Desktop Tools and Development Environment

Finding Files and Content Within Files

Use the Find Files tool to search for files or for specified text within files.

To search for files in one or more directories, or to search for specified text in files, follow these instructions:

1. Open the Find Files tool by clicking the Find Files button in the Current Directory browser toolbar, or by selecting Edit -> Find Files from the Edit menu in any desktop tool, such as the Current Directory browser or the Editor/Debugger.

1. The Find Files dialog box opens.

2. Type in the filename or text you are searching for:
• To search for files, type the filename in the Find files named field. You can use the wildcard character (*) in the filename. For example, type coll* to search for filenames that start with coll.
• To search for text, type the text in the Find files containing text field. For example, search for plot. Do not use a wildcard character in this field, but instead specify a wildcard search using the Advanced Options Search type (see step 4). Alternatively, you can select text in the Command Window or Editor/Debugger and that text appears in the Find files containing text field.
• To search for text in specified filenames only, type entries in both fields.

1. Use the dropdown list to view and select previous entries from the current MATLAB session.

3. From the Look in list box, select the directories to search in. You can instead type the full pathname for one or more directories into this field (with each pathname separated by a semicolon ;). Or select the Browse option at the end of the list box. To include subdirectories in the search, select the Include subdirectories check box.

1. For example, search the MATLAB current directory.

4. To specify additional search criteria, click Advanced Options.

1. For example, select *.m in the In file type field to limit the search to M-files only. The default, *, searches all file types.

   By default, a text search looks for partial matches (the Contains text option for Search type). You can instead select Matches whole word.

5. To execute the search, click Find. While the search is in progress, the Find button label changes to Stop Find. To abort a search, click Stop Find.

1. Search results appear in the pane on the right side of the Find Files dialog box, with a summary of the results at the bottom of the pane. For text searches, the line number and line of code are shown. To see the full pathnames for the files, select the Show full pathnames check box under Advanced Options.

6. Click a column heading to sort the results based on that column. Click the column heading again to reverse the sort order for that column. For example, click Line to sort results by line number.

You can open any M-files that appear in the results list by doing one of the following:

• Double-click the file
• Select the files and press Enter or Return
• Right-click and select Open from the context menu

The M-files open in the Editor/Debugger. For text searches, the file opens scrolled to the line number shown in the results section of the Find Files dialog box. Once in the Editor/Debugger, you can use the Find & Replace tool to replace specified text.

To see the results of a previous search, select its tab at the bottom of the results pane. Find Files shows up 10 search result tabs while the tool is open, but does not maintain the results after you close the tool.

Function Alternative.   Use lookfor to search for the specified text in the first line of help for all M-files on the search path.

Opening and Running Files

Accessing Source Control Features

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