| PowerGREP has a wide range of capabilities you won't find in any other Windows grep tool. While you will use some of these features only occasionally, they will surely save you a lot of time and tedious manual editing on many occasions. Regular Expression Lists Apply any number of search terms of regular expressions sequentially or concurrently. Complex search and replace operations often require multiple steps. Use PowerGREP to execute as many steps as you want in a single operation. Run the steps concurrently (search matches won't overlap), or sequentially (replacements cascade onto the following steps). Save all steps into a single PowerGREP Action for instant reuse. Similarly, while searching or collecting data, use a list of search terms or regular expressions to find files matching different criteria, or to extract disparate information from each file. Slice and Dice Files Any Way You Want Limit your search to specific file sections. When updating web sites, limit the search and replace to HTML tags, or even specific HTML tags, or alternatively, skip HTML tags. When programming, search through only comments and/or strings, or alternatively, skip comments and/or strings. Use as many regular expressions as you want to section files. Split files into records before searching. Instead of searching whole files at once, or line by line, split files into whichever record or block structure the files are formatted with. Specify record delimiters, or use regular expressions to match the records themselves. When sectioning files or splitting them into records, you can work with the sections as a whole. Require search matches to span complete sections, collect or replace whole records, or return those records in which the search terms cannot be found. Adapt Search Matches before Substitution or Collection Post-process replacement text or text to be collected. Often, a search match isn't in the format you want it to be. PowerGREP's unique "extra processing" feature allows you to perform additional search and replace steps on each search match. E.g. when processing web logs, replace URL-encoded characters when extracting search engine keywords from referrer URLs. Work Safely with Automatic Backup and Undo History Stay safe with the permanent Undo History. When PowerGREP overwrites a file, it will create a backup copy of the original using your preferred naming style, placing the backup in your preferred location. If you change your mind about a particular action, undo it with just one click in PowerGREP's Undo History. Even after you've closed PowerGREP or rebooted your computer. Or, with another click, delete all backup files when they're no longer needed. Don’t Leave a Trace after Audits or Forensic Analysis Perform audits and forensic analysis without leaving a trace on the computer you run PowerGREP on. Create a portable installation of PowerGREP onto a USB stick or any other removable device. You can use that portable installation on any PC. PowerGREP will automatically use the USB stick to save its settings, without touching the host computer, unless you explicitly tell PowerGREP to modify or delete certain files. Everything Can Be Automated or Scheduled The original grep was a pure command line tool. Modern Windows applications often only provide a point-and-click interface. PowerGREP provides the best of both worlds. All of its features can be used through both its rich graphical user interface (GUI) as well as via the command line. The GUI makes PowerGREP easy-to-use, while the command line allows you to automate or schedule anything. | "I am working with my version of PowerGREP for some time now, and I really enjoy every single time where I am much faster doing complicated search&replace sessions on different files. Some people really can’t believe until they see what PowerGREP is capable of. Thanks for creating it."
— Andreas Kroll
23 July 2008, Germany
 | | Collecting Google search keywords from web logs with PowerGREP |
"I just don't stop being amazed at PowerGREP. There is nothing to match it on any operating system. Every day I find some new amazing capability that makes it even more valuable. It's worth every penny of its price many times over. Thank you for creating it, and also for the best documentation of RegEx to be found anywhere."
— Tim Green
10 November 2009, Germany |
