Question

  • Creator
    Topic
  • #4078302

    Smart GUI-based text search tool

    by n3kk ·

    Tags: 

    I have an occasional need to do custom text searches. I could write a small program to do this every time I needed this, but I was wondering if there’s a GUI-based tool out there that is capable of doing these sorts of chores by simply configuring some rules.

    For example, I currently have a need to search a very large text file from top to bottom, look for the occurrence of “STRING A”, and when it finds “STRING A”, look for the next occurrence of “STRING B”. When it finds “STRING B”, append “STRING B” to another text file (or text window I can copy the list of “STRING B” occurrences at the end of the search). It would also be nice if it could be configured to not add “STRING B” to the output file or window if it’s already in the output file or window, but that would just be icing on the cake. The same search rules are not always like this exactly, so finding a tool that I can easily reconfigure to do things like this would be great to have around without having to script or code every time I need this sort of functionality.

You are posting a reply to: Smart GUI-based text search tool

The posting of advertisements, profanity, or personal attacks is prohibited. Please refer to our Community FAQs for details. All submitted content is subject to our Terms of Use.

All Answers

  • Author
    Replies
    • #4078323
      Avatar photo

      That’s not a search tool.

      by rproffitt ·

      In reply to Smart GUI-based text search tool

      When you added the requirement to edit/add text that’s search/edit/add/replace and more than search.

      For now, make some macro to find the first, then a second macro to find the second and then one more macro to do that last step. This way it’s just 3 button presses.

      • #4078455

        Reply To: Smart GUI-based text search tool

        by n3kk ·

        In reply to That’s not a search tool.

        I’m not editing the file, in fact I don’t want to modify the original file at all. The file is huge and takes many minutes for notepad to even open.
        Notebook++ opens it a lot faster, but I want to process this overnight or while I’m away from the computer. I tried alternating searches between “STRING A” and “STRING B” in notebook++ (notebook++ saves searches so there was no typing) but it was still very tedious and after about a hundred clicks and only getting through a tiny fraction of the file I decided this needed to be automated. The second search is not independent of the first search, it must start from the point in the file where the first search found “STRING A” until it finds “STRING B”. The output is either to a text window or appending another text file with the “result” which is a list of “STRING B”. It would be best if it didn’t output anything if “STRING B” was already in the output window or output file, but there are plenty of tools to remove duplicates easily. All of this is fairly easily accomplished using code or script but I was hoping there’s a general-purpose tool out there I can reconfigure with rules to do this so I can use it again for future work.

        • #4078461
          Avatar photo

          “the output window”

          by rproffitt ·

          In reply to Reply To: Smart GUI-based text search tool

          Is where it’s more than search or any off the shelf solution I’ve seen.

          As to rules, that’s what code essentially is. Rules for your app to follow.

          Now if it’s the work of writing the code that is stopping you, have you learned about ChatGPT? At the office we use that to bang out tools like you mentioned.

Viewing 0 reply threads