info-stnd: Searching Commands
6 Searching an Info File
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GNU Info allows you to search for a sequence of characters throughout an
entire Info file. Here are the commands to do this:
's' ('search')
'/'
Read a string in the echo area and search for it, either as a
regular expression (by default) or a literal string. If the string
includes upper-case characters, the Info file is searched
case-sensitively; otherwise Info ignores the letter case. With a
numeric argument of N, search for Nth occurrence of the string.
Negative arguments search backwards.
'?' ('search-backward')
Read a string in the echo area and search backward through the Info
file for that string. If the string includes upper-case
characters, the Info file is searched case-sensitively; otherwise
Info ignores the letter case. With a numeric argument of N, search
for Nth occurrence of the string. Negative arguments search
forward.
'C-x n' ('search-next')
'}'
Search forwards for the string used for the last search command.
Case sensitivity and use of regular expressions are kept the same.
With a numeric argument of N, search for Nth next occurrence.
By default, the search starts at the position immediately following
the cursor. However, if the variable 'search-skip-screen' (
'search-skip-screen' Variables.) is set, it starts at the
beginning of the next page, thereby skipping all visibly displayed
lines.
'C-x N' ('search-previous')
'{'
Just like 'search-next', but in reverse. You can use 'search-next'
and 'search-previous' together to move forward and backward through
matches. 'search-previous' usually goes to the place in the file
that was displayed before an immediately preceding 'search-next',
and vice versa.(1)
'R' ('toggle-regexp')
Toggle between using regular expressions and literal strings for
searching. Info uses so-called 'extended' regular expression
syntax ((grep)Regular Expressions).
'S' ('search-case-sensitively')
Read a string in the echo area and search for it case-sensitively,
even if the string includes only lower-case letters. With a
numeric argument of N, search for Nth occurrence of the string.
Negative arguments search backwards.
'C-s' ('isearch-forward')
Interactively search forward through the Info file for a string as
you type it. If the string includes upper-case characters, the
search is case-sensitive; otherwise Info ignores the letter case.
'C-r' ('isearch-backward')
Interactively search backward through the Info file for a string as
you type it. If the string includes upper-case characters, the
search is case-sensitive; otherwise Info ignores the letter case.
'M-/' ('tree-search')
Recursively search this node and any subnodes listed in menus for a
string.
'M-}' ('tree-search-next')
'M-{' ('tree-search-previous')
Go forwards and backwards through the matches for an active tree
search.
The most basic searching command is 's' or '/' ('search'). The 's'
command prompts you for a string in the echo area, and then searches the
remainder of the Info file for an occurrence of that string. If the
string is found, the node containing it is selected, and the cursor is
left positioned at the start of the found string. Subsequent 's'
commands show you the default search string; pressing <RET> instead of
typing a new string will use the default search string.
"Incremental searching" is similar to basic searching, but the string
is looked up while you are typing it, instead of waiting until the
entire search string has been specified.
The tree search can be used from the 'dir' node to search through all
Info files installed on the system. It can also be used to search
through a particular chapter of a manual when you are not interested in
matches in other chapters.
If the 'highlight-searches' variable is set, matches from search
commands will be highlighted. 'highlight-searches' Variables.
Use the 'M-x clear-search' command to clear any search highlights.
Both incremental and non-incremental search by default ignore the
case of letters when comparing the Info file text with the search
string. However, an uppercase letter in the search string makes the
search case-sensitive. You can force a case-sensitive non-incremental
search, even for a string that includes only lower-case letters, by
using the 'S' command ('search-case-sensitively'). The 'n' and 'N'
commands operate case-sensitively if the last search command was 'S'.
Normally, the search pattern should not be shorter than some
predefined limit. By default, this limit is set to 1 character.
min-search-length for more information on this.
---------- Footnotes ----------
(1) This sometimes doesn't happen when 'search-skip-screen' is 'On',
and the search goes across nodes.
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