Re: Search without wild cards

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From: Dan Seur (click_at_casta.net)
Date: 04/22/04 

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 16:31:29 -0400

Embedded spaces appear to creat problems of which I was unaware.

On my W2k using Explorer search, with a "My File.txt" and a "Your
File.txt" I just created in a folder with a few hundred other files,
when I have that folder selected in Search:
  My File.* finds only My File.txt
  My File.txt finds My File.txt AND Your File.txt
  My?File.txt finds only My File.txt
  *y?F*.* finds only My File.txt
  *My*.* finds only My File.txt
(No other filename has the string "my")
However:
  Your File.* finds Your File.txt AND a PDF filename containing "Your"
  Your File.txt finds BOTH the above two AND My File.txt
    (I conclude the space is a logical delimiter, maybe undocumented. The
    search code may be relict of the old 8.3 convention. The search
    finds all instances of unbroken char strings.)
  Your?File.txt finds only Your File.txt
You get the idea...

Using the "?" wildcard in Search - which says "any, but only one,
character here" - may help solve your problem if used cleverly enough.
It depends on how those files are actually named.

I'd like to know how you actually get this solved to your satisfaction.

Howard Brazee wrote:

> On 22-Apr-2004, Dan Seur <click@casta.net> wrote:
>
>
>>I'm not sure what exactly you're searching for, but if
>>there is any constant char string distinction between
>>myfile and yourfile you can surround that char string
>>with wildcards. Without such a constant - in other words
>>if all filenames are generated with no embedded ownership
>>indicator in the "filename.extension" fields (and no other
>>distincive characteristics like folder placement - I give
>>up.
>
>
> Look at the following directory. I want to look for every copy of "My File.*"
> or even "My File.txt" that is on my system. I do not want to find "Your
> File.txt".
>
>
> Microsoft Windows 2000 [Version 5.00.2195]
> (C) Copyright 1985-2000 Microsoft Corp.
>
> P:\>c:
>
> C:\>dir *.txt
> Volume in drive C has no label.
> Volume Serial Number is EC2D-38F5
>
> Directory of C:\
>
> 06/17/2002 07:13a 0 COMLOG.txt
> 04/22/2004 07:43a 0 Your File.txt
> 04/22/2004 07:43a 0 My File.txt
> 3 File(s) 0 bytes
> 0 Dir(s) 3,851,034,624 bytes free
>
> C:\>