A string without quotes (
), brackets (
), or mustaches (
) will be treated as a "Match Any Word" search if multiple words are specified. To search for an exact string, you can wrap the string in quotes and use the equality operator (see below).
Note: If you'd like to search for text that contains invalid characters (such as brackets or special characters), you'll need to wrap the string in quotes. For example, if you'd like to find part of a function in your source code files, enter the following (including the quotes) in the Query box:
You can use the
,
, and
operators to create more advanced search queries. Operators are not case-sensitive, but capitalizing them can improve the readability of your search query.
The
operator will only match if the text contains both of the query terms.
Match anything that has both cats and dogs:
Match anything that has all 4 animals (cats, dogs, horses, cows):
Using the
operator will match anything that doesn't have the query term in it.
Match anything without the word dogs:
Match anything that doesn't contain dogs or cats:
The
operator is represented as a space between string matches. It will match anything that has at least one of your query terms.
Match anything that has either cats or dogs:
Match anything that has any of the 4 animals:
You can use multiple operators together to form more complex queries.
Match anything that doesn't contain cats, but does contain dogs, or contains fish:
When more than one operator is used in a query,
is processed first, then
, then
. To change the precedence of operators, use brackets to separate different statements in your query, much like how you would in an arithmetic expression. Brackets may also improve the readability of your queries and do not affect performance.
In this example, dogs and birds will be evaluated first because
has a higher precedence than
:
To change the meaning of the example above, use brackets:
The example below has the same meaning as the first example, but is much easier to understand:
You can use the
operator to invert the meaning of a bracketed query. The query below will search for all text that doesn't contain dogs, or doesn't contain cats:
The query below will search for either cats or dogs, but not both:
(dogs cats) -(dogs +cats)
You can search for exact phrase matches, even ones that contain operators, by using quotes.
This example will search for the exact phrase
, the
operator is ignored because it is in quotes:
To search for quotes within text, escape the character with a
to tell the query that you are searching for quotes, and not searching for a phrase.
The example below will search for
(with the quotes) in the search text:
To match text exactly you can use the equality modifier on a search term.
The example below will match the phrase
, but will not match things like
:
To look for specific words in text, you can use the word boundary modifier.
The example below will match the phrases
or
, but will not match things like
:
You can still use other operators with the word boundary and equality modifiers, and you can also wrap terms in quotes to include spaces and other special characters
The example below will match any text that is not exactly equal to
:
Tags help define how often and where a match is evaluated. They are enclosed in braces (
) and follow a search term or phrase. You can chain multiple tags together to create more specific conditions. When multiple tags are chained, all tag conditions must be true for the match to succeed. Tags can be freely combined with other operators such as equality (
), word boundary (
), and logical (
) operators. Each tag modifies the meaning of the preceding string.
Match count, exactly 0 occurrences. "match" appears zero times:
Match count, exactly N occurrences. "dogs" appears exactly three times:
Beginning of line or file. "start" appears at the start of a line:
End of line or file. "end" appears at the end of a line:
Full line match (beginning and end). "status" occupies the entire line. This is shorthand for
:
Tags can be combined to create more specific conditions. The example below will match if "match" appears exacly once at the end of a line:
The example below will match "total items" if it fills a line twice:
You can use tags with quoted phrases or modifiers. The example below will match the word "error" if it appears at the end of a line:
