REFERENCE:

Find and Replace dialogs

The Find dialog has two variants.

For diagrams: Invoked from the Search menu when the Diagram pane has focus. Search operations are carried out on the current diagram.
For the Editor: Invoked from the Search menu when you are working in the Editor. Searches are carried out on current or specified files. This variant has multiple pages for Find, Replace

Search on Diagrams

Text to find

Enter the string you want to locate in the current diagram and click Find.

Options

Case sensitive: When checked, search operation is case sensitive. When cleared, character case is ignored.
Whole words only: When checked, the string in Text to find is ignored if it is found as a substring of a larger string. For example, when checked search string "calc" will not return a match on "calcTotal".
Regular expressions: When checked, enables regular expressions.

Global Text Search

Find page

This page enables you to search for a string in the file currently open and focused in the Editor.

Search

Enter the string you want to locate in the current file or select from the drop-down history of recently searched strings.

Scope

Choose an option to control the scope of the search.

From start of file: Starts the search from the first character of the first line regardless of the cursor position in the current file.
From current position: Starts the search from the current cursor position and stops at the end of the file.
Selection only: Limits the search to a block of text currently selected in the target file. Disabled if there is no selected text.

Common Options

These options are applicable to all pages of the dialog tabset. Changes do not apply to individual pages. For example, if you change Case Sensitive while the Find page is displayed, and uncheck it after switching to the Replace page, it remains checked if you return to Find.

Case sensitive: When checked, search operation is case sensitive. When cleared, character case is ignored.
Whole words only: When checked, the string in Text to find is ignored if it is found as a substring of a larger string. For example, when checked search string "calc" will not return a match on "calcTotal".
Occurrences limit: When checked, stops the search after n occurrences of the search string in Search have been found. Enter an integer value in the field.

Regular Expressions

These options apply to all pages in the same way as described in the previous section. Searches in files support regular expressions. It is beyond the scope of this document to teach this concept found in many programming languages. A brief summary of the expressions supported by this dialog is included... see Supported Regular Expressions.

Replace page

This page enables you to locate and replace a string in the file currently open and focused in the Editor. The controls on this page are identical to those on the Find page with one addition:

Replace with: Enter the replacement string. Occurrences of the string are specified in the Common options. Enter a value or select from the drop-down history of the recent replacements.

Find in Files page

This page enables an extended find across multiple files.

Search: Enter the string you want to locate in the file(s) you specify, or select a value from the drop-down history of recently searched strings.
In files: Enter a wildcard expression for the name(s) and extension(s) of file(s) to be included in the search, or select from the default list of wildcards.
Start from: Enter or browse to specify the directory in which the search will begin.
Process subfolders: Check this option to include subdirectories of the directory specified in Start from in the search.

Replace in Files page

This page enables an extended find and replace operation across multiple files. The controls are the same as for Find File with one addition:

Replace with: Enter the replacement string. Occurrences of the string are specified in the Common options. Enter a value or select from the drop-down history of the recent replacements.

Supported Regular Expressions

Together supports the following summarized Perl5 regular expressions through use of the OROMatcher ^TM Perl5 classes. For a definitive reference, you should consult http://www.perl.org/CPAN/doc/manual/html/pod/perlre.html and also the book Programming Perl, 2nd Edition from O'Reilly & Associates.

For efficiency reasons the character set operator [...] is limited to work only on ASCII characters (i.e. Unicode characters 0 through 255). Otherwise, all Unicode characters should be useable in regular expressions.

Alternatives separated by "|"
Quantified atoms

Quantified Atom

Function

{n,m}

Match at least n but not more than m times.

{n,}

Match at least n times

{n}

Match exactly n times.

*

Match 0 or more times

+

Match 1 or more times

?

Match 0 or 1 times

Atoms
- regular expression within parentheses
- a dot "." matches everything except \n
- a ^ is a null token matching the beginning of string or line (i.e., the position right after a newline or right before the beginning of a string)
- a $ is a null token matching the end of string or line (i.e., the position right before a newline or right after the end of a string)
- Character classes (e.g., [abcd]) and ranges (e.g. [a-z])
  - Special backslashed characters work within a character class (except for backreferences and boundaries).
  - \b is backspace inside a character class
- Special backslashed characters are listed in the table below:

Backslash Character

Function

\b

Null token matching a word boundary (\w on one side and \W on the other)

\B

Null token matching a boundary that isn't a word boundary

\A

Match only at the beginning of a string

\Z

Match only at the end of a string (or right before a newline at the end)

\n

Newline

\r

Carriage return

\t

Tab

\f

Form feed

\d

Digit [0-9]

\D

Non- digit [^0-9]

\w

Word character [0-9a-z_A-Z]

\W

Non-word character [^0-9a-z_A-Z]

\s

Whitespace character [ \t\n\r\f]

\S

Non-whitespace character [ ^\t\n\r\f]

\xnn

Hexadecimal character representation

\cD

Match the corresponding control character

\nn or \nnn

Octal character representation, unless a backreference .a \1, \2, \3, etc. match whatever the first, second, third, etc. parenthesized group matched. This is called a backreference. If there is no corresponding group, the number is interpreted as an octal representation of a character.

\0

matches null character

Any other backslashed character matches itself

Expressions within parentheses are matched as subpattern groups and saved for use by certain methods.

By default, a quantified subpattern is greedy . In other words it matches as many times as possible without causing the rest of the pattern not to match. To change the quantifiers to match the minimum number of times possible, without causing the rest of the pattern not to match, you may use a "?" right after the quantifier.

Wildcard

Function

*?

Match 0 or more times

+?

Match 1 or more times

??

Match 0 or 1 time

{n}?

Match exactly n times

{n,}?

Match at least n times

{n,m}?

Match at least n but not more than m times.

Perl5 extended regular expressions are fully supported.

(?#text)

An embedded comment causing text to be ignored.

(?:regexp)

Groups things like "()" but doesn't cause the group match to be saved.

(?=regexp)

A zero-width positive lookahead assertion. For example, \w+(?=\s) matches a word followed by whitespace, without including whitespace in the MatchResult.

(?!regexp)

A zero-width negative lookahead assertion. For example foo(?!bar) matches any occurrence of "foo" that isn't followed by "bar". Remember that this is a zero-width assertion, which means that a(?!b)d will match ad because a is followed by a character that is not b (the d) and a d follows the zero-width assertion.

(?imsx)

One or more embedded pattern-match modifiers. i enables case insensitivity, m enables multiline treatment of the input, s enables single line treatment of the input, and x enables extended whitespace comments.

Repeating the search

To repeat the last search, press F3. This will select the next matched element (until the last one is found) in the diagram. Re-invoking either dialog begins a new search.

See also:

Reference: Keyboard Shortcuts

Quantified Atom	Function
{n,m}	Match at least n but not more than m times.
{n,}	Match at least n times
{n}	Match exactly n times.
*	Match 0 or more times
+	Match 1 or more times
?	Match 0 or 1 times

Backslash Character	Function
\b	Null token matching a word boundary (\w on one side and \W on the other)
\B	Null token matching a boundary that isn't a word boundary
\A	Match only at the beginning of a string
\Z	Match only at the end of a string (or right before a newline at the end)
\n	Newline
\r	Carriage return
\t	Tab
\f	Form feed
\d	Digit [0-9]
\D	Non- digit [^0-9]
\w	Word character [0-9a-z_A-Z]
\W	Non-word character [^0-9a-z_A-Z]
\s	Whitespace character [ \t\n\r\f]
\S	Non-whitespace character [ ^\t\n\r\f]
\xnn	Hexadecimal character representation
\cD	Match the corresponding control character
\nn or \nnn	Octal character representation, unless a backreference .a \1, \2, \3, etc. match whatever the first, second, third, etc. parenthesized group matched. This is called a backreference. If there is no corresponding group, the number is interpreted as an octal representation of a character.
\0	matches null character
	Any other backslashed character matches itself

Wildcard	Function
*?	Match 0 or more times
+?	Match 1 or more times
??	Match 0 or 1 time
{n}?	Match exactly n times
{n,}?	Match at least n times
{n,m}?	Match at least n but not more than m times.
*Perl5 extended regular expressions* are fully supported.
(?#text)	An embedded comment causing text to be ignored.
(?:regexp)	Groups things like "()" but doesn't cause the group match to be saved.
(?=regexp)	A zero-width positive lookahead assertion. For example, \w+(?=\s) matches a word followed by whitespace, without including whitespace in the MatchResult.
(?!regexp)	A zero-width negative lookahead assertion. For example foo(?!bar) matches any occurrence of "foo" that isn't followed by "bar". Remember that this is a zero-width assertion, which means that a(?!b)d will match ad because a is followed by a character that is not b (the d) and a d follows the zero-width assertion.
(?imsx)	One or more embedded pattern-match modifiers. i enables case insensitivity, m enables multiline treatment of the input, s enables single line treatment of the input, and x enables extended whitespace comments.