Interpret Search Results

When you have executed an action, detailed search results are available on the Results panel. Inspecting the results is quite straightforward.

1. Set the display options you want. Either turn on Automatic Update, or click the Update button on the toolbar after changing the options.

• Display files and matches: Select whether to display file names and/or individual search matches. Individual search matches can be shown with or without context.
• Group search matches: Group matches per file to display the matches of each file, using the name of the file as a header. Group unique matches to see identical matches only once per file, or only once for the whole result set.
• Display totals: Show totals for the whole operation before or after the results. When grouping per file, show totals for each file before or after the matches in that file. When grouping unique matches, toggle indicating the number of times each match was found.
• Sort files: When grouping per files, sort the files alphabetically by full path, or by number of search matches found in each file.
• Sort matches: Display matches in the order they were found (when not grouping unique matches), or sort them (grouping or not) alphabetically, alphanumerically, or by the number of times each unique match was found. Alphanumeric sort puts “match2” before “match10” because 2 < 10. Alphabetic sort puts “match2” after “match10” because 2 sorts after 1.
• Display replacements: For “search-and-replace” and “collect data” actions, show either the original search match, or the replacement or collected text, or both. When showing both, you can show both on the same line, or on separate lines. When showing them separately, and showing context, the context is shown twice.

2. Use the Font and Text Direction and Word Wrap items in the Results menu to control the appearance of text in the results.

3. Double-click on a match to open it in the file editor to inspect its context. When grouping unique matches, double-clicking a match shows the individual match results at the bottom of the Results panel. Double-click on an individual match to see its context in the file editor.

If you turned on “group identical matches” on the Action panel, then double-clicking on matches in the Results will highlight the collected text in the target file. If you did not create target files, double-clicking on a match has no effect, because individual match details were discarded.

4. If you previewed a search-and-replace action, you can replace search matches by selecting a block of text that includes the matches you want to replace and then pressing the Replace button on the Results toolbar. You can replace all matches in the file that the text cursor points to with the Make Replacements in This File item in the Results menu. You can replace all matches in all files with Make Replacements in All Files. The highlight color changes in the editor and in the results to indicate the match was replaced.

5. If you executed a search-and-replace, you can restore the original text by selecting a block of text that includes the replacements you want to cancel and then pressing the Revert button on the Results toolbar. You can also restore individually replaced matches (see step 4) this way. You can restore the original text of all matches in the file the cursor points to with the Revert Replacements in This File item in the Results menu. You can restore everything with Make Replacements in All Files.

When replacing or reverting matches on the Results panel on a file that you have open in the file editor, the matches are replaced or reverted in the Editor. Your changes aren’t saved until you save the file in the Editor, either by clicking the Save button or choosing to save the file when prompted upon closing the file.

When replacing or reverting matches on the Results panel on files that you don’t have open in the file editor, PowerGREP automatically saves the changes. These automatic saves can be undone via the Undo History just like files saved in the file editor.