Multi level or progressive or incremental file search [closed]

Question

I am looking for a GUI tool in Windows, where I can do search and pass the result to next search and continue. I know I can do this in command line by piping one search result to another, but I am looking for a GUI tool.

Here is a sample search,

1. I would like to find all files that has extension ".java".
2. From the result, find all files that has a specific word.
3. From the result, select few files, and search only those files with another keyword.

Answer 1

That is exactly what Icicles progressive completion is about. Use it with Icicles search to do just what you ask.

C-c ' first-pattern S-SPC second-pattern S-SPC third-pattern ...

then C-down to cycle among the search hits etc. See the doc for more.

That's for a single file. To search multiple files, you do the same thing, but start with a negative prefix argument, e.g., C-- C-c '.

C-c ' is command icicle-occur, which is similar to grep and Emacs command occur. For more general search you can use command icicle-search, bound to C-c ` .

Answer 2

If your pattern is always like that, and it is text files (perhaps code), then your best bet is to do it on command-line. You can get cygwin, and do something like:

find . -name '*.java' -exec grep -li keyword1 {} /dev/null \; | xargs grep -i keyword2

A gui tool with such specific requirements will be hard to find. You may find some search tools that search inside files, and use the keywords and filenames as search terms on parity.