{"id":452,"date":"2019-09-04T14:38:32","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T06:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yohz.com\/blogs\/?p=452"},"modified":"2022-12-31T09:38:06","modified_gmt":"2022-12-31T01:38:06","slug":"easy-explorer-advanced-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yohz.com\/blogs\/2019\/09\/04\/easy-explorer-advanced-search\/","title":{"rendered":"Easy Explorer – Advanced Search"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Easy Explorer 3<\/a>, we introduced an advanced search option that allows you to search for files based on attributes other than its name.\u00a0 To use the advanced search function, click on the Advanced Search<\/strong> button on the bottom of the explorer window:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This brings up the Advanced Search<\/strong> window, where you enter your search criteria.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

On the left panel, a list of all the available file functions are displayed e.g. Name, Size, Created, Accessed, etc.\u00a0 Clicking on any of the items will bring up the description on how to use that function.\u00a0 There is also a list of support functions that’s required when working with dates, time, and text values.<\/p>\n

The basic rule is that you use a single function like this e.g. search only for files smaller than 1024 bytes:<\/p>\n

Size < 1024<\/strong><\/p>\n

You can combine multiple search criteria using AND<\/strong> and OR<\/strong>, but you must use brackets to group the criteria e.g. search only for files smaller than 1024 bytes or the name contains the word ‘finance’:<\/p>\n

(Size < 1024) OR (NameContains(‘finance’))<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is no limit to the number of criteria you use, but the important thing is to use the brackets to group the criteria correctly e.g.<\/p>\n

( (Size < 1024) OR (NameContains(‘finance’) OR NameContains(‘production’)) ) AND (Modified > EncodeDate(2019, 1, 7))<\/strong><\/p>\n

will (search for files smaller than 1024 bytes OR (the name contains the word ‘finance’ or ‘production’)), AND after all that, the file must have been modified after July 1, 2019.<\/p>\n

Extended attributes<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In addition to the normal file properties, you can also search based on the extended attributes.\u00a0 To see which extended attributes are available on your system, right click on the column header in the explorer window to bring up the list of available columns:<\/p>\n

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and click on the More…<\/strong> item.\u00a0 The list of extended attributes are then displayed.<\/p>\n

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To search an extended attribute, use the Attribute<\/strong> function e.g.<\/p>\n

Attribute(‘Width’)<\/strong><\/p>\n

returns the Width<\/strong> attribute (if available) of the file.\u00a0 So if the file is an image file, a value will be returned.\u00a0 On our system, the Width<\/strong> attribute is displayed with a pixels suffix i.e.<\/p>\n

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So if we wanted to search for image files with a width of 3968 pixels, we would need to use this search criteria:<\/p>\n

Attribute(‘Width’) = ‘3968 pixels’<\/strong><\/p>\n

We can also return the attribute as a number using the AttributeAsNumber<\/strong> function e.g.<\/p>\n

AttributeAsNumber(‘Width’)<\/strong><\/p>\n

This function attempts to return the attribute’s text value (in this case ‘3968 pixels’) as a numerical value (3968).\u00a0 If the attribute value cannot be converted to a number, a value of 0 is returned.<\/p>\n

Now that we can get the width attribute as a number, we can easily apply range checks to it e.g.<\/p>\n

AttributeAsNumber(‘Width’) > 3776<\/strong>
\n(AttributeAsNumber(‘Width’) > 3776) OR (AttributeAsNumber(‘Width’) < 1024)<\/strong>
\n(AttributeAsNumber(‘Width’) > 3776) AND (AttributeAsNumber(‘Height’) > 2048)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Extended attributes allow you to perform some very advanced searches.\u00a0 For example, say we have the following Excel files:<\/p>\n

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We can search on the Authors<\/strong> and Subject<\/strong> attributes easily in Easy Explorer.\u00a0 E.g.<\/p>\n

Attribute(‘Authors’) = ‘Yeoh Ray Mond’<\/strong><\/p>\n

will return all files created by ‘Yeoh Ray Mond’.\u00a0 If we want to search for all files containing the word ‘Financials<\/strong>‘ in its subject, we will need to use the TextContains<\/strong> function in addition to the Attribute<\/strong> function.\u00a0 The Attribute<\/strong> function returns the full value of the specified attribute, so for the first file, it will return ‘Financials for April 2019’.\u00a0 We could write the search criteria like so:<\/p>\n

Attribute(‘Subject’) = ‘Financials for April 2019’<\/strong><\/p>\n

but it will limit our search to only the first file.\u00a0 In this case, we want to return the third file too.\u00a0 To do that, we use the TextContains<\/strong> function e.g.<\/p>\n

TextContains(Attribute(‘Subject’), ‘Financials’)<\/strong><\/p>\n

TextContains<\/strong> takes 3 parameters.\u00a0 The first parameter is the value to search in.\u00a0 In this case, it will be the value of the Subject<\/strong> attribute.\u00a0 The second parameter is the value to search for, in this case the word ‘Financials’.\u00a0 The third optional parameter is to indicate if the search is case-sensitive.\u00a0 The default value is false, so you could write the search criteria in any of these ways:<\/p>\n

TextContains(Attribute(‘Subject’), ‘Financials’)
\nTextContains(Attribute(‘Subject’), ‘financials’)
\nTextContains(Attribute(‘Subject’), ‘finanCIALS’)
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

To perform a case sensitive search, pass TRUE<\/strong> in the third parameter e.g.<\/p>\n

TextContains(Attribute(‘Subject’), ‘Financials’, TRUE)
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are also 2 additional text functions, TextStartsWith<\/strong> and TextEndsWith<\/strong>, that checks if the text starts or ends with a specific value respectively, and accepts the same parameters as TextContains<\/strong> e.g.<\/p>\n

TextStartsWith(Attribute(‘Subject’), ‘Financials’)
\n<\/strong>TextStartsWith(Attribute(‘Subject’), ‘Financials’, TRUE)
\nTextEndsWith(Attribute(‘Subject’), ‘2019’)
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

To search for attributes with blank values, do a comparison with an emtpy value e.g.<\/p>\n

Attribute(‘Subject’) = ”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Conversely, to search for attributes with values:<\/p>\n

Attribute(‘Subject’) <> ”<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ability to search on extended attributes opens up a lot of possibilities:<\/p>\n