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Find In Files

The Find in Files feature in Phoenix Code is a powerful tool to quickly search for specific text across multiple files within a project. This feature is useful for developers working on large codebases to find references, variable names, or specific lines of code.

To search across your project files, use Ctrl-Shift-F on Windows/Linux or Cmd-Shift-F on Mac, or select Find > Find in Files from the menu. This feature searches for your term throughout the project's files and displays each occurrence with its file name, line number, and a snippet of the code for context.

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Searching Within a Folder​

To search within a specific folder in Phoenix:

  1. Right-click on the folder in the Files panel where you want to perform the search.
  2. From the context menu that appears, select "Find in...".

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  1. The find bar will now appear with search restricted to that folder (See in y/ in the below image).

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Using File Filters​

By default, Find in Files searches all files in your project folder. You can exclude or include files, file types, whole folders, or other patterns:

  • Click the "No Files Excluded" dropdown from the search bar.

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Phoenix Code allows you to specify which files and folders should be excluded or included during project searches.

For searching only within files matching pattern​

When you select Search in files option from the above dropdown, the filter will search only within files and folders that match the entered patterns. Entering *.json,*.css will include only JSON and css files in your search results, or just enter json to select any files having charecters json in its path. See more patterns below.

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For Excluding files​

When you select Exclude files option from the above dropdown, the filter will ignore files and folders that match the patterns you enter. For instance, typing *.json in the text area will exclude all JSON files from your search results. See more patterns below.

The filter pattern​

This section describes the format of the exclusion/search within files glob pattern.

  1. Each pattern should be entered as a comma seperated text. You can specify multiple patterns: 
    *.js,*.json
  2. To fuzzy search, just enter text. Eg. entering css will match all filenames that has the letters css in its path name like x/st.css and cssFile.md.
  3. To match all JavaScript files in any directory, use *.js. This matches files like a/b/x.js and xyz.js.
  4. To match JavaScript files only in the project root, use ./*.js. This matches x.js in the root but not y/x.js in a subdirectory.
  5. To match css files only in a folder search/folder, use search/folder/*.css. This matches search/folder/x.css but not y/x.css.
  6. ?.js will match only a/b/x.js and not xyx.js
  7. **/some_folder/** will match some_folder anywhere.
  8. [] to declare a range of characters to match (example.[0-9] to match on example.0, example.1, …)
  9. To search for files names with , in it, use escape char \. Eg. To match a file with name hello,world.js, the filter string to use is hello\,world.js.
  10. More complex glob patterns can be provided. See: https://www.malikbrowne.com/blog/a-beginners-guide-glob-patterns/