pdftron::PDF::TextSearch Class Reference

#include <TextSearch.h>

Public Types
enum	TextSearchModes {   e_reg_expression = 0x0001, e_case_sensitive = e_reg_expression << 1, e_whole_word = e_case_sensitive << 1, e_search_up = e_whole_word << 1,   e_page_stop = e_search_up << 1, e_highlight = e_page_stop << 1, e_ambient_string = e_highlight << 1 }
typedef TRN_UInt32	Mode

Public Member Functions
	TextSearch ()
	~TextSearch ()
bool	Begin (PDFDoc &doc, const UString &pattern, Mode mode, int start_page=-1, int end_page=-1)
SearchResult	Run ()
bool	SetPattern (const UString &pattern)
Mode	GetMode () const
void	SetMode (Mode mode)
void	SetRightToLeftLanguage (bool flag)
int	GetCurrentPage () const
void	Destroy ()

Detailed Description

TextSearch searches through a PDF document for a user-given search pattern. The current implementation supports both verbatim search and the search using regular expressions, whose detailed syntax can be found at:

http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/libs/regex/doc/html/boost_regex/syntax/perl_syntax.html

TextSearch also provides users with several useful search modes and extra information besides the found string that matches the pattern. TextSearch can either keep running until a matched string is found or be set to return periodically in order for the caller to perform any necessary updates (e.g., UI updates). It is also worth mentioning that the search modes can be changed on the fly while searching through a document.

Possible use case scenarios for TextSearch include:

• Guide users of a PDF viewer (e.g. implemented by PDFViewCtrl) to places where they are intersted in;
• Find interested PDF documents which contain certain patterns;
• Extract interested information (e.g., credit card numbers) from a set of files;
• Extract Highlight information (refer to the Highlights class for details) from files for external use.

Note:

• Since hyphens ('-') are frequently used in PDF documents to concatenate the two broken pieces of a word at the end of a line, for example

  "TextSearch is powerful for finding patterns in PDF files; yes, it is really pow- erful."

  a search for "powerful" should return both instances. However, not all end-of-line hyphens are hyphens added to connect a broken word; some of them could be "real" hyphens. In addition, an input search pattern may also contain hyphens that complicate the situation. To tackle this problem, the following conventions are adopted:

  a)When in the verbatim search mode and the pattern contains no hyphen, a matching string is returned if it is exactly the same or it contains end-of-line or start-of-line hyphens. For example, as mentioned above, a search for "powerful" would return both instances. b)When in verbatim search mode and the pattern contains one or multiple hyphens, a matching string is returned only if the string matches the pattern exactly. For example, a search for "pow-erful" will only return the second instance, and a search for "power-ful" will return nothing. c)When searching using regular expressions, hyphens are not taken care implicitly. Users should take care of it themselves. For example, in order to find both the "powerful" instances, the input pattern can be "pow-{0,1}erful".

A sample use case (in C++):

* //... Initialize PDFNet ...
* PDFDoc doc(filein);
* doc.InitSecurityHandler();
* int page_num;
* char buf[32];
* UString result_str, ambient_string;
* Highlights hlts;
* TextSearch txt_search;
* TextSearch::Mode mode = TextSearch::e_whole_word | TextSearch::e_page_stop;
* UString pattern( "joHn sMiTh" );
*
* //PDFDoc doesn't allow simultaneous access from different threads. If this
* //document could be used from other threads (e.g., the rendering thread inside
* //PDFView/PDFViewCtrl, if used), it is good practice to lock it.
* //Notice: don't forget to call doc.Unlock() to avoid deadlock.
* doc.Lock(); 
*
* txt_search.Begin( doc, pattern, mode );
* while ( true )
* {
*      SearchResult result = code = txt_search.Run(page_num, result_str, ambient_string, hlts );
*      if ( code == TextSearch::e_found )
*      {
*          result_str.ConvertToAscii(buf, 32, true);
*          cout << "found one instance: " << char_buf << endl;
*      }
*      else
*      {
*          break;
*      }
* }
*
* //unlock the document to avoid deadlock.
* doc.UnLock();
* 

For a full sample, please take a look at the TextSearch sample project.

Definition at line 170 of file TextSearch.h.

Member Typedef Documentation

typedef TRN_UInt32 pdftron::PDF::TextSearch::Mode

Typedef the search mode.

Definition at line 183 of file TextSearch.h.

Member Enumeration Documentation

enum pdftron::PDF::TextSearch::TextSearchModes

Search modes that control how searching is conducted.

Enumerator
e_reg_expression
e_case_sensitive
e_whole_word
e_search_up
e_page_stop
e_highlight
e_ambient_string

Definition at line 188 of file TextSearch.h.

Constructor & Destructor Documentation

pdftron::PDF::TextSearch::TextSearch

(

)

Constructor and destructor.

pdftron::PDF::TextSearch::~TextSearch

(

)

Member Function Documentation

bool pdftron::PDF::TextSearch::Begin	(	PDFDoc &	doc,
		const UString &	pattern,
		Mode	mode,
		int	start_page = -1,
		int	end_page = -1
	)

Initialize for search process. This should be called before starting the actual search with method Run().

Parameters

doc	the PDF document to search in.
pattern	the pattern to search for. When regular expression is used, it contains the expression, and in verbatim mode, it is the exact string to search for.
mode	the mode of the search process.
start_page	the start page of the page range to search in. The default value is -1 indicating the range starts from the first page.
end_page	the end page of the page range to search in. The default value is -1 indicating the range ends at the last page.

Returns

true if the initialization has succeeded.

void pdftron::PDF::TextSearch::Destroy

(

)

Frees the native memory of the object.

int pdftron::PDF::TextSearch::GetCurrentPage

(

)

const

Retrieve the number of the current page that is searched in. If the returned value is -1, it indicates the search process has not been initialized (e.g., Begin() is not called yet); if the returned value is 0, it indicates the search process has finished, and if the returned value is positive, it is a valid page number.

Returns

the current page number.

Mode pdftron::PDF::TextSearch::GetMode

(

)

const

Retrieve the current search mode.

Returns

the current search mode.

SearchResult pdftron::PDF::TextSearch::Run

(

)

Search the document and returns upon the following circumstances: a)Reached the end of the document; b)Reached the end of a page (if set to return by specifying mode 'e_page_stop' ); c)Found an instance matching the search pattern.

Note that this method should be called in a loop in order to find all matching instances; in other words, the search is conducted in an incremental fashion.

void pdftron::PDF::TextSearch::SetMode

(

Mode

mode

)

Set the current search mode. For example, the following code turns on the regular expressions:

TextSearch ts; ... TextSearch::Mode mode = ts.GetMode(); mode |= TextSearch::e_reg_expression; ts.SetMode(mode); ...

Parameters

mode	the search mode to set.

bool pdftron::PDF::TextSearch::SetPattern

(

const UString &

pattern

)

Set the current search pattern. Note that it is not necessary to call this method since the search pattern is already set when calling the Begin() method. This method is provided for users to change the search pattern while searching through a document.

Parameters

pattern

the search pattern to set.

Returns

true if the setting has succeeded.

void pdftron::PDF::TextSearch::SetRightToLeftLanguage

(

bool

flag

)

Tells TextSearch that language is from right to left.

Parameters

flag	Set to true if the language is right to left.

---

The documentation for this class was generated from the following file:

• PDF/TextSearch.h