File contents filter

The File contents filter is used to filter search results based on the actual contents of files that have passed the File name filter.There are two modes available to the File contents filter:

• Plain text: A literal substring of text
  • Example: ohn Bro will match John Brown
• Regular expression: A PCRE-compatible regex pattern
  • Example: \d{4} was a g.*?d y\w{2}r will match 2008 was a good year

In addition to these modes, there are several options to choose from to determine the behavior of those modes:

• Case sensitive: The text being searched will be compared with the pattern given in a case-sensitive manner. Case-sensitivity is disabled by default. If case sensitivity is enabled, john will not match John. Unlike the File name filter's pattern, this behavior is independent of the file system.
• Output matched lines: The crawler will send the line number and the text on that line of the file as well as the path of the file that has matched the search filter(s).
• Whole file: The text of the entire file being searched will be passed through the filter pattern instead of each line being processed individually. Regular expressions can take advantage of the line breaks in their pattern definitions. This option is not available in Plain text mode.
• Ignore new line: If the Whole file is being passed through the filter, this option can be used to help the regular expression engine to prevent the new-line character(s) failing to match the catch-all dot (".") regex special character. This option is only available if Whole file is checked.

The File contents filter can be disabled by un-checking the box to the far right of the label, just above the filter pattern text box.