Code Finder
The Code Finder view lets you scan every script in your database. You can combine these options:
| Button | Option | Effect |
|---|---|---|
.* | Regular expression | Interprets your query as a RegExp, giving you the full power of patterns (quantifiers, classes, anchors…). The Case sensitive and Whole word options can still be combined. |
Aa | Case sensitive | When checked, the search becomes case‑sensitive—“A” and “a” are treated as different characters. |
\b | Whole word | Limits results to occurrences not attached to other letters or digits. Words separated by spaces, punctuation, etc. are matched. |
The three buttons are inside the input field, on the right, in this order; when the field is not empty, a cross follows them, which clears it.
The search starts when you leave the input field — with a click elsewhere, with the Tab key or, from version 3.2.0 onwards, with the Enter key — or when you pick a search from the history. From the same version, Esc leaves the field and discards what you typed in it: the current search stays displayed. The searched text and the three options are remembered by the browser, for all databases.
Search history
A click in the input field drops down your last 20 searches, the most recent first; the list is filtered as you type. A cross removes a search from the history.
Results
The counter gives the number of results displayed and the total number found. Results are displayed in batches of 100: at the bottom of the list, +100 shows the next 100 (+N when fewer than 100 remain), and All (N) the remaining N.
Reading a result
Each result is a line presented as in Fields & Formulas: type icon, dependency badge, “Fx”, then the item’s breadcrumb, whose bold part designates the code where the text was found.
- When you hover over the bold part, the code appears in a tooltip, with the found text highlighted.
- A click on the bold part opens Ninox’s editor on this code, with the found text highlighted.
- The red button that appears on hover, on the right of the line, in “Edit mode”, selects the field on its form for a line that concerns a field, and opens the code editor for the other lines.
- A click on a field’s dependency badge opens that field in the Fields & Formulas tab.
Where the search looks
The search covers all the code of the database:
- the global code and the “After Open” trigger;
- table triggers;
- field formulas and triggers: buttons, after create or after update triggers, “Display only if”, read and write permissions, display formats, dynamic choices, constraints;
- view columns: their formula and their conditional formatting;
- print reports: texts containing formulas in braces, HTML blocks, revision columns, image fields with a formula, and the data source of Carbone reports (only the source formula is read, not the Word file).
Regular expression example
Need a refresher on RegExp syntax? A concise tutorial is available at https://regexone.com.
The following RegExp finds every select whose where clause filters on ID:
\bselect\b[^;]*(?<!\.)\bid\b
This helps you quickly spot places where you can replace first(select myTable where ID = searchId) with the faster alternative: record(myTable, searchId).
How it works step by step :
| RegExp Pattern | Explanation |
|---|---|
\bselect\b | Matches the whole word select (prevents matching words like “selected”). |
[^;]* | Matches zero or more characters except ;, ensuring no semicolon appears between select and id. |
(?<!\.) | A negative lookbehind that asserts there is no . immediately before id. |
\bid\b | Matches the whole word id (prevents matching substrings like “userid” or “ident”). |