Search & Filter¶

Octa's search filters the table in real time, so only rows containing a match stay visible. The same field doubles as the entry point for Find & Replace.

Quick start¶

Press Ctrl+F (FocusSearch), or click the search box in the toolbar.
Type. The table re-filters on every keystroke.
Escape clears the search.

The status bar shows the visible row count vs. the total, which is handy for "how many rows match error?" without writing SQL.

Search modes¶

A dropdown next to the search box switches between three modes:

PlainWildcardRegex

Case-insensitive substring match, the default. foo matches Foo, bar foo baz, foobar, etc.

Plain mode is the fastest of the three. Use it for everyday "find rows containing this word" queries.

* matches any sequence of characters (including empty), ? matches exactly one character. Escape with \* and \? for literal asterisks / question marks.

Examples:

Pattern	Matches
`user_*`	`user_id`, `user_name`, `user_2024_01`
`report-????-Q1`	`report-2024-Q1`, `report-2025-Q1`
`*.log`	anything ending in `.log`

Full regex crate syntax. Case-sensitive unless you prefix with (?i).

Examples:

Pattern	Matches
`^foo`	rows starting with `foo`
`\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}`	ISO-formatted dates
`(?i)error\\|warn`	rows containing `error` or `warn`, any case

Compilation happens once per keystroke; invalid patterns leave the table un-filtered and show a tooltip with the error.

The default mode is set under Settings → Search & Editor → Default search mode.

What the search matches against¶

Every column's textual value, joined into one string per row. This means:

Numeric columns search against their displayed form (42 matches "42").
Date columns search against the ISO display (2024-01-15); see Date Inference for how text formats get promoted.
Boolean columns search against "true" / "false".
Binary columns search against whichever display mode is active (Hex / Binary / UTF-8; configured under Settings → Table View).

For column-scoped value filtering, see the Column Filter section below. For typed range or expression filtering, use the SQL panel: SELECT * FROM data WHERE col >= 42 is column-aware in a way the toolbar text filter isn't.

Find & Replace¶

Ctrl+H (ToggleFindReplace) opens the replace bar above the table. Two buttons:

Next replaces the first match.
All replaces every match across the currently-visible rows (i.e. the filtered set, if a search is active).

The replace text supports the same modes as the search, including regex backreferences ($1, $2, …) when the search mode is Regex.

Escape closes the replace bar.

Filtered vs. all rows

Replace All only touches rows visible after filtering. To replace across the whole table, clear the search first.

Find duplicates¶

A search-shaped answer to "which rows repeat?". Lives in the same menu as the toolbar search since the workflow is the same: pick what counts as a match, then look at the result.

Search → Find duplicates… or Ctrl+Shift+D (FindDuplicates) opens a dialog with a column checklist and two output modes:

Output mode	Effect
Highlight rows in place	Every duplicate row gets an orange row mark in the active tab. Wipe them in one step with Edit → Mark → Clear all marks.
Open duplicates in new tab	Clones the column list and only the duplicate rows into a fresh scratch tab. The source tab keeps its data; Save prompts a new path.

Two rows count as duplicates when every ticked column has the same displayed text. The key seeds itself from the current column or cell selection, so the common one column dedupe is two keys away: Ctrl+Shift+D → Apply.

The canonical write up, including the displayed text equality rule that keeps Int(1) apart from Float(1.0) and the empty result status bar message, lives on the Editing page.

Column Filter¶

Excel-style per-column value-set filter. Pick a column, see its unique values as checkboxes, uncheck the ones to hide. Multiple columns can be filtered at once; column filters AND with each other and with the text search above.

Column Filter dialog

Three ways to open it¶

Search → Column Filter... in the toolbar.
The Open column filter shortcut (default Ctrl+Shift+F, remappable).
Right-click any column header → Filter values... opens the dialog pre-seeded on that column.

A status-bar Filter chip also appears whenever at least one column has an active filter; clicking it opens the dialog on the first filtered column.

Using the dialog¶

The top combo picks the column being edited. Switching columns commits the in-progress draft to the previous column automatically, so you can chain edits without re-opening the dialog.
Find narrows the value list when a column has many unique values. Up to 5000 values render at once; a footer hint tells you how many more are hidden.
Select all / Select none operate on the currently visible subset (post-search), not the whole list.
Apply commits the draft. "All checked" and "none checked" are both interpreted as "no filter on this column".
Clear filter on this column removes the column's filter entirely.
Cancel discards the in-progress draft.

How filters interact¶

Filtered columns get a small accent-colored dot next to the column name in the header.
Filters live with the tab. Closing the tab discards them; they are not saved to disk.

Select none

Unchecking every value with Select none + Apply hides every row in that column. Use Clear filter on this column to remove the filter entirely.

Saving filtered data¶

When a filter is active, File → Save As writes only the currently visible rows. The output file is a one-shot snapshot of the view; the in-memory table keeps the full dataset so you can keep working with it. The status bar message confirms the export: "Exported N filtered rows to {file}".

Regular File → Save always writes the full table back to the source path, ignoring active filters. This keeps the source file safe from accidental data loss while you have filters on.

Multi-search¶

The toolbar Search field is per-tab. Sometimes you want the opposite, to find the same string everywhere at once. Search → Multi-search… (default F6, remappable) opens a docked panel at the bottom of the window with its own query box, mode picker, and a scope selector:

Scope	What gets searched
All Open Tabs	Every loaded tab, searched synchronously with no background thread. Cheap and instant.
Directory	Every readable file in a picked directory (top level only, not recursive).

Running a search¶

Open the panel (Search → Multi-search… or F6).
Pick a scope. Directory scope also asks for a folder via the Pick directory… button. The path you pick is remembered for subsequent searches in the same session.
Type a query. Plain / Wildcard / Regex modes are the same as the main search bar.
Press Enter or click Search.

The result list shows one entry per matching cell, formatted as:

<source> | row N | <column name> - <snippet>

<source> is the tab title for open-tab hits, the file name for directory hits. Clicking any result jumps straight to that cell. If a directory result points at a file that isn't open yet, Octa opens it as a fresh tab first.

Limits and skips¶

Per-file size cap. Files larger than grep_max_file_size_mb (default 50 MB) are skipped during the directory scan and appear in the N file(s) skipped chip with the actual size. Set the cap to 0 to disable.
Unparseable files. When a reader fails on a specific file (binary blob, malformed text, encoding mismatch, …) Octa moves on to the next file and adds the failing one to the same skipped chip with the reader's error message. Other files still produce results.
Result cap. A single scan returns at most 10,000 hits; the panel surfaces a (capped at …) chip when that happens. Per file is capped at 1,000 so one runaway file can't crowd out everything else.
Non-recursive. Directory scope walks one level. Hidden files (leading .) and subdirectories are skipped. Open the subdirectory in the sidebar (or pick it here) to scope into it.
In-memory rows only. For lazy formats (Parquet, CSV/TSV) the scan covers whatever's currently loaded; rows still streaming in the background aren't searched until they land. For directory scope, each file is loaded via the same readers Octa would use to open it normally, so binary formats (SQLite, DuckDB, Parquet, …) work, they just take longer.

Reviewing skipped files¶

The N file(s) skipped - click to expand chip appears above the result list whenever any file in the directory scope was skipped. Expanding it lists every skipped file with its reason, either "X MB exceeds Y MB cap" or the parser's error message, and the full absolute path on hover. The list resets on the next search.

The Cancel button stops a running directory scan at the next file boundary. The panel keeps whatever hits were collected before the cancel.

Clearing the search¶

Three ways:

Click the × in the search box.
Press Escape while the search box is focused.
Clear all text manually.

The full-row count returns to its un-filtered value in the status bar.