How can I do a search that results including/highlights the file name, the folder and the HDD name?

pellelin

Hello!

I have created a Notepad++ file with 452036 lines (36,1 MB) of textfiles, from HDD directories, folders and files.
Folders have this in folder name --=[ (any letters, numbers following)
Drives have their names like this [ A ] [ WD-1 ] etc.
Here some screendumps of HDD and folders.

The directories are in 5 levels of subdirectories.
Each HDD is named [ A ] [ B ] or [ WD-1] [ WD-2 ] etc. and file names, like filename.jpg, filename.txt etc.
Doing a normal search I can find the folder, files or HDD drive name, but not listed together in the same search.

How can I do a search that results will include and highlights the file name, the folder and the HDD name [ WD-1 ] [ WD-2 ]?
So if I do a search like this:
filename
I would like to get the result that includes
filename, folder and in what [ ] HDD drive the file and folder sits.

I don’t know if this can be done but it would be of great help if it could.
As of now I have to scroll forever to find the right HDD…

Thanks and best regards,
pellelin

PeterJones

@pellelin ,

Your vague descriptions of text don’t make it clear to me what your text is actually like.

Could you use the ``` notation (from the </> button on the post toolbar) to put some example text? Like

```
[ A ] blah blah blah filename blah blah
[ B ] blah blah blah notsamefile blah blah
[ WD-40 ] is good for cleaning hardware
```

which will render like

[ A ] blah blah blah filename blah blah
[ B ] blah blah blah notsamefile blah blah
[ WD-40 ] is good for cleaning hardware

In the mean time, assuming you wanted to highlight the entire line that includes specific filename, it could be done with:

FIND = (?-s)^.*filename.*$
SEARCH MODE = Regular Expression

If you actually only want to highlight part of each line, you’re going to have to give example text that reasonably matches your actual data, and then do a screenshot showing which you’d like to highlight given a specific search example.

pellelin

@peterjones
Hello!

Many thanks for your reply, much appreciated!

[ WD-1 ] [ WD-2 ] etc. is the name of the drives given by me.
Windows assigns the drives as (D:) (E:) (F:) (G:) etc.
I use a software that creates the directory list, with chosen levels 5, 6 or more if needed.
I create a directory list of each HDD and then combine each list to a large .txt file, to do the search for files from.
Many large HDDs, many directories, thousands of files = a huge .txt file…

Edit/ Forgot to thank you for the Regular expression, thanks!

Here is an Example of directories and files.

[ WD-1 ]

F:\Example\
F:\Example\Animated.gif
F:\Example\Example.txt
F:\Example\This is a video from the countryside.mp4

F:\Example\--=[ Illustrator\Projects\2024 ~ ~\
F:\Example\--=[ Illustrator\Projects\2024 ~ ~\project four.ai
F:\Example\--=[ Illustrator\Projects\2024 ~ ~\project one.ai
F:\Example\--=[ Illustrator\Projects\2024 ~ ~\project three.ai
F:\Example\--=[ Illustrator\Projects\2024 ~ ~\project two.ai

F:\Example\--=[ Images\CRC is good for Contact Clean & Protect\
F:\Example\--=[ Images\CRC is good for Contact Clean & Protect\1754387contactcleanprotect250mlh600-rgb.jpg
F:\Example\--=[ Images\CRC is good for Contact Clean & Protect\CRC is good for Contact Clean & Protect.png

F:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2025\Cities\
F:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2025\Cities\another town.jpg
F:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2025\Cities\old town.jpg
F:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2025\Cities\ruins.jpg
F:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2025\Cities\this town.jpg

F:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2026\
F:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2026\city.jpg
F:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2026\fields.jpg
F:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2026\stormy.sea.jpg
F:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2026\woodlands.jpg

F:\Example\--=[ Images\WD-40 Multispray\
F:\Example\--=[ Images\WD-40 Multispray\WD-40 Multispray.jpg

F:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2024 ~ ~\PNG-transparent\
F:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2024 ~ ~\PNG-transparent\printproject .png files.png

F:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2024 ~ ~\PSD\
F:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2024 ~ ~\PSD\birthday-grandchildren print files.psd
F:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2024 ~ ~\PSD\print project .psd files - Copy.psd

F:\Example\--=[ Text\Documents\Notepad++\
F:\Example\--=[ Text\Documents\Notepad++\[ WD-1 ].txt
F:\Example\--=[ Text\Documents\Notepad++\[ WD-2 ].txt
F:\Example\--=[ Text\Documents\Notepad++\[ WD-3 ].txt

F:\Example\--=[ Text\Documents\Word\
F:\Example\--=[ Text\Documents\Word\ABC.docx
F:\Example\--=[ Text\Documents\Word\DEF.docx
F:\Example\--=[ Text\Documents\Word\GHI.docx

F:\Example\--=[ Video\--=[ Hires\Vacation\1920x1080\
F:\Example\--=[ Video\--=[ Hires\Vacation\1920x1080\Berlin.mp4

F:\Example\--=[ Video\--=[ Lowres\Family\1080x720\
F:\Example\--=[ Video\--=[ Lowres\Family\1080x720\Paris.mp4

[ WD-2 ]

G:\Example\
G:\Example\Animated Dog.gif
G:\Example\Example 2.txt
G:\Example\This is a video from the lakeside.mp4

G:\Example\--=[ Illustrator\Projects\2024 ~ ~\
G:\Example\--=[ Illustrator\Projects\2024 ~ ~\project eight.ai
G:\Example\--=[ Illustrator\Projects\2024 ~ ~\project five.ai
G:\Example\--=[ Illustrator\Projects\2024 ~ ~\project seven.ai
G:\Example\--=[ Illustrator\Projects\2024 ~ ~\project six.ai

G:\Example\--=[ Images\CRC is good for Contact Clean & Protect\
G:\Example\--=[ Images\CRC is good for Contact Clean & Protect\contactcleanprotect250mlh600-rgb.jpg
G:\Example\--=[ Images\CRC is good for Contact Clean & Protect\CRC.png

G:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2023\
G:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2023\lakeside.jpg
G:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2023\london.jpg
G:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2023\new-york.jpg
G:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2023\the atlantic.jpg

G:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2024\Cities\
G:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2024\Cities\Copenhagen.jpg
G:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2024\Cities\Helsingfors.jpg
G:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2024\Cities\Stockholm.jpg
G:\Example\--=[ Images\Vacation\2024\Cities\Tokyo.jpg

G:\Example\--=[ Images\WD-40 Multispray\
G:\Example\--=[ Images\WD-40 Multispray\WD-40.jpg

G:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2022 ~ ~\PNG-transparent\
G:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2022 ~ ~\PNG-transparent\hoodie .png files.png

G:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2022 ~ ~\PSD\
G:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2022 ~ ~\PSD\grandchildren-print files.psd
G:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2022 ~ ~\PSD\print project 2022.psd

G:\Example\--=[ Text\Documents\Notepad++\
G:\Example\--=[ Text\Documents\Notepad++\[ WD-4 ].txt
G:\Example\--=[ Text\Documents\Notepad++\[ WD-5 ].txt
G:\Example\--=[ Text\Documents\Notepad++\[ WD-6 ].txt

G:\Example\--=[ Text\Documents\Word\
G:\Example\--=[ Text\Documents\Word\JKL.docx
G:\Example\--=[ Text\Documents\Word\MNO.docx
G:\Example\--=[ Text\Documents\Word\PQR.docx

G:\Example\--=[ Video\--=[ Hires\Vacation\1920x1080\
G:\Example\--=[ Video\--=[ Hires\Vacation\1920x1080\Göteborg.mp4

G:\Example\--=[ Video\--=[ Lowres\Family\1080x720\
G:\Example\--=[ Video\--=[ Lowres\Family\1080x720\Malmö.mp4

[ WD-3 ]

H:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2000~ ~\PNG-transparent\
H:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2001 ~ ~\PNG-transparent\horses.jpg

H:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2002 ~ ~\PSD\
H:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2003 ~ ~\PSD\children-print files.psd
H:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2004 ~ ~\PSD\printchildren 2022.psd

[ WD-4 ]

I:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2005 ~ ~\PNG-transparent\
I:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2006 ~ ~\PNG-transparent\hooligans.jpg
I:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2007 ~ ~\PSD\
I:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2008 ~ ~\PSD\hooligans-print files.psd
I:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2009 ~ ~\PSD\print hooligans 2022.psd

[ WD-5 ]

J:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2012 ~ ~\PNG-transparent\
J:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2013 ~ ~\PNG-transparent\hope.png

J:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2014 ~ ~\PSD\
J:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2015 ~ ~\PSD\hope.psd
J:\Example\--=[ Photoshop\Projects\2016 ~ ~\PSD\hopeproject 2016.psd

[ WD-6 ]

guy038

Hello, @pellelin, @peterjones and All,

Presently, in France, it’s about 10h30 and, unfortunately, I’m not free because I have a dentist appointment -(( But , this afternoon, @pellelin, I’ll be able to give you a solution. derived from this thread :

https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/27535/new-displaying-of-the-search-results-panel

I’ll create a new post where I’ll find out a way to insert, for each line outputed in the Search Result panel :

The drive name
The complete path
The file name
And of course, the text of each line containing occurrences of your search

The trick is to use the notepad++ option Edit > Line operations > Reverse line order because the replacement regular expression needs to get all the lines of a specific file right BEFORE the line containing this specific file name ! Then, after the replacement throughout all the search results, you just need to run again the Edit > Line operations > Reverse line order option to get back the right displaying !

In the meantime, before I can post my own solution, @peterjones or others fellows will probably be able to elabore this regex replacement for you :-))

See you later,

Best Regards,

guy038

pellelin

@guy038
Hello!

Oh great news, this sounds promising, finger crossed! :D Thanks for your reply!

Best regards,
pellelin

guy038

Hi, @pellelin, @peterjones and All,

@pellelin, see my new version at this location :

https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/post/105618

May be, you do not agree exactly with the displaying and/or you would like the number of hits as well ! No problem : just tell me about it

Cheers,

guy038