Hi all,
I'm on a publisher's mailing list, and someone asked how to search a phrase in
all WordPerfect files. I was about to write back and say "Switch to LyX",
when I realized we might not have any such facility either.
The challenge in a LyX file, of course, is the fact that a phrase might or
might not be split by a newline or a style.
Does LyX have such a facility, either in the GUI menu, as a --option, or as a
separate utility? If not, is it something that would be helpful? If so, would
someone please volunteer to make it?
I might be able to help. IIRC, I created a C language parsing tool in the late
80s. This parsing tool parses a stream of characters, not a bunch of lines.
It searches only literal strings, no regex, and it's not perfect (might fail
on something like Mississippi). IIRC this tool could comprise 1/2 of a
program to search LyX file. IIRC I own the copyright to that tool, and if so,
I would be glad to Opensource it using whatever open source license is
preferred by the LyX project. I figure if I haven't made any money on this
tool in 20 years, I probably never will, and might as well give it away :-)
If it's decided this tool needs to be written, I see two components:
1) GUI or Curses program to acquire the phrase and a specification for the
files to search, and output a list of files to search along with the search
phrase.
2) The single file search program containing two components:
a) Remove all styles and newlines, according to specification of LyX
file
b) Search a stream for a phrase (IIRC already written).
So do we already have something?
Thanks
SteveT
Steve Litt
Author: Universal Troubleshooting Process books and courseware
http://www.troubleshooters.com/
