NAME¶
findfiles - Utility to locate files containing specific content
SYNOPSIS¶
findfiles [
switches]
DESCRIPTION¶
Very often when you are programming in any programming or scripting language,
you want to find out how a particular function works or whether a particular
property is settable, or any of a number of other questions. In many cases,
you can find the answers to your questions by looking at the source code of
the application or tool you're using. This is sometimes referred to as
"code shopping," particularly when what you really hope to find is a
method that does exactly what you want to do. The PythonCard findfiles tool is
designed to support you in these efforts.
Type in a string for which to search, tell findfiles the directories (yes, you
can have more than one) in which to search for files containing that string,
and send findfiles off to locate files with that specific content. Scroll
through the list of files, each with a line reproducing part of the located
line for each occurrence in the file, find the one you think is what you are
looking for, and double-click the line. Voila! The PythonCard codeEditor tool
opens and scrolls instantly to the line you've selected.
SWITCHES¶
- -p
- Show property editor
- -m
- Show message watcher
- -l
- Enable logging
- -s
- Show shell
- -m
- Show namespace
- -d
- Show debug menu
REGULAR EXPRESSIONS¶
The findfiles utility uses classic Unix grep (regular expression) searches.
The grep utility uses a technique called regular expression matching to locate
information. In regular expressions, some characters have a special meaning.
If you want to search for any of these special characters in the strings you
supply in findfiles, you'll have to escape them by preceding them with a
backward slash (\) character.
While there are many such characters in regular expressions, the ones with which
you will need to be most careful are: question mark (?), asterisk (*),
addition/concatenation operator (+), pipe or vertical bar (|), caret (^) and
dollar sign ($). To search for a dollar sign in the target directories, for
example, put "\$" into the search field. (Putting in a $ by itself
will crash findfiles fairly reliably.)
On a Debian system, you can see the manpages for
grep(1) or
regex(7) for more
information on grep and regular expressions.
NOTES¶
The findfiles utility also provides additional functionality that is not
discussed in this manpage, because it is somewhat difficult to completely
describe usage of a GUI program in a text-based manpage. For more detailed
usage instructions or for more information on the PythonCard GUI framework in
general, you should install the pythoncard-doc package and take a look at the
various walk-throughs, tutorials and samples included with it.
Once the pythoncard-doc package is installed, the documentation is installed to
/usr/share/doc/pythoncard-doc, and is also available via Debian's doc-base
infrastructure - find it in the Devel section using
dwww(1), doc-central(1) or
dhelp(1).
If you would rather not install the pythoncard-doc package, you can find
essentially the same information on the PythonCard website:
http://pythoncard.sourceforge.net
BUGS¶
Although it is considered to be stable, this is still development-level
software.
Please report bugs in this or any PythonCard component to the Debian Bug
Tracking system using
reportbug(1).
AUTHOR¶
This manpage was written by Kenneth J. Pronovici <pronovic@debian.org>,
for use by the Debian project. Content was based on previously-existing
PythonCard documentation in other forms.
SEE ALSO¶
codeEditor(1),
resourceEditor(1),