Author Topic: Hound: a grep-alike that searches inside PDFs (Read 46,344 times)

rjbull · « **on:** February 05, 2009, 03:17 PM »

I'm a big fan of BareGrep Pro by Bare Metal Software, a truly excellent visual grep. I didn't expect much when I downloaded the freeware Hound from Jimmy the Fork. Indeed it won't replace BareGrep Pro. But I was impressed when I turned it loose on a directory that happened to have some PDFs in it, and found Hound's status bar saying things like "Examining PDF", "Converting PDF to plain text," and giving a grep-like posting. I don't know how it does it, and didn't check for absolute accuracy, but the set of results it gave looked right.

Nice bit of humour on that site, too. E.g., his duplicate file finder is called Dolly, with a picture of a sheep

40hz · « **Reply #1 on:** February 05, 2009, 06:53 PM »

Nice find. It ripped through a 1.23GB directory of 43K files (doc/html/txt/pdf) without a hiccup.

Liked the sheep pic. Wonder if it really is Dolly.

Darwin · « **Reply #2 on:** February 05, 2009, 07:34 PM »

Quote from: 40hz on February 05, 2009, 06:53 PM

Nice find. It ripped through a 1.23GB directory of 43K files (doc/html/txt/pdf) without a hiccup.

Liked the sheep pic. Wonder if it really is Dolly.

Maybe it's a clone... ?

40hz · « **Reply #3 on:** February 05, 2009, 08:59 PM »

Quote from: Darwin on February 05, 2009, 07:34 PM

Quote from: 40hz on February 05, 2009, 06:53 PM
Nice find. It ripped through a 1.23GB directory of 43K files (doc/html/txt/pdf) without a hiccup.

Liked the sheep pic. Wonder if it really is Dolly.

Maybe it's a clone... ?

(Cloned laughter!)

PhilB66 · « **Reply #4 on:** February 05, 2009, 11:20 PM »

Quote from: Darwin on February 05, 2009, 07:34 PM

Quote from: 40hz on February 05, 2009, 06:53 PM
Nice find. It ripped through a 1.23GB directory of 43K files (doc/html/txt/pdf) without a hiccup.

Liked the sheep pic. Wonder if it really is Dolly.

Maybe it's a clone... ?

Sure looks like Dolly (in my eyes all sheep do).

[attach]

fiddyschmitt · « **Reply #5 on:** May 08, 2009, 10:28 AM »

hey guys - jimmythefork is actually my website! I'm glad that you liked hound! and yep that is dolly the cloned sheep.

I've made a new version of hound in c# and I'll put it online soon

Cheers,
Fidel

rjbull · « **Reply #6 on:** May 10, 2009, 09:50 PM »

Welcome to DC, Fidel

It was worth downloading Eggbert for the look of alarm when you exit

But did you know that E-Mail Checker gets stamped on by PC-Cillin AV? Another over-enthusiastic false positive?

fiddyschmitt · « **Reply #7 on:** July 07, 2009, 11:53 PM »

thanks rj

For sure an over-enthusiastic false positive. What does it say is wrong with it??

rjbull · « **Reply #8 on:** July 09, 2009, 01:12 PM »

Quote from: fiddyschmitt on July 07, 2009, 11:53 PM

For sure an over-enthusiastic false positive. What does it say is wrong with it??

I can't remember what OfficeScan said the first time. I just downloaded E-MailChecker.zip again and tried once more, but the only message in OfficeScan's log is "Possible_Virus." That's oh, so helpful

sajman99 · « **Reply #9 on:** October 26, 2009, 09:45 PM »

Yes, Hound seems to reliably search through PDFs.

Thanks goes to rjbull for the recommendation and to Fidel aka Jimmy the Fork for the cool app.

sajman99 · « **Reply #10 on:** October 30, 2009, 11:07 PM »

Crud, Hound is sometimes leaving behind text files when I search PDFs. I understand the PDFs are converted so they can be searched as text, but I had thought any text files were temporary. Since I don't really need a .pdf and a .txt with the same info, this is a bit of a pain as the app otherwise works great. Anybody else notice this?

rjbull · « **Reply #11 on:** November 02, 2009, 07:49 PM »

Quote from: sajman99 on October 30, 2009, 11:07 PM

Crud, Hound is sometimes leaving behind text files when I search PDFs [...] Anybody else notice this?

I hadn't noticed, but, I don't use it very often. Suggest you e-mail Fidel?

sajman99 · « **Reply #12 on:** November 02, 2009, 09:40 PM »

Quote from: rjbull on November 02, 2009, 07:49 PM

...Suggest you e-mail Fidel?

OK, done.

fiddyschmitt · « **Reply #13 on:** November 02, 2009, 09:49 PM »

Quote

Some people have discovered that Hound leaves behind some text files when searching through PDFs. So a few questions for you...

(1) Have you ever heard of this issue ?
(2) Do you have plans to update Hound 1.0 ?

Thanks very much, sajman99

Hi sajman99, thanks for info. I have noticed that hound can leave behind some temp files, but I couldn't pinpoint why. I've got a couple of options - update hound 1.0 or release hound 3.0 (the .net version). I'll post it here once it's done

Cheers,
Fidel

sajman99 · « **Reply #14 on:** November 03, 2009, 05:06 AM »

Hi Fidel, aside from the leftover temp issue I really like your search app Hound. I'm definitely looking forward to its continued development.
Good Luck.

fiddyschmitt · « **Reply #15 on:** November 16, 2009, 12:14 PM »

Quote from: sajman99 on November 03, 2009, 05:06 AM

Hi Fidel, aside from the leftover temp issue I really like your search app Hound. I'm definitely looking forward to its continued development.
Good Luck.

Thanks Saj

I'm pleased to announce that the latest version is online. It's over at jimmythefork.com
If you enjoy using it, please show your workmates who might find it useful

Cheers,
Fidel

sajman99 · « **Reply #16 on:** November 16, 2009, 08:58 PM »

So Hound is now File Hound, and it's much improved.

Fidel, I will be glad to ask others...

Quote

Hey cool person x, How's it going? I've been pretty good. Have you heard about hound?? It's pretty damn cool. Take a look - jimmythefork.com

I appreciate both your software and your sense of humor--good luck with continued development.

superboyac · « **Reply #17 on:** November 16, 2009, 09:38 PM »

I came across this and thought, "WTF is grep?!" Anyway, I looked it up. You command line people...you guys are all crazy.

fiddyschmitt · « **Reply #18 on:** November 16, 2009, 10:00 PM »

haha thanks Saj

Glad you appreciate it. I want to add more of a personal touch to the programs.

and Superboyac, I know what you mean! Some people very much prefer the command line tools but my personal preference is for the windowed approach (for this at least)

superboyac · « **Reply #19 on:** November 16, 2009, 10:37 PM »

Quote from: fiddyschmitt on November 16, 2009, 10:00 PM

haha thanks Saj Glad you appreciate it. I want to add more of a personal touch to the programs.

and Superboyac, I know what you mean! Some people very much prefer the command line tools but my personal preference is for the windowed approach (for this at least)

Yeah, totally. I'm a button guy. Buttons, checkboxes, radio buttons, menus...all that stuff.

sajman99 · « **Reply #20 on:** November 17, 2009, 01:21 AM »

Fidel, I have a question about File Hound's registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Jtf\Hound3 which evidently sets the "Associate with Folders" context menu entry...

Is there a way to use a config file (.ini) or some other way (I have no idea

) to implement that value so File Hound can be 100% portable? If so, I could put File Hound on a flash drive and use it on my friend's computer without touching the registry.

Just curious about this portability issue--regardless I will continue to use File Hound.

fiddyschmitt · « **Reply #21 on:** November 17, 2009, 06:33 AM »

Quote from: sajman99 on November 17, 2009, 01:21 AM

Fidel, I have a question about File Hound's registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Jtf\Hound3 which evidently sets the "Associate with Folders" context menu entry...

Is there a way to use a config file (.ini) or some other way (I have no idea ) to implement that value so File Hound can be 100% portable? If so, I could put File Hound on a flash drive and use it on my friend's computer without touching the registry.

Just curious about this portability issue--regardless I will continue to use File Hound.

Thanks Saj

That's definitely do-able. I'm a big fan of portable software myself - so expect the change to happen soon. I'll make it an ini file so it's nice and easy to maintain.

cemole · « **Reply #22 on:** November 17, 2009, 08:14 AM »

My two cents... How about a "Browse" function for the folder(s) that one can search rather than having to type the correct path?

fiddyschmitt · « **Reply #23 on:** November 17, 2009, 08:30 AM »

Quote from: cemole on November 17, 2009, 08:14 AM

My two cents... How about a "Browse" function for the folder(s) that one can search rather than having to type the correct path?

yep - good idea. I'll add that too. Keep in mind you can right-click any folder and press "Hound 3"

mouser · « **Reply #24 on:** November 17, 2009, 08:41 AM »

Quote

you can right-click any folder and press "Hound 3"

i think this gets to what someone said about registry.. i think having an option to put it on context menu is wonderful, but it should be an option.