Search and Replace

The search is done by the method SearchReplace of TSynEdit, that uses the search engine assigned to the SearchEngine property. Three engines are available:

Component	Unit	Description
TSynEditSearch	SynEdit.Search	Plain text search, with options for case and whole word.
TSynEditRegexSearch	SynEdit.RegexSearch	Search with regular expressions.
TSynEditWildcardSearch	SynEdit.WildcardSearch	Search with wildcards: the pattern is converted to a regular expression (it derives from TSynEditRegexSearch).

TSynEditSearch and TSynEditRegexSearch are on the palette; TSynEditWildcardSearch can be created in code. All of them derive from TSynEditSearchCustom, so you can also write your own engine.

Using the search

// the engine is chosen by the editor
SynEdit1.SearchEngine := SynEditSearch1;       // or SynEditRegexSearch1

// searches the next occurrence: returns the number of matches found
if SynEdit1.SearchReplace('begin', '', [ssoMatchCase]) = 0 then
  ShowMessage('Text not found');

// replaces all the occurrences in the entire text
SynEdit1.SearchReplace('foo', 'bar', [ssoReplace, ssoReplaceAll, ssoEntireScope]);

Search options

The options are a set of TSynSearchOption:

Option	Effect
ssoMatchCase	Case sensitive search.
ssoWholeWord	Finds only whole words.
ssoBackwards	Searches backwards.
ssoEntireScope	Searches the whole text, not only from the caret.
ssoSelectedOnly	Searches only in the selected text.
ssoReplace	Replaces the text found.
ssoReplaceAll	Replaces all the occurrences (with ssoReplace).
ssoPrompt	Asks for confirmation before each replace (through OnReplaceText).

Events of the editor

• OnSearchNotFound: the text was not found.
• OnReplaceText: called for each replace when ssoPrompt is used; set the Action parameter to raReplace, raSkip, raCancel or raReplaceAll.

Search engines

TSynEditSearch has also run-time methods to scan a text without an editor: FindAll, FindFirst, FindLast, Next, Prev and Replace, with the properties Pattern, Count, CaseSensitive, Whole and Backwards.

Search dialogs

The library contains the dialogs used by the demos (and ready to be used in your applications):

Unit	Dialog
SynEdit.dlgSearchText	Search text.
SynEdit.dlgReplaceText	Search and replace text.
SynEdit.dlgConfirmReplace	Confirmation of a replace.

Demo

See the Search and Replace demo.