"in" search does not look in csv files?

[yoose]

Hi,

 

I tried to use the built-in alfred file search to search inside files it works for the most part, but have noticed that it is not looking inside my csv files. 

 

I thought it was maybe my csv files, but I changed the extension to txt and it works. I then created my own workflow and dragged the csv file into the "File Types" of the file filter block and added the folder that the file is in to the scope, but it does not work. I changed the extension to txt, cst, huh and those all work, but when I change it back to csv then it stops working again.

 

anyone have any idea of what might be wrong? is this a bug or is there a setting I can change to fix this?

 

thanks.

[yoose]

anyone else have this problem or is it just me?

[Andrew]

anyone else have this problem or is it just me?

 

Alfred uses OS X's metadata server for searching so is bound by some of its limitations. It looks like the text content search (which works a bit like a lucene full text search) treats csv files as database files and doesn't index the content. If I rename a test csv file as txt then the content is found.

 

Cheers,

Andrew

[yoose]

Alfred uses OS X's metadata server for searching so is bound by some of its limitations. It looks like the text content search (which works a bit like a lucene full text search) treats csv files as database files and doesn't index the content. If I rename a test csv file as txt then the content is found.

 

Cheers,

Andrew

 

hi andrew, thanks for replying. I know that changing the extension works, but just didn’t know why. since changing the extension is not a good option for me, is there any way around this issue?

[Andrew]

hi andrew, thanks for replying. I know that changing the extension works, but just didn’t know why. since changing the extension is not a good option for me, is there any way around this issue?

 

You could very possibly create a workflow to search csv files by content, but this would have to work outside of the OS X metadata server, so isn't built into Alfred by default.

[yoose]

You could very possibly create a workflow to search csv files by content, but this would have to work outside of the OS X metadata server, so isn't built into Alfred by default.

 

yeah, that’s what I ended up doing.