solved [SOLVED] Searching content of files with specific extension

[leahcim]

Hello all

 

as I understand

1. the default in keyword allows to search contents of a file, but cannot be limited to a certain extension (all parts of the search expression will be used to match against the contents)

2. the File Filter node in custom workflows allows to filter by extension, but requires to provide the UTI and does not allow to simply search for ".txt" as an extension. Determining the list of available UTIs and their respective extensions is not trivial

 

Is my understanding of above behaviour correct?

Edited March 6, 2020 by leahcim

[Vero]

@leahcim For a File Filter, you can drag in an example file of what you'd like to search. For example, if you want to narrow your file filter to txt files only, you can drag in a text file to the File Types box. Adding UTIs manually is completely optional, but might give some users more flexibility.

 

Cheers,
Vero

 

 

[leahcim]

Thanks @Vero! Yes, UTIs can be dragged & dropped which is very convenient - however, in my case I want to make it dynamic so that I can specify the extension from Alfred's input box. Therefore, I cannot pre-set any extension filter in the File Filter node, but need to dynamically retrieve it from the input and then set it in the node via a JSON update. And the only solution I've found is to parse the available UTIs from MacOS.

[leahcim]

To update, I've got it working now by parsing the available MacOS UTIs and mapping the extensions to UTIs. Little bit of extra work, but it works flawlessly and allows me to search in files of a specific file type.

Edited March 6, 2020 by leahcim

[cands]

On 3/6/2020 at 5:46 PM, leahcim said:

To update, I've got it working now by parsing the available MacOS UTIs and mapping the extensions to UTIs. Little bit of extra work, but it works flawlessly and allows me to search in files of a specific file type.

 

This sounds very useful, but I do not understand how to implement it. Could you share the workflow or give further instructions? Any tips are appreciated. 

[deanishe]

5 hours ago, cands said:

This sounds very useful, but I do not understand how to implement it

 

To get a list of the UTIs known to the system, run the following in a shell:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -dump | grep '[[:space:]]uti:' | awk '{ print $2 }' | sort | uniq

[TomBenz]

On 4/2/2020 at 12:53 PM, cands said:

 

This sounds very useful, but I do not understand how to implement it. Could you share the workflow or give further instructions? Any tips are appreciated. 

Pls post the updated workflow. More explanation on UTI would help. I run the command suggested below but couldn't locate the output!