Agent Ransack - File searching utility that supports Regular expressions

Introduction

How many times do you find yourself plowing through files looking for that illusive line of code whether it is a method declaration, function call, or algorithm etc.? If you're anything like me it's all the time and you may therefore find this FREE utility, Agent Ransack, very useful. 

Agent Ransack searches through files, text or otherwise, fast and efficiently. When searching the contents of files for code, or other text, Agent Ransack displays the text found so you can quickly browse the results without having to separately open each file!

Basic Example

Shown below is an example of searching for the Format method of CString in the MFC source directory. 

The example shows a few important features:

Regular expressions: The filename field uses a regular expression to search through all files with a .cpp or .h extension. Regular expressions can be used in both the file name and the contents field. If you would rather use DOS style expressions then there is an 'Auto convert to DOS' option. If you are not familiar with regular expressions but would still like to use them there is an Expression Wizard to help you build the expression.

Immediate browseable results: As soon as a file is found it is available for browsing, even if the search has not yet finished. The browser allows you to view the lines that were found without having to open the file separately.

A more complicated example

Have you ever written if (nValue = NULL) when you meant to write if (nValue == NULL)? Hmm, only me huh? The following example shows how to look through your code for any line that has an if with only a single = within the parentheses.

You can then quickly run through the results checking each occurrence.

Conclusion

While this was a bit of a whirlwind tour of Agent Ransack I hope it inspires you to give it a try and check out the help file for a more detailed description of it's features. Other features include: Print/Print preview, Search saving, File context menu, Basic interface option, match case, regular expression tester, and many more. I hope Agent Ransack saves you many hours of frustrated searching!

For further information please visit our website at www.AgentRansack.com

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