Searching for files containing specified strings in C#

Question

I am trying to write a WinForms app, that allows searching for a files, that contain a string written in textbox ( press WIN+F and you understand ;) ) in this app, there is a list of files and directories, that must be searched for this string

those files are mostly .doc and .xls i think, that searching in doc may be easier, but in Excel files, cells can have different encodings i've tried to "read" those files, by opening them in Notepad++, and i found that cells with only latin characters were easy to find, but those with polish characters, had a two byte encoding

in windows built in search, there was no problem, it was able to tell, that in some test files there is my string that contains polish special characters

so my question basically is, if there is a method to use this windows built-in search engine for my app ( as i wrote, i need to find only filenames ), or maybe you have any other idea, how i can write a simple multi-file search ?

Answer 1

You probably want to use the Windows Search SDK.

Answer 2

You can interact with windows search in your code, allowing it to do the heavy lifting of searching multiple file types. See this MSDN article for more information:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb266517%28v=VS.85%29.aspx

Answer 3

Check out this website on using the Windows Indexing APIs. It refers to ASP.NET but the code is in C#.

Snippet below:

            string  QueryText = "asp alliance"; //The search string
            string CatalogName = "searchcatalog"; //The name of your Index Server catalog
            int NumberOfSearchResults = 0;  
            DataSet SearchResults = new DataSet();  

            //Prevent SQL injection attacks - further security measures are recommended  
            QueryText = QueryText.Replace("'", "''");  

            //Build the search query  
            string SQL = "SELECT doctitle, vpath, Path, Write, Size, Rank ";  
            SQL += "FROM \"" + CatalogName + "\"..SCOPE() ";  
            SQL += "WHERE";  
            SQL += " CONTAINS(Contents, '" + QueryText + "') ";  
            SQL += "AND NOT CONTAINS(Path, '\"_vti_\"') ";  
            SQL += "AND NOT CONTAINS(FileName, '\".ascx\" OR \".config\" OR \".css\"') ";  
            SQL += "ORDER BY Rank DESC";  

            //Connect to Index Server and perform search query  
            try   
            {  
                OleDbConnection IndexServerConnection = new OleDbConnection("Provider=msidxs;");  
                OleDbCommand dbCommand = new OleDbCommand(SQL, IndexServerConnection);  

                OleDbDataAdapter IndexServerDataAdapter = new OleDbDataAdapter();  
                IndexServerDataAdapter.SelectCommand = dbCommand;  

                IndexServerDataAdapter.Fill(SearchResults);  
                NumberOfSearchResults = SearchResults.Tables[0].Rows.Count;  
            }  
            catch (Exception ExceptionObject)  
            {  
                //Query failed so display an error message  
                NumberOfSearchResults = 0;  
                LabelNumberOfResults.Text = "Problem with retrieving search results due to: " + ExceptionObject.Message;  
                DataGridSearchResults.Visible = false;  

            }