Feature request - Search within compressed files (of any extension)

Question

FLP does a fantastic job of letting the user select which Compressed Files to search (eg. 7Z, ZIP).

In the 'Compressed Files' tab, it would be helpful to have another button called 'Autodetect compressed files regardless of extension' (which would disable the selection of individual file extensions). FLP could then use a technique such as this to determine if it is a compressed file and consequently search inside it.

Thanks,
Fidel

Comments

Interesting idea. Would you want ALL file types tested, e.g. .txt, .dll?

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Hi Dave, yes please

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@dave libyara would lend itself to detecting these things and - if implemented prudently - could be extended on by users.

Answer 1

I'll add it to the requested feature list but it has some obvious performance implications. A search for *.doc, e.g.

File name:       *.doc
Containing Text: test
Look In:         C:\

Would have to open EVERY file on the C: drive to check whether or not it was a hidden container, although it would only have to read a few bytes.

Comments

Terrific, thanks Dave. What I had in mind is that it would check all the files returned by the wildcard search (in this case every .doc file) to see if they are a hidden container, and if so search for the text inside each sub-file. But your suggestion (although more intensive) allows searching for wildcards within hidden containers which I believe is a great benefit. Thanks again

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Yeah, it's more complicated than that since searching '*.doc' is actually searching for *.doc inside the container. If you wanted to search for files only within possible .doc containers you'd need to do it the same way you do for ZIPs, e.g. Look In: C:\;+.doc