Topic: Find a date string (1 of 7), Read 47 times
Conf: Search and Replace
From: Robert Bowes
Date: Monday, February 02, 2004 10:12 AM

Hello,

I recently purchased VEDIT and am a complete novice…so bear with me. I am trying to find a date string in a file and would like to know what I should search for. The string is: 11/3/2003 4:25:12 PM

Thanks…

Bob

 

Topic: Find a date string (2 of 7), Read 48 times
Conf: Search and Replace
From: Christian Ziemski
Date: Monday, February 02, 2004 02:15 PM

Bob:

For an exact match you can use the following pattern matching expression.

It might be looking strange and like overkill, but it depends on your data file...

If there are only the timestamps you are looking for and
no other ones "nearly" identical in format you of course
can use only a part of the expression.



      |D|[|D]/|D|[|D]/|D|D|D|D|W|D|[|D]:|D|D:|D|D|W|{A,P}M

      

      

      In details that means:

      

      |D        first the month: a digit and

      |[|D]     optionally a second digit

      /         the divider

      

      |D        second the day: a digit and

      |[|D]     optionally a second digit

      /         next divider

      

      |D|D|D|D  four digits (the year)

      

      |W        some white space

      

      |D|[|D]   hour: a digit plus perhaps a second one

      :

      |D|D      minutes: two digits

      :

      |D|D      seconds: two digits

      

      |W        some white space

      

      |{A,P}    "A" or "P"

      M         "M"


Christian

 

Topic: Find a date string (3 of 7), Read 47 times, 1 File Attachment
Conf: Search and Replace
From: Robert Bowes
Date: Monday, February 02, 2004 03:42 PM

Christian,

Thanks for your prompt reply! To get my feet wet, I decided to start simple and work my way to your example. I tried to find the number 4 which is in the second line of the file...no luck! Perhaps I'm not entering the correct format so I attached some screen shots to show what I am doing.

Bob

  Screen Shots for search

 

Topic: Find a date string (4 of 7), Read 47 times
Conf: Search and Replace
From: Christian Ziemski
Date: Monday, February 02, 2004 05:19 PM

Bob:

Do you want to search the *exact* string "11/3/2003 4:25:12 PM" or any date string in that format???

My example was for the latter. And then you have to use it exactly as shown: |D is really |D and means "any digit".

If you are searching for the exact string you can simply put it (or parts of it) into the search box.
For example "4:25:12" (without the quotes).

Christian

 

Topic: Find a date string (5 of 7), Read 50 times
Conf: Search and Replace
From: Robert Bowes
Date: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 08:30 AM

Christian

Thanks for the tips. I tried the search again for the "4" and it worked. However, the date string is a problem as it doesn't seem to find it. The file is an Access database and I am trying to find the database creation date in the file. When I open the database in Access, the date is in a system table big as life. But when I use VEDIT I can't find it.

Bob

 

Topic: Re: Find a date string (6 of 7), Read 52 times
Conf: Search and Replace
From: Ted Green
Date: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 08:50 AM

At 08:30 AM 2/4/2004, you wrote:
>Thanks for the tips. I tried the search again for the "4" and it worked. However, the date string is a problem as it doesn't seem to find it. The file is an Access database and I am trying to find the database creation date in the file. When I open the database in Access, the date is in a system table big as life. But when I use VEDIT I can't find it.

You SHOULD HAVE immediately mentioned that this is database (binary) file.

There is no way to predict how a date is stored in a binary file; it is NEVER stored as a text string. You will have to find documentation on the Access data structure (assuming it is documented) and work from there. Since databases often use a
checksum to check for data corruption, you may not be able to change it anyway.
In general, Microsoft deliberately tries to obfuscate their Office file formats.

Sorry, but we probably cannot help you any further in this conference.

Ted.

 

Topic: Find a date string (7 of 7), Read 51 times
Conf: Search and Replace
From: Christian Ziemski
Date: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 04:01 PM

Bob:

Ted already described the current situation.

With unknown binary data it's near to impossible to help or even to solve the problem.

In other words:

VEDIT is able to *search* for almost everything!
But to let VEDIT *find* anything the user has to know what to search for! ;-)


Christian