Finding Table Data

Use the find function to locate a text or numeric value in the selected table view, message log, or event console view.

Take these steps to use the Find tool for quickly locating values.

  1. Open the workspace that contains the view you want to search.
  2. Click Find in the table view toolbar. If the tool is hidden, click Show toolbar in the view's title bar. The Find window opens with the first two column headings (attributes) filled in and fields for entering up to five values.
  3. Click arrow and select the column to search within. To clear a column name, select the first entry (which is empty) from the list.
  4. Click inside the corresponding Value field and enter the value to find.
    1. The default function is Value of expression ( Compare Date and Time for time attributes); the default operator is . If you need to change the function or operator, click the or button and select from the list.
    2. You can enter a partial value to find all occurrences of the text or number that begin with those characters. For example, 500 will find 500 and 5000; and West will find West, West006, and Western. You can also use an * asterisk wildcard for any number of characters beginning at that position; use a ? question mark wildcard for a single character at that position. You can also use wildcards with the Scan for string within a string and Return a subset of the string functions. See the formula function topics for a description of attribute types and other formula functions, including examples. When using the ? question mark wildcard with the Value of expression function, append the text with an * asterisk. For example, enter Sa?e* to find Safe and Sale.
    3. Most special characters are processed correctly. If you attempt to find text that includes a special character and it is not found, but you know it exists in your environment, precede it with the \ backslash escape character. These are some of the special characters that require the \ escape character prefix: # pound sign; $ dollar sign; ^ circumflex; \ backslash; (open and) close parentheses; + plus sign; [open square bracket; {open and} close curly braces. For example, \#my_situation to find #my_situation in the Message Log view.
      These special characters do not need the escape character: ! exclamation point; @ at sign; % percentage; & ampersand; = equal sign; < open and > close pointed bracket; _ underscore; - hyphen; ] close square bracket; / slash; : colon; and ; semicolon.
  5. Select or clear any of the following check box options, then click Find.
    Check BoxPreferred Action
    Case Sensitive To find only spellings that match the letter casing as typed. When the check box is disabled, all variations of the letter casing can be found.
    Backwards To search from the cursor point backwards. When the check box is disabled, the default, the search will be from this point forward.
    Wrap Search Instead of stopping the search when the end of the document is reached, continues to search from the beginning and stops when it reaches the point where the search began. Clear the check box if you want the search to stop at the end of the document (or the beginning of the document if the search is backwards).
  6. Click Find Again to search for the next instance.
You can click Close when you are done or leave the Find window open for this view while you continue working with the workspace.