Text file Filter and Formatter -

Search and Reformat Example

This page gives one example of using the application to find specific lines of text and then change them in a uniform way. The following figures show one example involving a search operation followed by a change of the text in a particular column. This is only an illustrative example using the XML-based menu document of the other examples.

It is possible to search for lines of text that contain either a whole word, or a text sequence. For example, the following figure shows a search for lines that contain the 'description' element. After the search, all of the description elements in the XML menu document are highlighted.

If you then go to the manual tab, click the 'As Xml' check box and show the text, the selected lines only will be loaded. The 'As XML' option means that the XML elements will also be placed in separate cells. You can then change the text in any of the columns through all of the lines. For example, you can add the words 'what about ' to the start of every description. This is done by firstly clicking on a cell in a column and then right-clicking the grid to open a popup menu. You then select the 'Change Column Text' option and enter your additional text in the 'Input' box. The other box that is shown allows you to change the column text by adding it to the start or the end of the existing text.

This change is then also displayed in the main text output area. To produce the final formatting, select the description lines again and indent them using the toolbar option, or the pretty format option.The final figure shows that the text document has been updated appropriately.

This example shows how your text document can be updated in a general way, through only a few commands that can apply to the whole document.