Looking for a SEARCH utility that looks inside files for ALL HITS

[dsperber]

I have a need to search all of the files in a folder, looking for ALL OCCURRENCES of the search string. I'm not talking about file names, I'm talking about looking inside the files (which are actually just plain text files).

I tried "Search My Files" but it seems to stop searching a given file when it encounters the first hit. Unless there is a setting somewhere that can tell it to keep searching I don't see it. But if there is and I've just missed it, well I already do have it installed so that would be great.

Otherwise, is there another highly regarded utility that is easy to use and intuitive, which can get me what I want?

Simple objective: I want to "count" the number of occurrences of a given string inside of ALL the plain text files in the parent folder (including drilling down through sub-folders). That's it. Anything more that is returned, that would be gravy.

The reason for this is that I have three different versions of a "database" (FreeDB) that contains 3.9 million individual files in 11 sub-folders in its standard UNIX form (with one file per DISCID). There 11 sub-folders but in an alternative "Windows-friendly form" that is also acceptable, and that consolidates the files into the same such that one new file holds many DISCID's according to an algorithm. This greatly reduces the number of files in the database (down to 2805, from 3.9 million) although the data itself is identical.

In other words the number of DISCID occurrences in both forms of the database is identical in that we're still talking about 3.9 million CD's. But in once case it is represented by 3.9 million files, and in the other it is represented by 2805 files. Because of the file system overhead, the UNIX version takes 11GB on disk, while the Windows version takes 3GB.

I have a third super-compressed version which also purports to have the same 3.9 million DISCID's inside it, but only uses 131MB of space. Seems impossible, but there were no error messages produced during the conversion.

So I would like to SEARCH all three versions of the database (again, just plain text files) to count the number of DISCID string occurrences. All three should have the identical 3.9 million hits.

That's my goal. Any suggestions?

 

[iko22]

In SearchMyFiles Search Options there is an option called Stop searching after finding .... XXX Hits, where XXX is a number you specify. Just maybe if you increased this number, the search would continue for XXX number of hits?? "Stop searching after finding ...." is located at the bottom of the Search Options Window.

 

[file3456]

I use nothing but FreeFileSeek for this sort of stuff. Download • FileSeek by Binary Fortress Software

You may have an interest in Notepad ++ for certain things as well and FreeFileSeek can be configured to use Notepad ++ as a file handler.

 

[Roderunner]

I use,
SwiftSearch from SourceForge
&
Everything from VoidTools.
Both have portable versions.

 

[dsperber]

In SearchMyFiles Search Options there is an option called Stop searching after finding .... XXX Hits, where XXX is a number you specify. Just maybe if you increased this number, the search would continue for XXX number of hits?? "Stop searching after finding ...." is located at the bottom of the Search Options Window.

I'd already tried SearchMyFiles, which I assumed would do exactly what I wanted, before posting this thread here. It hadn't performed as I was hoping.

And I configured it for a "standard search" while also UN-CHECKING the "stop the search after finding..." box. I interpret that checkbox to mean if the total number of hits exceeds that number then stop the search process completely, not to limit the number of hits while scanning an individual file. That's kind of implied by the default value of 10,000.

In any case, all that was produced was as I described. The search through a given file stopped immediately when the first occurrence of the search argument was encountered. It did NOT continue on in that file looking for additional occurrences.

 

[dsperber]

I use,
SwiftSearch from SourceForge
&
Everything from VoidTools.
Both have portable versions.

I already use Everything as my standard filename search tool.

But as far as I know, it doesn't search inside of files for CONTENT. Am I missing that feature?

I don't know about SwiftSearch but I will look at it.

 

[dsperber]

I use nothing but FreeFileSeek for this sort of stuff. Download • FileSeek by Binary Fortress Software

I will look into FileSeek.

You may have an interest in Notepad ++ for certain things as well and FreeFileSeek can be configured to use Notepad ++ as a file handler.

I already use Notepad++. No complaint. Very fine product. But at the moment i'm looking for "search ALL".

Thanks.

 

[dsperber]

Just had an opportunity to discover that the Search dialog in Notepad++ can "find all in current document". That is something I hadn't noticed before but can certainly make use of in the future.

But it's not really what I was looking for, to do that for all files in the folder, not just while editing a single file.

Anyway, I actually am making use of that right now for another matter. Very useful.