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Searching for Patterns
Arbortext Editor provides a search feature using regular expressions (special characters) that act as wildcards and classes of characters. This is useful when you are unsure of the spelling, such as which vowel is used. You can search, for example, for all words starting with “s” and ending in “ t” such as “support,” or just words containing vowels between those letters such as “set” or “suit. ”
To search for patterns:
1. From the menu bar choose Find > Find/Replace.
2. Select the Match Patterns check box.
3. In Find What, type the regular expression you want to use for your search. See the table below for the permitted characters and their meanings.
4. Click Find Next.
Table 16. Regular Expressions
Character
Meaning
Example
Finds
. (period)
Each period equals one character.
s.t
sit, sat, sed, …
+ (plus)
One or more characters of those specified in square brackets.
s[aeiou]+n
seen, soon, son, …
* (asterisk)
A character can occur zero or more times.
t[a-z]*y
twenty, try, trusty, …
| (vertical bar)
"Or," which searches for either word.
icon|tags
icon, tags