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Search
Tool

As the use of sub-schemas grows within a project, it may become difficult to track object usage. For example, it may be difficult to remember every reference to a particular signal or every usage of a particular operator. Design Pad G4 provides a powerful facility to search for operators using its Find In Schema dialog shown in Figure 5.17. To execute a search, select the Find In Schema item in the Edit menu. You can execute simple searches such as locating every instance of a particular operator type (e.g., A/B Switch or Multiplication block), or locating all objects assigned a particular label. Or you can execute more complex searches using conditional logic, such as finding all Boolean Variable operators having local scope and referencing a signal with a name starting with "bVar".

You synthesize the search criteria using the combo boxes at the top of the dialog. First select the type of object you wish to search for in the Type combo box. The available options are Any, Operator, Hardware, or Variable, where Operator refers to any operator type other than a Hardware or Variable operator. Next, indicate what to search by---an operator's label or its type, or in the case of a Variable operator, its scope. Next, select the matching condition: when searching for a label string, the available options are "is like" or "exactly matches", "starts with", or "ends with". Lastly, indicate the target value to search for. After making the combo box selections, click the Add button to incorporate the search term into the search criteria list control below the combo boxes. Multiple search terms can be included in the search criteria list control such that only those objects meeting all the search terms should be included in the result set (AND conditional) or all objects that meet any of the search terms should be included in the search set (OR conditional). Once all the search terms have been added to the search criteria list control, click the Search button at the bottom of the dialog to populate the result set list control. Double-clicking on any entry in the result set list control will open the schema document that contains the object and will highlight the selected object.

To execute the search such that only those objects that meet all the search terms are included in the result set, set the Conditional combo to AND. To execute the search such that all objects that meet any of the search terms are included in the result set, set the Conditional combo to OR. To clear the search criteria, click the Reset button.

For example, to locate every instance of an Analog Input operator, set the Type combo to Any, set the By combo to Type, set the Condition combo to is like, and set the Value combo to Analog Input. Then click the Add button followed by the Search button.

To further narrow the search to Analog Input operators containing the string "Press" in its label, set the Type combo to Any, set the By combo to Label, set the Condition combo to is like, and set the Value combo to "Press". Then click the Add button such that the search criteria list control contains two search terms---the one just added as well as the one added in the previous example. To execute the search, set the Conditional combo to "AND" and click the Search button.