This project is no longer actively maintained. While Nats (Not Another Text Search) is functional, it contains known bugs that I will not be addressing.
As of now, this repository is archived and read-only.
I recommend using ripgrep, a fast and reliable command-line file searcher that supports regex and is actively maintained.
NATS was a basic plain text file scanner tool that allowed you to search for keywords within text files. It provides various search options and can be used in both command-line and GUI versions available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It was written to experiment with search optimization techniques. Though it served its purpose, better tools now exist.
Thanks to everyone who tried out Nats, reported bugs, and contributed ideas!
- NATS: MIT License, © 2020 Luke Liukonen
- System.Data.OLEDB: MIT License, © Microsoft Corp - Used for Windows Index Scan
- System.Data.Sqllite.Core: Public Domain, © D. Richard Hipp - Used for NATS Index Backend Database
- Farmhash.Sharp: MIT License, © 2015 Nick Babcock and © 2014 Google, Inc. - Used for generating hash values for Indexes
- Material.IO Apache License: Apache License 2.0 - Icon for Mac and Windows provided by material.io
NATS -P path -K keyword [Search Type] [options]-K [keyword]: Keyword text to search for-P [path]: Directory path to search through
| Param | Meaning |
|---|---|
| -T[X] | Threading: Not setting the value indicates a single-thread search. -T implements multithreaded scanning, where X is the number of threads. If not set, a single thread is used. If [X] is empty, it defaults to 4 threads. |
| -I | Index: Generates or refreshes a NATS SQLite DB based on the given directory. It searches the index for matching keywords in files and scans those files for matching phrases. |
| -L | Limited: Performs the same search as Index but does not generate or refresh the index. |
| -B | Build: Indexes a directory only. A keyword needs to be passed but is not used in the indexing process. The indexing defaults to a hardcoded set of file types that are whitelisted, blacklisted, and utilize "Smart Search" to scan the files. Note: There is a chance that indexing may not always pick up text files. |
| -W | Windows Index: Uses the Windows built-in indexing engine to find files. Indexing must be turned on and set in the folder you want to search through for this option to work. |
| Param | Meaning |
|---|---|
| -S | Smart Search: Uses the byte order mark at the start of the file to assist in filtering out non-text files. This process is not 100% accurate but is used for index-based searches. |
| -R | RAM: Loads files under 10MB into RAM for comparison. This theoretically reduces IO spikes on the system process during non-indexed searches. Does not work with the -L command. |
| -O[path] | Output: Outputs the command to the specified path file. |
| -D [ext] | Disapproved Extensions: Filters out file extensions not to scan. Multiple extensions should be delimited with the " |
| -A [ext] | Approved Extensions: The reverse of the disapproved extension, which is disabled if -A is used. Only searches files with the specified extension. |
| -M | MultiLine: By default, NATS indicates if the file contains the selected keyword. Adding the M keyword during single or multithreaded scan will also indicate the lines in the file where the keyword appears (Note: this search takes longer as it needs to read through the entire file for keywords). |
| -H | Help: Ignores all other inputs and displays the help file. |
Design patterns or technologies explored:
- Singleton
- Factory Pattern
- Parallel Library
- SQLite DB
- String Hashing
- Cocoa (Mac OS) Development
- XCode
- GTK#
- .NET Standard
- Cross-Platform Development