Robert Schwenn wrote:
> It's only the regular expression that controls the matches.

So, to clarify with an example, say I want to find all lines containing consecutive spaces but ignore those that occur at the start of a line. I can do this with grep using this expression:
"^ *[^ ].* "

(I realise there are simpler ways of expressing this, but I'll stick with that for the sake of the argument.)

So, with jEdit, are you saying I need to change it to something like:
"^ *[^ \n][^\n]* "
?

This transformation seems to be rather burdensome to me, especially when expressions become more complex. Does this bother others, or is it just me?

Thanks, Trent.

The example you provided above works in jEdit just like in 'grep', because '.' means "anything but a newline".
Maybe you'd like to provide a better example?

shlomy wrote:
> The example you provided above works in jEdit just like in 'grep',
> because '.' means "anything but a newline".

Yes, after some experimenting I see you are right about the '.' - I seem to have gone a little overboard with my transform. However, AFAICT the example still doesn't work like grep due to the '[^ ]'.

So, I believe the minimal transform I needed was from:
"^ *[^ ].* "
to
"^ *[^ \n].* "

So - less of a burden, but still an inconvenience for someone used to thinking in terms of grep.

If you have the Console and ErrorList plugins installed, you can run grep in the System shell of the Console plugin, with the "-H -n" options. These options will make "grep" print the file name and line number with every match it finds, in the same format that many other tools do. This format falls under one of the default "Error patterns" of the Console plugin, so the output of grep will be parsed by the Console and all matches will be added to the ErrorList, using which you can easily jump between the matches.
Interesting, no?
Instead of opening a find dialog and entering the search there, you just do it in the Console and get almost the same behavior, except that the results will be in ErrorList instead of in HyperSearch Results.

Regarding jEdit itself, there is currently no option for the user to limit the search to single lines.