To perform full-text searching use the Edit > Find (F3) command and in the Find field of the displayed Find & Replace toolbar enter the data pattern or plain substring to look for.

The Find Previous/Next commands simply scroll to the subsequent found table or form cell values. The Find All command performs full-text filtering of Text and Numeric fields (Long Text fields are not included).

Depending on which view is currently active (a table, form or a memo/object field), the searching procedure can concern:

• all numeric and text fields of all records contained by the (optionally filtered) table
• all numeric and text fields of the record displayed on the form
• the current memo field

There are three search modes that can be specified using the Options button menu:

• Regular Expressions - the Find string is a data pattern based on standard regular expression syntax. Some examples of regular expressions:

  abc - matches substrings "abc",

  .bc - matches three character substrings consisting of any character followed by "bc",

  \Aabc - matches field contents starting with "abc",

  abc\z - matches field contents ending with "abc",

  \Aabc.*123\z - matches field contents starting with "abc" and ending with "123" with any number of other characters in between,

  abc\d\z - matches substrings ending with "abc" and one digit,

  ^a\d+ - matches field contents containing a line starting with "a" and at least one digit,

  ^a\d* - matches field contents containing a line starting with "a" and zero or more digits,

  [ab]+c - matches substrings "abc", "aabc", "abbabc" etc. and not "c",

  [ab]*c - matches substrings "abc", "aabc", "abbabc" etc. and "c",

  [^ab]+c - matches substrings ending with "c" and not containing "a" or "b",

  \w\d{2,3} - matches substrings consisting of one letter followed by 2 or 3 digits,

  \Aab\d{2,3}c - matches field contents beginning with "ab", two or three digits and "c",

  abc|xyz - matches field contents contaning "abc" or "xyz" - logical OR,

  (?=.*abc)(?=.*xyz) - matches field contents contaning "abc" and "xyz" - logical AND,

  \A\z - matches empty fields,

  For more information, see PCRE regular expression syntax summary

  The Replace string can contain:
  (1) absolute references (by number) to capturing subpatterns, eg. \1, \2...
  a capturing subpattern (or a "group") is a part of the pattern enclosed in () parenthesis.
  (2) \l, \L, \u, \U literals to (binary) switch upper- and lower-case conversion
  (3) \r, \n - 'line feed' and 'new line' literals (by default, Alt+Enter & Ctrl+Enter insert the \n character into the text field).
  (4) \s - a single space character.

  Note: to find and replace Unicode/non-ascii characters, use Unicode reg. expressions,
  e.g. \p{L} instead of \w, \P{L} instead of \W etc.

  Examples:

  Find pattern:	cat
  Replace string:	dog
  Result:	replaces "cat" with "dog"

  Find pattern:	\\
  Replace string:	/
  Result:	replaces the "\" characters with "/"

  Find pattern:	\A\z
  Replace string:	NULL
  Result:	fills empty fields with sthe "NULL" strings

  Find pattern:	\ANULL\z
  Replace string:
  Result:	if a field contains only the "NULL" string, deletes its contents

  Find pattern:	\b(\w+)(?:\W+\1\b)+
  Replace string:	\1
  Result:	removes duplicate words in fields

  Find pattern:	(\b\w)(\w*(\W+|\z))
  Replace string:	\u\1\l\2
  Result:	converts first letters in words to uppercase, other to lowercase

  Find pattern:	(\b\w)(\w*(\W+|\z))
  Replace string:	\1
  Result:	creates abbreviations consisting of first letters of words

  Find pattern:	(\b\w(\d*))(\w*(\W+|\z))
  Replace string:	\1
  Result:	creates abbreviations consisting of first letters of words, leaves full numbers

  Find pattern:	(\S*)(\s*)(\S*)(\s*)(\S*)
  Replace string:	\g5\g4\g3\g2\g1
  Result:	reverses the order of up to first 3 words in fields

  Find pattern:	\R
  Replace string:	\s
  Result:	replaces line-breaks with spaces

  Find pattern:	ab+
  Database field content:	abcdefaabb
  Replace string:	x
  Replacement result:	xcdefax

  Find pattern:	(.)a+\d{1,3}
  Database field content:	abc aa0102
  Replace string:	\1
  Replacement result:	abc 2

  Find pattern:	(ab)
  Database field content:	abcdef ghijk abb123
  Replace string:	\u\1\l\1xyz\s
  Replacement result:	ABabxyz cdef ghijk ABabxyz b123

  Find pattern:	\R
  Database field content:	abc def ghi
  Replace string:	\s
  Replacement result:	abc def ghi

• Plain Text - Partial Matching - the Find string represents a plain text string that is compared against the beginning of the field contents. The string can contain wildcard "?" and "*" characters. Any non-wildcard "?" and "*" characters must be prefixed with a tilde (~).
• Plain Text - Full Content Matching - the Find string represents a plain text string that is compared against the whole field content. The string can contain wildcard "?" and "*" characters. Any non-wildcard "?" and "*" characters must be prefixed with a tilde (~).

If the full text searching is performed for a single memo field data, the search mode automatically defaults to the Plain Text - Partial Matching search mode.

The "Scripts" button on the "Find & Replace" toolbar can be used to performed quick mass text replacing in a given table.