In the procedure editor, the editor that’s invoked when working with PL/SQL objects, you will notice a slightly new user interface when invoking a search or a replace.

Let’s cover search first.

The highlighted control, start typing there, and the search will start...
The highlighted control, start typing there, and the search will start…

Already searched for something, and want to do it again? Check out the history.

Just hit the dropdown on the search button to access the search history.
Just hit the dropdown on the search button to access the search history.

Start searching, immediately highlight all of the ‘hits.’

Start typing, the search begins, no need to hit
Start typing, the search begins, no need to hit

Remember how you can just double-click on a word to find all of the occurrences? Yeah, that still works, and it’s independent of the search highlighting.

I double-clicked on the highlighted text
I double-clicked on the highlighted text

So what are the options? Instead of a popup dialog, now you have a toolbar to toggle the search options.

search5

Case-sensitive search, whole word, highlight occurrences, regex, selected text only, wrap around

And Replace?

You get a similar toolbar.

The replacement text also gets a history list!
The replacement text also gets a history list!

Regular expression replacement wasn’t working correctly in version 4. It’s fixed now in version 4.1. We now use $ notation in the replace field – this matches also what Netbeans and other Java IDEs use for back replacement in regex search and replacements [Docs]. Specifically, $2 will refer to the 2nd group and /2 means insert a two.

And the SQL Worksheet?

The UI remains the same. We’re finding and fixing bugs being logged in both editors now in the Forums. If you find something, report it!

Author

I'm a Distinguished Product Manager at Oracle. My mission is to help you and your company be more efficient with our database tools.

4 Comments

  1. Robin Hale-Cooper Reply

    I sometimes search and replace rather long strings when reusing bits of code. The new Find and replace fields are too narrow to display the entire string. Other than that, I like the new search and replace better than the old.

  2. Search replace doesn’t seem to work when trying to replace a string with an empty string (more like search and remove capability). Using Version 4.1.0.17.29

Reply To Kevin Cancel Reply