Incremental Search

Jade's main command for searching buffers is an Emacs-style incremental search (or isearch). This is a subsystem of the editor which lets you interactively search for regular expressions in a buffer.

Ctrl-s

Start an incremental search, initially searching forwards through the buffer.

Ctrl-r

Similar to Ctrl-s except that searching is initially in the backwards direction.

When you are in an isearch the general idea is to type in a regular expression and see what it matches in the buffer. As more characters are added to the string being searched for the cursor indicates strings which match. To backtrack your steps (i.e. the characters you have typed) the backspace key is used.

The special commands which are available when isearching are,

Ctrl-s

Search forwards for another occurrence of the search regexp. This can also be used to wrap around to the start of the buffer if no more matches exist between the cursor and the end of the buffer.

Ctrl-r

Search backwards for the regexp.

Ctrl-g

Cancels the isearch. If the search is currently failing (the string you've typed doesn't match anything) characters are deleted from the regexp until either a match is found or the original cursor position is reached. If the search is not failing the cursor is returned to its original position and the isearch is exited.

Ctrl-w

Copies the word under the cursor to the regexp being searched for.

Ctrl-y

The rest of the current line is appended to the regexp being searched for.

Ctrl-q

The next character typed is appended to the regexp no matter what it is, this can be used to enter control characters. Note that currently you can't search for newline characters.

RET

ESC

Accept the cursor's current position, the isearch is exited leaving the cursor as it is.

Backspace

Moves back up the stack which represents the current isearch, i.e. deletes characters from the search regexp or moves the cursor through the positions it had to reach its current position.

Any other keys are appended to the regular expression being searched for.

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