What is the difference between ! and - in the persistant search syntax?

Question

I can understand all of the other code, but it still isn’t clear to me what the difference is between using a minus sign (-) or an exclamation point (!) to mark a folder to be excluded. Is it whether you are just giving the name of a folder (like Exclude Source folders: source), or a full path (like Exclude Programming\Source folder: F:\Programming\Source)? Or does it make any difference?

Answer 1

The '!' represents an Exclusion Location, ie a specific path, whereas the '-' represents an Exclusion Filter, ie text that is matched against the path.

Exclusion Location

For example, to exclude the System32 folder you could use:

C:\Windows;!C:\Windows\System32

If there was a problem with your exclusion location, e.g. the System32 folder didn't exist, the program would warn you.

Exclusion Filter

Alternatively, you could use:

C:\Windows;-system32

This would match against all the paths being searched and would prevent ANY path with System32 being searched. However, you wouldn't get any warnings if the System32 folder didn't exist.

For more information on the Look In field please see:

https://help.mythicsoft.com/filelocatorpro/v9/en/look_in.htm

Comments

Ah, I understand now. I hardly use these symbols in the regular Look In box, so I didn’t look there. I use them mainly in the persistent search, so that is where I was looking for information. Thank you.