As I'm learning to program Mathematica, I'm quickly collecting quite a number of notebooks that I've written. When I want to remember an idiom or technique I've used, I need to search the notebooks. I've found that the directory search in Win 7 is pretty bad for this. For example if I search for Reap, it will find it when it starts a line, but not if it is "buried" as in Cases[Reap[... What tools do folks use for this? Thanks! -Joe

Has anybody tried the code above? I had a funny typo ("Limes" instead of "Lines"), fixed now. I've been using it very happily (I have a directory of about 80 small notebooks - I can search them pretty quickly for idioms, use of functions, etc.), but I'm sure it can be improved. Thanks, -Joe

Thanks that was a great starting point! OK, I've made a start, but I need help: I created the following simple functions (which could be put in init.m, for example) nbScan[line_, str_] := If[StringMatchQ[line, ___ ~~ str ~~ ___], Print@line] onefile[fn_, str_] := (Print["searching for \"", str, "\" in ", fn]; Map[nbScan[#, str] &, StringSplit[Import[fn, "Plaintext"], "\n"]];) nbs[str_] := (files = FileNames[StringJoin[NotebookDirectory[], "*.nb"]]; Map[onefile[#, str] &, files];) Now I can search all notebooks in the current directory by typing something like this in a cell": nbs["Plot"] Here is sample output: searching for "Plot" in C:\Users\Gilrays\Documents\Mathematica\Play1.nb ListPlot[Map[Total, Map[Last, FactorInteger[Range[2, 1000]], {2}]]] Manipulate[ListPlot[Total/@Map[Last, FactorInteger[Range[2, x]], {2}]], {x, 2, 1000}] searching for "Plot" in C:\Users\Gilrays\Documents\Mathematica\tips.nb ... Some things I'd like help with: 1) How do I get rid of the extra empty line after each "match" 2) I'd like to bold each match like this: ListPlot[Map[Total, Map[Last, FactorInteger[Range[2, 1000]], {2}]]] 3) other ideas? Thanks in advance, -Joe

OK, I've gotten it good enough for me. Here's the code I'm using: nbScan[line_, str_] := Block[{s = StringSplit[StringDrop[line, -1], x : RegularExpression[(str)] :> Style[x, Red, Bold, 16]]}, If[Length@s >= 2, Print[Row[s]]]] onefile[fn_, str_] := Block[{}, Print["searching for \"", str, "\" in ", fn]; Map[nbScan[#, str] &, StringSplit[Import[fn, "Plaintext", IgnoreEmptyLines -> True], "\n"]]] nbs[str_] := Block[{files = FileNames[StringJoin[NotebookDirectory[], "*.nb"]]}, Map[onefile[#, str] &, files];] It works with regexps and does a decent job of highlighting. I can simply type: nbs["Cases"] or nbs["P..t"] try it! I'm sure there are some improvements that can be made -Joe

Tools question: how to search a directory full of notebooks