

[Charles Dye]

Looks like the regular expression engine wants to treat the open bracket as the start of a class. Maybe let it?

fsearch /b /t"@unquote[[]" a*.btm

 

[Charles Dye]

After going back and actually reading the help file....

fsearch /b /e"@unquote\[" a*.btm

 

[vefatica]

I tried that.

v:\> fsearch /b /t"@unquote\[" *.btm

It didn't choke and it didn't find anything. But ...

v:\> fsearch /b /t"@unquote\[" *.btm

v:\> grep unquote *.btm
apppaths.btm:set exe=%@unquotes[%$]
closetcmd.btm:set ntabs=%@unquote[%@tcipc[TCTABS;;2]]
closetcmd.btm:set hwnd=%@unquote[%@tcipc[HWND;;2]]
gettcmdver.btm:set hwnd=%@unquote[%@tcipc[HWND;;2]]
tcplacement.btm:set tcHwnd=%@unquote[%@TCIPC[HWND;;2]]

I also tried @Charles Dye's suggestion. It didn't find anything.

v:\> fsearch /b /t"@unquote[[]" *.btm

v:\>

And /e didn't help.

v:\> fsearch /b /e"@unquote\[" v:\*.btm

v:\> fsearch /b /e"@unquote[[]" v:\*.btm

v:\>

Even without the brackets it finds nothing.

v:\> fsearch /b /e"unquote" v:\*.btm

v:\> fsearch /b /t"unquote" v:\*.btm

v:\>

 

[vefatica]

This finds them.

And ... files searched = 0 below!

v:\> fsearch /t"unquote" v:\*.btm

Matches: 0        Matching files: 0        Total files searched: 0

 

[vefatica]

And, though the help says it's OK ...

v:\> fsearch /=
TCC: (Sys) Access is denied.
 "D:\tc36\FSEARCH.EXE"

That might have been mentioned before. It's the same without /=.

But the full path to the EXE (d:\tc36\fsearch.exe) brings up the FSEARCH dialog.

 

[rconn]

It would be helpful if that fact were included in the help information. So the /T option is for people who do not know regular expressions and want the program to convert their (mostly) plain text into one?

That's correct.

If they don't know regular expressions, I don't know that adding that to the help would bring any enlightenment.

 

[rconn]

v:\> fsearch /=
TCC: (Sys) Access is denied.
 "D:\tc36\FSEARCH.EXE"

Not reproducible here. Did you do something like disable or alias the FSEARCH command?

 

[vefatica]

Not reproducible here. Did you do something like disable or alias the FSEARCH command?

There's nothing in the OPTION\Commands\DisabledCommands list. And,

v:\> which fsearch
fsearch is an internal command

 

[vefatica]

And now this works whereas it didn't earlier (post #5 ... trying Charles's suggestion)

v:\> fsearch /b /t"@unquote[[]" *.btm
V:\closetcmd.btm
V:\gettcmdver.btm
V:\tcctr.btm
V:\tcplacement.btm

 

[rconn]

If you want to disable the [ being interpreted as a wildcard character (which it will be in both regex and non-regex searches), you should use the /i option.

fsearch /b /i /t"@unquote[" *.btm

 

[Jay Sage]

I think it would be nice if the /T option would handle escaping in the usual way for text (default ^). My first thought (though it may be more complex) is that the escape character would just have to be changed to the backslash character in the generated regular expression. So fsearch /t"unquote^[" would become in effect fsearch /e"unquote\[".