Problems Searching a phrase

[Guest Marc S]

I am searching thru Word Perfect documents. I realize Windows XP Pro has

changed it's searching component (Q309173), and I successfully made this

change. This fixes searching for single words, but when searching "multiple

words" aka "a phrase", I get nothing. Is there something I'm missing, or a

recommneded tool to use.

 

Thanks.

[Guest Bob I]

Re: Problems Searching a phrase

 

Agent Ransack is what I like.

 

http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/

 

Marc S wrote:

> I am searching thru Word Perfect documents. I realize Windows XP Pro has

> changed it's searching component (Q309173), and I successfully made this

> change. This fixes searching for single words, but when searching "multiple

> words" aka "a phrase", I get nothing. Is there something I'm missing, or a

> recommneded tool to use.

>

> Thanks.

[Guest VanguardLH]

Re: Problems Searching a phrase

 

"Bob I" wrote in <news:uBxA9J$zIHA.2312@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl>:

> Agent Ransack is what I like.

>

> http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/

>

> Marc S wrote:

>

>> I am searching thru Word Perfect documents. I realize Windows XP Pro has

>> changed it's searching component (Q309173), and I successfully made this

>> change. This fixes searching for single words, but when searching "multiple

>> words" aka "a phrase", I get nothing. Is there something I'm missing, or a

>> recommneded tool to use.

>>

>> Thanks.

 

I second the vote on Agent Ransack (free; the paid version is called

File Locator).

 

Besides being a better search utility, it also lets you use regular

expressions to find exactly what you want to look for. Also, unlike the

search in Windows XP which got crippled (which only shows matches on

files for which it has a viewer) from the version of it Windows 2000

(which would show any file having the specified string), Agent Ransack

is like the Windows 2000 search in finding any file that has the

specified string. You could be in a DOS shell and do a 'dir' command to

show a file but Windows XP's search won't find it even if the string is

in that file just because Windows XP doesn't have a viewer for that

file.

 

In the KB article that you mention, "A filter component is not

registered for the file type". The "filter" is the viewer required for

Windows XP's search to look into the file to find the string. While

more "filters" got added by SP-2, the fact that only those filetypes

will get listed in a search obviously means that other filetypes for

files that do exist won't be listed in the search results. You end up

with incomplete searches. Agent Ransack, like SysInternals 'string'

command, and other search tools, don't care what is the filetype of a

file or how its internal contents are structured for some open or closed

formatting scheme. They look in binary mode for the strings, much like

you would when using a hex editor.

 

The KB article mentions on how to search on all filetypes but that only

applies if you enable the file indexing service. I'm not interested in

impacting the responsiveness of my host nor do I need a utility to

organize my files which I already do very proficiently.

 

Agent Ransack. Yes.

Windows XP Search. No.

[Guest Scooby Doo]

Re: Problems Searching a phrase

 

 

"VanguardLH" <V@nguard.LH> wrote in message

news:UMqdnaBVMN1EeMvVnZ2dnUVZ_j2dnZ2d@comcast.com...

> "Bob I" wrote in <news:uBxA9J$zIHA.2312@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl>:

>

> > Agent Ransack is what I like.

> >

> > http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/

> >

> > Marc S wrote:

> >

> >> I am searching thru Word Perfect documents. I realize Windows XP Pro

has

> >> changed it's searching component (Q309173), and I successfully made

this

> >> change. This fixes searching for single words, but when searching

"multiple

> >> words" aka "a phrase", I get nothing. Is there something I'm missing,

or a

> >> recommneded tool to use.

> >>

> >> Thanks.

>

> I second the vote on Agent Ransack (free; the paid version is called

> File Locator).

>

<snip>

>

> The KB article mentions on how to search on all filetypes but that only

> applies if you enable the file indexing service.

 

That's not actually so, and it says as much on that page. I've made the

change and kept the service turned off.

 

I tweaked XP's pathetic Search as soon as I realised what a step down it was

from Win2k. But still, the distrust was there, and I only ever use Agent

Ransack myself now anyway.

> I'm not interested in

> impacting the responsiveness of my host nor do I need a utility to

> organize my files which I already do very proficiently.

>

> Agent Ransack. Yes.

> Windows XP Search. No.

 

Thirded.

[Guest Marc S]

Re: Problems Searching a phrase

 

 

 

"Scooby Doo" wrote:

>

> "VanguardLH" <V@nguard.LH> wrote in message

> news:UMqdnaBVMN1EeMvVnZ2dnUVZ_j2dnZ2d@comcast.com...

> > "Bob I" wrote in <news:uBxA9J$zIHA.2312@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl>:

> >

> > > Agent Ransack is what I like.

> > >

> > > http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/

> > >

> > > Marc S wrote:

> > >

> > >> I am searching thru Word Perfect documents. I realize Windows XP Pro

> has

> > >> changed it's searching component (Q309173), and I successfully made

> this

> > >> change. This fixes searching for single words, but when searching

> "multiple

> > >> words" aka "a phrase", I get nothing. Is there something I'm missing,

> or a

> > >> recommneded tool to use.

> > >>

> > >> Thanks.

> >

> > I second the vote on Agent Ransack (free; the paid version is called

> > File Locator).

> >

> <snip>

> >

> > The KB article mentions on how to search on all filetypes but that only

> > applies if you enable the file indexing service.

>

> That's not actually so, and it says as much on that page. I've made the

> change and kept the service turned off.

>

> I tweaked XP's pathetic Search as soon as I realised what a step down it was

> from Win2k. But still, the distrust was there, and I only ever use Agent

> Ransack myself now anyway.

>

> > I'm not interested in

> > impacting the responsiveness of my host nor do I need a utility to

> > organize my files which I already do very proficiently.

> >

> > Agent Ransack. Yes.

> > Windows XP Search. No.

>

> Thirded.>

 

Well, I spent the afternoon downloading and installing Agent Ransack. Then

I tested by adding the words "ending in" in the Containing text field in the

application. These words "ending in" are located in several Word Perfect

documents. None showed up in the search. If I limit the search to only th

word "ending", then I get them all. Why can't I view them when I search for

both words "ending in" (I have tried with and without quotes).

[Guest VanguardLH]

Re: Problems Searching a phrase

 

"Marc S" wrote in

<news:CC2BAA02-3FE3-4729-8344-CBF13DBCC1E4@microsoft.com>:

> "Scooby Doo" wrote:

>

>>

>> "VanguardLH" <V@nguard.LH> wrote in message

>> news:UMqdnaBVMN1EeMvVnZ2dnUVZ_j2dnZ2d@comcast.com...

>>> "Bob I" wrote in <news:uBxA9J$zIHA.2312@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl>:

>>>

>>> > Agent Ransack is what I like.

>>> >

>>> > http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/

>>> >

>>> > Marc S wrote:

>>> >

>>> >> I am searching thru Word Perfect documents. I realize Windows XP Pro

>> has

>>> >> changed it's searching component (Q309173), and I successfully made

>> this

>>> >> change. This fixes searching for single words, but when searching

>> "multiple

>>> >> words" aka "a phrase", I get nothing. Is there something I'm missing,

>> or a

>>> >> recommneded tool to use.

>>> >>

>>> >> Thanks.

>>>

>>> I second the vote on Agent Ransack (free; the paid version is called

>>> File Locator).

>>>

>> <snip>

>>>

>>> The KB article mentions on how to search on all filetypes but that only

>>> applies if you enable the file indexing service.

>>

>> That's not actually so, and it says as much on that page. I've made the

>> change and kept the service turned off.

>>

>> I tweaked XP's pathetic Search as soon as I realised what a step down it was

>> from Win2k. But still, the distrust was there, and I only ever use Agent

>> Ransack myself now anyway.

>>

>>> I'm not interested in

>>> impacting the responsiveness of my host nor do I need a utility to

>>> organize my files which I already do very proficiently.

>>>

>>> Agent Ransack. Yes.

>>> Windows XP Search. No.

>>

>> Thirded.>

>

> Well, I spent the afternoon downloading and installing Agent Ransack. Then

> I tested by adding the words "ending in" in the Containing text field in the

> application. These words "ending in" are located in several Word Perfect

> documents. None showed up in the search. If I limit the search to only th

> word "ending", then I get them all. Why can't I view them when I search for

> both words "ending in" (I have tried with and without quotes).

 

In Agent Ransack, under the Options tab, did you have either of the

"Regular Expressions" or "Match case" options enabled?

 

You sure there is a space character (hex 20) between the words "ending"

and "in"? I don't use WordPerfect. It might be inserting a

non-breaking space character, some formatting character(s), a newline or

line-break character if they are on different lines, etc. As I recall,

WordPerfect has a raw-source view so you could see the actual characters

in the document and now just how it renders those characters on the

screen.

 

You could try using regular expressions for the search string. For

example, to find the string which must appear one, or more, times would

be:

 

(ending in)+

 

However, to account for formatting characters between the words, Agent

Ransack unfortunately doesn't support the full functionality of PCRE

(Perl core regular expressions), which if available could then use:

 

(ending(\W)+in)+

 

This would look for one, or more, non-alphanumeric characters between

the two words, and that resulting phrase appearing one, or more, times.

Nor can I use:

 

(\bending\bin\b)+

 

which would look for the words on word boundaries (\b). The full

version might more fully support PCRE. There might be better freebie

search tools with fuller PCRE support. I haven't found one yet. So,

for now, I'm stuck using Agent Ransack looking for strings of words that

are separated by a space character. There are ways of generating an

equivalent to \W and \b using a character list (a list of characters

within square brackets which I could specify repeats one, or more,

times) but it wastes more time trying to compose the regular expression

than doing the search a few times with different search strings.