Multiple file patterns - EVERYTHING TIP 001

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Folders that contain a child file or folder - EVERYTHING TIP 012

Post by ChrisGreaves »

The "child" keyword is different from the "folder" discussed in Everything TIP 005.
"I'm wondering if there is a way to show all folders on my hard drive that contain any mp3s? I don't need to see the mp3s, just the folders, if they happen to have any mp3s in them."
I found the response here.

I needed to see if I had on hand an application that dealt with images.
FoldersOnly1.png
I used a search string ""image*.do*"" since I write my applications in MSWord VBA. The search returned more than a screen ful of files scattered across various folders.
FoldersOnly2.png
The search string "child:image*.do*" gave me a list of application folders, which makes more sense to me.
Cheers, Chris
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Searching for multiple words in a document - EVERYTHING TIP 013

Post by ChrisGreaves »

This Thread in the VoidTools forum.

My search string is:

Code: Select all

*.doc dm:lastmonth content:bonavista content:world content:smuggling
The searches for *.doc and dm:lastmonth are fast; they search the Everything index and return (on my machine) 59 objects.
I have three "content:" terms.

As I type the first "content:" term, Everything appears to refresh the screen with 59 objects, suggesting that every DOCument modified in the past month has none or more characters of content. As I type the letter "b" to get "content:b", Everything appears to refresh the screen with 59 objects, suggesting that every DOCument modified in the past month contains at least one occurrence of the letter "b". This does not surprise me as "b" is a fairly common letter in my vocabulary.
But as I slowly continue typing, by the time I reach "content:bon", I am down to 45 matches, and "content:bonavista" sees me down to 42 objects.

OK so far.

As I type as far as "co" to begin the keyword "content:", Everything returns only 4 objects, because of the 42 objects found so far, only 4 of them contain "co" in the filename. Indeed by the time I get to "content" NO objects are reported. Of the 42 reported containing "bonavista", not one has the string "content" in its file name.

Typing the colon tells Everything that we have switched from "a part of the filename" to "I am interested in what text is inside the file".

The same logic pursues me as I continue to the second content term - "content:world", passing through 0 objects than back to 8 objects as I complete the literal string "world"

The same logic pursues me as I continue to the third content term - "content:smuggling", passing through 0 objects than back to 1 object as I complete the literal string "smuggling"

So now you know two things:-
(1) How to search for the presence of three disparate words within the content of your files
(2) Try not to panic yourself by watching the number of objects returned yo-yo as you key in a long or complex search!

Cheers, Chris
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Omit folders from results - EVERYTHING TIP 014

Post by ChrisGreaves »

How to exclude a directory from ALL searches in future?

I do a lot of work in MSWord DOCuments, a search for *.doc turns up too many results in the folder C:\Windows\; my DOCuments are mainly, but not totally, on my T: partition.
OmitFolders01.png
In this screenshot of the first screen of a search for *.DOC, the folder C:\Windows delivers most of the data, data that I cannot use (arguing that I ought not to be messing about with files in C:\Windows\)
OmitFolders02.png
In this screenshot of the first screen of a search for *.DOC, the folder C:\Windows\ is not represented at all. I will not accidentally find myself opening a C:\Windows\ file by executing a file name from Everything's search results.

This post suggests Omissions or Exclusions, and a later post in the topic suggests that Omissions is what I need.
OmitFolders03.png
Cheers, Chris
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Partial folder names - EVERYTHING TIP 015

Post by ChrisGreaves »

I want to find files based on a part of a folder name.
PartialFolderNames.png
Specifically I want to find spreadsheets within my Greaves\Administration\ folder tree, for this year ("2022") and for last year ("2021").
The full path will be something like "T:\Greaves\Admin\2022\" or "T:\Greaves\Admin\2021\".
I found the trick here.

I use a search laid out like this:-

Code: Select all

*.xls \202
The *.xls narrows the file name down to Excel workbooks.
The \202 indicates that I am looking for folders that contain the three digits 202.
Of course, this will collect workbooks from 2020 as well as 20231 and 2022, but it is a start, and an easy one that that.
In the image above I have sorted the results into descending sequence by size.
PartialFolderNames2.png
And what do you think of the apparently rogue entry (in the first image) of 2021_06.xls?

Cheers, Chris
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Command-line searches - EVERYTHING TIP 016

Post by ChrisGreaves »

You may have reason to perform a search on a periodic basis. Once a week maybe, or at the start of each day. Create a small DOS batch file, or similar, and insert a single command line:-

Code: Select all

C:\Program Files\Everything 1.5a>Everything64.exe -s whatfaq.doc
This command locates all my WhatFAQ.DOC files.

Code: Select all

C:\Program Files\Everything 1.5a>Everything64.exe -path "T:\Greaves"
This command finds all folders AND files within the tree T:\Greaves\

A complete summary is available here.

Later: There is a special tool "ES.EXE" available for download. Please refer to ES 1.1 Command Line Tool for Everything 1.4.1

Cheers, Chris
Last edited by ChrisGreaves on 01 Dec 2022, 10:51, edited 1 time in total.
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Search History - EVERYTHING TIP 017

Post by ChrisGreaves »

Untitled.png
Search history
I had been wondering about this until early this morning, then I learned about the Alt+UpArrow (and Alt+DownArrow) key combinations.
Now I can make use of searches-that-have-worked-in-the-past.
Cheers
Chris
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multiple Extensions - EVERYTHING TIP 018

Post by ChrisGreaves »

ext:xls should also list xlsx files, right?
From time to time our simple searches may fail without us knowing it!
A simple search "*.xls" will find ONLY my MSExcel2003 workbook files, but "*.xlsx" will find only the Excel workbooks created in MSExcel2007 and later versions.
If I want to find all Excel workbooks regardless of version "*.xls" will not get the job done:

Code: Select all

*.xls
Everything018.png
My first thought was to use "*.xls*", which will return all workbooks, but too will cloud the issue by returning DOCuments and other files. I may well miss seeing a workbook because of the number of non-workbook files:
Everything018a.png
The Search Function "ext:" does the trick. Note in the example above that only when the trailing portion of the full name matches xls or xlsx do we see the file. Those xlsx.doc and xlsx.doc.lnk files do not appear:

Code: Select all

ext:xls;xlsx
In this post I am not going to discuss the function "extension-frequency:", but you are welcome to try it.
Search stringCount of objects found
extension-frequency:>1341,354
extension-frequency:>10339,144
extension-frequency:>100332,390
extension-frequency:>1000300,430
extension-frequency:>10000201,756
extension-frequency:>1000000
Cheers, Chris
P.S. If you think we must be nearing the end of discussing search functions, think again. C
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Matching case-sensitive objects - EVERYTHING TIP 019

Post by ChrisGreaves »

I have decided to locate text files of the form "winterizing.txt"
Everything019a.png
I have four such files (image above), I know, because I created them before writing this post! The name suffixes 1 through 4 allow me to change the case-spelling of the file names under Win10.
I know of two methods to specify that case must match.

(1) From the menu choose Search, then toggle ON Match Case(image below).
Don't forget to toggle Match Case to OFF when you are finished searching a special instance.
Everything019c.png

(2) Use the "case:" Modifier as a prefix to one or more of your search terms(image below).
Everything019b.png
Note that in this example I have used the case: modifier in front of both my search terms.
I suggest that you create four files with different cases and play around with the case: modifier.

I found this clue at No hit puzzle , but note that under Windows, drive letters are case-insensitive. Please see also Match Case for drive letter?
You can find a brief specification of the case: modifier here, under "Syntax" and then "Modifiers".

Cheers, Chris
.
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Removing punctuation - EVERYTHING TIP 020

Post by ChrisGreaves »

I have existing text of the form “foo, bar: boo-goo? (one, two)” and want to enter it in the search bar without any punctuation, that is, as “foo bar boo goo one two”

Copy the text from its source, but instead of pasting with Ctrl+V, paste with Ctrl+Shift+V.

Cheers, Chris
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Partnered file names - EVERYTHING TIP 021

Post by ChrisGreaves »

Based on this topic

I have stored video files of music which download as M4A files "video plus audio format". I convert the M4A files to MP3 files "audio only" and delete the original M4A files, leaving me with a set of MP3 files.

But sometimes I forget to delete the M4A files.
MatchingSecondaryFile_01.png

Code: Select all

regex:^(.*)\.mp3$ fileexists:\1.m4a
This Regular Expression search string locates all MP3 files and then looks to see if, for any such file, a corresponding M4A file can be found in the index.
MatchingSecondaryFile_02.png
I right-click and choose Open Path; this serves as a quick visual check.
My next step would be to export the list and delete the 114 original M4A files.

Or, of course, we can flip the two search terms:-

Code: Select all

regex:^(.*)\.m4a$ fileexists:\1.mp3
MatchingSecondaryFile_03.png
You may feel lucky, and decide to Edit, Select All of this pane and tap Delete.

Cheers, Chris
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Length vs. Size - EVERYTHING TIP 022

Post by ChrisGreaves »

I do not understand this completely, but the length and the size terms refer to different characteristics within the search filter. In the examples below I am searching my hard drive for audio files of the form *.mp3.
Length_Size_01.png
SIZE refers to the size of the file on the hard drive. I have many MP3 tracks that exceed one megabyte in length.
Length_Size_02.png
LENGTH refers to the length of the file name, and in Everything syntax “Name” means “file.txt”. So the search filter above I am asking for MP3 files whose “name+extent” is less than seven characters.
The file “00.MP3” has six characters in its name, so it satisfied the search filter.

Now after this it gets complicated because, I believe, we can specify which parts of the FullPath can be tested for length. So I am not going to go there yet!
See for example this post.
Cheers, Chris
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AND and character strings- EVERYTHING TIP 023

Post by ChrisGreaves »

"A character string isn't really a character string until it is embraced with double-quotes"
My music player alerts my ears that a track needs be edited.
The file name is T:\Music\2017\201712\20171222\Wagner\Lohengrin\Lohengrin - Act II_144p.mp3
I load this string into the Everything search box and receive the response:-
PartialMatch_01.png
I am puzzled because I had thought that loading a complete and unique identifier for the file would produce a unique result. That is, I expected that given the drive and folder path as part of a single search string T:\Music\2017\201712\20171222\Wagner\Lohengrin\ and given as the rest of that string the complete name and extension Act II_144p.mp3 I would receive the only possible match in my file system.

The answer: Add quotes (") around the search query.
Space acts as an AND so without them you're basically searching for:

Code: Select all

T:\Music\2017\201712\20171222\Wagner\Lohengrin\Lohengrin 
AND
- 
AND
Act
AND
II_144p.mp3
Thanks to Skodd!
Cheers, Chris
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Re: Multiple file patterns - EVERYTHING TIP 001

Post by ChrisGreaves »

ChrisGreaves wrote:
28 Aug 2022, 13:12
I plan to post here various "clever things" to do with the search strings in VoidTools's application Everything.exe.
Well now, five months have passed. Twenty-three eye-openers, and I hope that that is enough to convince you that Everything.exe is exceeding powerful.
I have still similar posts, but am now getting a little bit out of my depth.

So I thought to pause my gospel efforts, and raise myself to the point where I know more about Everything than does David. There’s not much point in being the second-most brilliant programmer on Earth, is there?
To reach my goal I will need a really good tutor, and David is too busy right now, so I will spend a little while developing a Really Good Tutorial and then follow that.

The measure of my success will be that once I release the tutorial, the number of posts-per-day in VoidTools will drop by at least one-third.
In the meantime, this topic remains open. I might use it to summarize specific tasks as I discover them.
Cheers, Chris
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Re: Multiple file patterns - EVERYTHING TIP 001

Post by ChrisGreaves »

If you have been following this topic you may have realised that there is more to Everything than meets the eye.

So, would you like to collaborate on a Tutorial for Everything?

Despite the term "collaborate" meaning "to work with", I will do all the heavy lifting.
But I could make good use of someone who uses Everything, either at the beginner or the expert level, to pass comment on my efforts.

You would get to see your name in lights AND become almost as good as David Carpenter (@void) along the way.

The initial work is to comment on things like layout, depth of cover etc.
Then, later, to look at, and possibly run each section as it arrives.

This is not the place for me to tell you that for me it looks like a twelve-month project, because you can bail out at any time, right?
Post here or PM or email me for details.
Thanks, Chris
P.S. I managed to produce 19,000 words before I settled on what I thing is a reasonable format. C
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Re: Multiple file patterns - EVERYTHING TIP 001

Post by ChrisGreaves »

BobH wrote:
09 Oct 2022, 17:59
My old days as a systems programmer makes me want to clean up the clutter and make more disk space available ...
Good morniong, Bob.

Really Useful Set of Bookmark Searches 2.2 for Everything This topic over at Voidtools (version number is NOT that of Everything.EXE) should keep you happy until the football comes on tonight. "Junk files" via bookmarks is my latest discovery, being documented in The User Tutorial.
Bookmarks_06.png
I still would not delete junk files for the sake of disk space, but I do delete them to save time in the eye/brain searching for stuff.
I have a project which I Zip and upload each week. I purge all MSWord backup files "Backup of" before creating the zip file.

I would purge all junk files from a client folder before heading out to run a demonstration, so as not to confusauser.

That junk files can be identified with a bookmark suggests to me that the bookmark could be passed by a command-line parameter, and that suggests (to me) that the junk files could be purged (after a nightly backup batch script) to an external drive, just to keep the laptop clean, without really losing the backup files. I have not yet advanced that far in my knowledge. :blush:

Cheers, Chris
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