grepWin

grepWin is a tool for searching and replacing text in files. It uses regular expressions to perform complex searches and modifications across multiple files. The tool is designed to integrate with the Windows context menu.

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• Regular expression search. grepWin supports regular expressions (Boost/PCRE-style syntax) for advanced file searches. Results can be filtered by complex patterns, including partial matches, capture groups, and special characters.
• Text replacement. The replace function lets you modify file contents using patterns. References to groups captured during the search can be used to build the replacement text.
• Multi-file search. grepWin can process many files at once. Supports filters by file name and extension to narrow the scope of the search.
• Windows Explorer integration. The tool adds itself to the system context menu, letting you start searches directly from File Explorer.
• Unicode support. grepWin correctly handles files with Unicode encodings, including UTF-8 and UTF-16, without losing information during processing.
• Result preview. Search results are shown in a list with a preview of the matching content, making it easy to review matches within the text and the files that contain them.
• File size filtering. You can set size limits to exclude files that are too large or too small from the search.
• Search history. The tool keeps a record of previous searches and patterns, letting you reuse frequently used patterns and settings.
• Backup on replace. When replacing text, grepWin can create backup copies of the original files, so changes can be reverted if needed.
• Results export. Search results can be copied or exported to text files for further analysis or documentation.
• Command-line support. grepWin can be run from the console with predefined parameters to automate repetitive tasks.
• Subdirectory search. The tool can recursively explore entire directories, including all subfolders, during the search.

grepWin was developed by Stefan Küng as part of his productivity tools, and is open source. The project began around 2009 as a solution for advanced searching on Windows. It is written in C++ using the Win32 API to ensure compatibility and performance. The application has received regular updates to add features and maintain compatibility with recent versions of Windows.

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