The Find command is used to locate specific pattern in a file. The Find Window is used to specify the pattern to search for, as well as a number of additional options.
Complexity: linear-time.
When the pattern is found, the cursor is moved to the beginning of a match. To continue searching, execute the Find » Find Next or Find » Find Previous commands. The direction of find depends on whether the Search up or Search down option is selected in a Find Window:
| Operation | Search down | Search up |
|---|---|---|
| Find Next | Forward | Backwards |
| Find Previous | Backwards | Forward |
If pattern is not found in the remaining part of the document, the message box is displayed and find is terminated.
The Find command fully supports regular expressions. To search using regular expressions, select either “ASCII string (char[])” or “UNICODE string (wchar_t[])” pattern type, enter the regular expression, make sure the Regular expression checkbox is checked and enter the sub-expression number you want to search for. Sub-expression 0 represents the expression itself.
If the match is found, the cursor is moved to the beginning of the matched expression or sub-expression. When you use the Find Next command to find the next match, the search is started from the next cell, not the end of the matched expression.
Take the following limitations into account:
Scripts are provided with the following methods to execute the find operations: