To perform full-text searching use the Edit > Find (F3) command and in the Find field of the displayed Find & Replace toolbar specify the data to search for. Clicking the Options button you can specify how the searched data should be treated: as a regular expression or as plain text string.

Selecting a range of cells limits the searching and replacing procedure to that range. Clicking a worksheet (any cell) invalidates the active search range and searching is performed within the whole worksheet till a new selection is made.
Changing search/replace options or text strings also initiates a new search with the current (new) selection.

Searching is performed as follows:

• Text and numeric cells - searching the string representing its unformatted contents.
• Formulas - searching the string representing the formula.

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 the standard regular expression syntax. Some examples of regular expressions:

  abc	finds cells containing (substrings) "abc"
  .bc	finds cells containing three character substrings consisting of any character followed by "bc"
  \Aabc	cell contents starting with "abc"
  abc\z	cell contents ending with "abc"
  \Aabc.*123\z	cell contents starting with "abc" and ending with "123" with any number of other characters in between
  abc\d\z	substrings ending with "abc" and one digit
  ^a\d+	cell contents containing a line that starts with "a" and at least one digit
  ^a\d*	cell contents containing a line that starts with "a" and zero or more digits
  a\d*$	cell contents containing a line that ends with "a" and zero or more digits
  [ab]+c	substrings "abc", "aabc", "abbabc" etc. and not "c"
  [ab]*c	substrings "abc", "aabc", "abbabc" etc. and "c"
  [^ab]+c	substrings ending with "c" and not containing "a" or "b"
  \w\d{2,3}	substrings consisting of one letter followed by 2 or 3 digits
  ^ab\d{2,3}c	cell contents beginning with "ab", two or three digits and "c"
  abc|xyz	cells containing substrings "abc" or "xyz"
  (?=.*abc)(?=.*xyz)	matches cell contents contaning "abc" and "xyz" - logical AND
  \A\z	matches empty cells

  Using the Options button you can set two additional options: Allow empty matches and Match case.
  Empty matches occur for Regular Expression like a? or \A\z , which lets you search for e.g. empty cells with data blocks.

  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, Ctrl+Enter inserts the \r\n sequence into the text field).
  (4) \s - a single space character.

  Notes:

  • 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.
  • Matching empty cells requires checking the "Opions > Allow Empty Matches" option on the "Find & Replace" toolbar.

  The regular expression tags can be easily inserted via the "RegEx" menu available in GS-Base

  

  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:	\b((\d{1,3}\.){3,3})\d{1,3}\b
  Replace string:	\1\*
  Result:	mask IP address (e.g. 11.12.13.114 to 11.12.13.*)

  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 and the function searches for any substring of the cell contents. The string can contain wildcard "?" (any character) and "*" (any string) 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 cell contents. The string can contain wildcard "?" (any character) and "*" (any string) characters. Any non-wildcard "?" and "*" characters must be prefixed with a tilde (~).

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

  Note: the "search" and "replace" strings entered in the window below must be entered like in a csv text file, so text containing commas, line breaks or quoting symbols must be in "" and inner quoting symbols must be doubled.