HELP SEARCH — VMS 4.6
Searches one or more files for the specified string or strings and
lists all the lines containing occurrences of the strings.
Format:
SEARCH file-spec[,...] search-string[,...]
Additional information available:
ParametersCommand QualifiersExamples
Parameters
file-spec[,...] Specifies the names of one or more files to be searched. You must specify at least one file name. If you specify two or more file names, separate them with commas. Wildcard characters are allowed in the file specification. search-string[,...] Specifies one or more strings to search for in the specified files. If the search string contains any lowercase letters or nonalphanumeric characters (including spaces), enclose it in quotation marks. You can use the /MATCH and /EXACT qualifiers to alter the way that SEARCH matches search strings.
Command Qualifiers
Additional information available:
/EXACT/EXCLUDE/FORMAT/HEADING/LOG/MATCH/NUMBERS
/OUTPUT/REMAINING/STATISTICS/WINDOW
/EXACT
/EXACT /NOEXACT (default) Controls whether the SEARCH command matches the search string exactly, or treats uppercase and lowercase letters as equivalents. The default qualifier, /NOEXACT, causes SEARCH to ignore case differences in letters. Specifying the /EXACT qualifier causes the system to use less CPU time. Therefore, if you are sure of the case of the letters in the string, it is more efficient to use /EXACT.
/EXCLUDE
/EXCLUDE=(file-spec[,...]) Causes the SEARCH command to exclude the listed file specifications from the search. Do not include a directory or device name in this file specification. Wildcard characters are supported for file specifications. However, you cannot use relative version numbers to exclude a specific version. If you use this qualifier, you must include at least one file specification. If you specify only one file, you can omit the parentheses. If you omit the /EXCLUDE qualifier, SEARCH will examine all files in the input file list.
/FORMAT
/FORMAT=option
Controls reformatting of records during output. You can specify one
of the following formatting options:
TEXT Replaces control characters in the text with ANSI
mnemonics (for example, CTRL/C is replaced with <ETX>).
The terminal formatting characters <HT>, <CR>, <LF>, <VT>,
and <FF> are passed without change.
TEXT is the default format.
PASSALL Moves characters to the output device with no translation
whatsoever. You can use /FORMAT=PASSALL whenever you do
not want the SEARCH command to substitute the ANSI
mnemonic for control characters (for example, <BEL> for
CTRL/G). The terminal driver cannot send eight-bit
characters to the terminal unless either SET
TERMINAL/PASSALL or SET TERMINAL/EIGHT_BIT is already in
effect.
DUMP DUMP format is very similar to TEXT format. However, with
DUMP format, all control characters (including <HT>, <CR>,
and <LF>) are displayed as ANSI mnemonics.
NONULLS NONULLS is identical to the DUMP option, except that all
null characters are removed from the input file before
reformatting. In DUMP mode, the null character is
displayed as <NUL>. NONULLS is convenient when you are
searching binary format files, such as EXE or OBJ files,
that generally contain many zero bytes.
/HEADING
/HEADING (default) /NOHEADING Controls whether file names and window separators are printed in the output. With the default heading format, file names are printed only when more than one file is specified or when wildcard characters are used. The separator, a line of 30 asterisks, is displayed between groups of lines that belong to different files. If you specify the /WINDOW qualifier, a line of 15 asterisks separates each window within a file.
/LOG
/LOG /NOLOG (default) Controls whether the SEARCH command produces a line containing the file name and the number of records and matches for each file searched. The log information is output to the current SYS$OUTPUT device.
/MATCH
/MATCH=option
Indicates how the SEARCH command matches multiple search strings.
The /MATCH qualifier has four options:
OR A match occurs if a record contains any of the search
strings.
AND A match occurs if and only if all of the search strings
are present in the single record.
NOR The negation of AND. A match occurs only if the record
does not contain any of the search strings.
NAND The negation of OR. A match occurs only if the record
does not contain all of the search strings.
When only one search string is specified, the OR and AND options
produce identical results. Similarly, NOR and NAND produce
identical results for a single search string.
/NUMBERS
/NUMBERS /NONUMBERS (default) Controls whether the source line number is displayed at the left margin of each line.
/OUTPUT
/OUTPUT[=file-spec] /NOOUTPUT Controls whether the results of the search are output to a specified file. The output will be sent to the current default output device (SYS$OUTPUT) if you omit the /OUTPUT qualifier or omit the file specification with the qualifier. The /NOOUTPUT qualifier means that no matching records are output as a result of the SEARCH command.
/REMAINING
/REMAINING /NOREMAINING (default) Controls whether the SEARCH command displays all records from the first matched record to the end of the file. The /REMAINING qualifier overrides the /WINDOW=n2 qualifier. However, you can still use the /WINDOW=n1 qualifier to specify the number of lines to be printed above the line containing the matched record.
/STATISTICS
/STATISTICS /NOSTATISTICS (default) Controls whether SEARCH displays statistics about the search. The statistics displayed are: o Number of files searched o Number of records searched o Number of characters searched o Number of records matched o Number of lines printed o Buffered I/O count o Direct I/O count o Number of page faults o Elapsed CPU time o Elapsed time
/WINDOW
/WINDOW[=(n1,n2)] /NOWINDOW (default) Controls the number of lines that are listed along with the line containing the matching string. If you specify the /WINDOW qualifier with a single number n, n-1 additional lines are displayed with each line containing the search string. Half of the additional lines are listed above the line containing the match, and half are listed below. If n-1 is an odd number, the extra line is listed below the search string. For example, if you specify /WINDOW=10, nine additional lines are listed along with the line containing the search string, four lines are listed above the line containing the search string and five lines are listed below it, making a total of ten lines. If you specify /WINDOW without specifying a number, the default number of five lines---two above, one containing the search string, and two below---is used. If the form /WINDOW=(n1,n2) is used, n1 refers to the number of lines above the matched line and n2 refers to the number of lines below. Either of these numbers can be zero. If /WINDOW=0 is specified, SEARCH will display the file name of each file containing a match, but no records. You can use this specification to create a file (using the /OUTPUT qualifier) that can be inserted into a command file to manipulate the files containing matches. If you omit the /WINDOW qualifier entirely, only the line in which the match is satisfied is displayed.
Examples
1. $ SEARCH CABLE.MEM,JOYNER.MEM "MANUAL TITLE" This command searches the files CABLE.MEM and JOYNER.MEM for occurrences of the character string MANUAL TITLE. Each line containing the string is displayed at the terminal. It is necessary to enclose the string in quotation marks because it contains a space character. 2. $ SEARCH/OUTPUT=RESULTS.DAT/WINDOW=9 DISLIST.MEM NAME The SEARCH command searches the file DISLIST.MEM for occurrences of the character string NAME and sends the output to the file RESULTS.DAT. The four lines preceding and following each occurrence of NAME are included in the output. 3. $ SEARCH OMAHA::DISK1:[EXP]SUB.DAT,DATA.LIS VAX The SEARCH command searches through the files SUB.DAT and DATA.LIS at remote node OMAHA for all occurrences of the string VAX. The list of all records containing the string VAX is displayed at the local terminal.