Results Reference

While PowerGREP previews or executes an action, the Results pane shows a progress meter. The meter indicates the percentage of files already searched through at the left, and an estimate of the remaining time the action needs until completion at the right.

By default, the results of the action will only be shown when it has run to completion. Click the Update Results button to see the results gathered so far, or toggle the Automatic Update button to make PowerGREP update the results regularly. Updating the results slows down the search, but does allow you to inspect the results before the action has completed.

Changing Display Options

The Results pane provides six sets of options to rearrange the display of the results, without executing the action again. When Automatic Update is active, changing an option immediately rearranges the results. If not, you need to click the Update Results button to rearrange them according to the new options. Automatic update is more convenient when working with small result sets. Manual update is faster when working with large result sets, since it allows you to change multiple options before updating the results.

Display files and matches:

• Do not show files or matches: Do not show any file names or matches. Only totals will be shown.
• File names only: Display file names, and file totals. Do not display matches.
• Matches without context: Display search matches. File names and file totals are shown when grouping per file.
• Matches with section numbers: Display search matches along with the number of the section or line the match was found on.
• Matches with context: Display the sections or lines on which matches were found, and highlight the matches.
• Matches with context and section numbers: Display the sections or lines on which matches were found, along with the number of the section or line.

Group search matches: If you selected to display files and/or matches, you can also select how the files and matches should be displayed. When grouping unique matches, the context choices determine how matches are shown when double-clicking a unique match.

• Do not group matches: Show all matches, without indicating file names.
• Per file: Show file names, and all matches for each file.
• Per file, with or without matches: Show file names and all matches. Also show file names of files without matches.
• Per file, then per unique match: Show file names, and unique matches for each file. Per file, per match, with or without matches: Show file names and unique matches. Also show file names of files without matches.
• Per unique match: Show each unique match once, regardless of the files in which it was found. Do not indicate file names.

Display totals:

• Do not show totals: Never indicate totals.
• Show totals before the results: Show the number of matches and files before the results. When grouping per file, show the number of matches in that file between the file name and the file's matches.
• Show totals after the results: Show the number of matches and files after the results. When grouping per file, show the number of matches in that file after the file's matches.
• Show totals for grouped matches.: Do not show overall or per-file totals. When grouping unique matches, show the number of occurrences before each match.
• Totals before results, and grouped matches.: Show overall and per-file totals before the results, and show the number of occurrences of each match when grouping unique matches.
• Totals after results, and grouped matches.: Show overall and per-file totals after the results, and show the number of occurrences of each match when grouping unique matches.

Sort files:

• Alphabetically, A..Z: Sort files in ascending alphabetic order of their full path names.
• Alphabetically, Z..A: Sort files in descending alphabetic order of their full path names.
• By increasing totals: Sort files by the number of matches found in each file, from least to most.
• By decreasing totals: Sort files by the number of matches found in each file, from most to least.

Sort matches:

• Show in original order: Show matches in the order they have in the file they were found in.
• Alphabetically, A..Z: Sort matches alphabetically, from A to Z.
• Alphabetically, Z..A: Sort matches alphabetically, from Z to A.
• By increasing totals: When grouping unique matches, sort them from least occurrences to most occurrences.
• By decreasing totals: When grouping unique matches, sort them from most occurrences to least occurrences.

Display replacements: Determines how search matches and their replacements are displayed after a search-and-replace or collect action.

• Search match only: Display search matches, without their replacements.
• Replacement only: Display replacements instead of search matches.
• In-line match and replacement: Display both matches and replacements, next to each other.
• Separate match and replacement: Display matches and replacements separately. When showing context, the context is duplicated.