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GroupDocs.Parser provides the functionality to search text in documents by the search method:

parser.search(keyword);          // see the limitation below
parser.search(keyword, options); // options is a SearchOptions object

The keyword parameter can contain a text or a regular expression. The method returns a Java Iterable of SearchResult objects (or null if search isn’t supported for the document); iterate it with iterator(), hasNext() and next(). Every SearchResult represents one occurrence of the keyword in the document text and has the following members:

Warning

In version 26.9 iterating the results of a search that is not performed by pages throws java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke "...Nullable.hasValue()" because "<parameter1>" is null. This affects search(keyword) and the SearchOptions constructors without the searchByPages parameter. Always pass SearchOptions with searchByPages set to true, as in the examples below. In this case getPosition() is counted from the start of the page given by getPageIndex().

SearchOptions is used to customize a search. It has the following members:

The constructors that set searchByPages are:

new groupdocs.SearchOptions(matchCase, matchWholeWord, useRegularExpression, searchByPages);
new groupdocs.SearchOptions(matchCase, matchWholeWord, useRegularExpression, searchByPages,
  leftHighlightOptions, rightHighlightOptions);

Here are the steps to search a keyword in the document:

• Instantiate the Parser object for the initial document;
• Instantiate the SearchOptions object with searchByPages set to true;
• Call the search method and obtain the collection of SearchResult objects;
• Check if the collection isn’t null (search is supported for the document);
• Iterate through the collection and get the position and text.

The following example shows how to find a keyword in a document:

const groupdocs = require('@groupdocs/groupdocs.parser');

// Create an instance of Parser class
const parser = new groupdocs.Parser('sample.pdf');
try {
  // Search a keyword (matchCase = false, matchWholeWord = false, useRegularExpression = false, searchByPages = true)
  const sr = parser.search('lorem', new groupdocs.SearchOptions(false, false, false, true));
  // Check if search is supported
  if (sr == null) {
    console.log("Search isn't supported");
  } else {
    // Iterate over search results
    const it = sr.iterator();
    while (it.hasNext()) {
      const s = it.next();
      // Print an index and found text
      console.log(`At ${s.getPosition()}: ${s.getText()}`);
    }
  }
} finally {
  parser.close();
}
process.exit(0);

Here are the steps to search with a regular expression in the document:

• Instantiate the Parser object for the initial document;
• Instantiate the SearchOptions object with useRegularExpression and searchByPages set to true;
• Call the search method and obtain the collection of SearchResult objects;
• Check if the collection isn’t null (search is supported for the document);
• Iterate through the collection and get the position and text.

The following example shows how to search with a regular expression in a document:

const groupdocs = require('@groupdocs/groupdocs.parser');

// Create an instance of Parser class
const parser = new groupdocs.Parser('sample.pdf');
try {
  // Search with a regular expression with case matching
  const sr = parser.search('[0-9]+', new groupdocs.SearchOptions(true, false, true, true));
  // Check if search is supported
  if (sr == null) {
    console.log("Search isn't supported");
  } else {
    // Iterate over search results
    const it = sr.iterator();
    while (it.hasNext()) {
      const s = it.next();
      // Print an index and found text
      console.log(`At ${s.getPosition()}: ${s.getText()}`);
    }
  }
} finally {
  parser.close();
}
process.exit(0);

Here are the steps to search a text with highlights:

• Instantiate the Parser object for the initial document;
• Instantiate the HighlightOptions object with the parameters for the highlight extraction (see Extract highlights);
• Instantiate the SearchOptions object with the search parameters and the left and right highlight options;
• Call the search method and obtain the collection of SearchResult objects;
• Check if the collection isn’t null (search is supported for the document);
• Iterate through the collection and get the text and highlights.

The following example shows how to search a text with highlights:

const groupdocs = require('@groupdocs/groupdocs.parser');

// Create an instance of Parser class
const parser = new groupdocs.Parser('sample.pdf');
try {
  // Highlights are limited to 15 characters
  const highlightOptions = new groupdocs.HighlightOptions(15);
  // Search a keyword with left and right highlights
  const sr = parser.search('lorem', new groupdocs.SearchOptions(true, false, false, true, highlightOptions, highlightOptions));
  // Check if search is supported
  if (sr == null) {
    console.log("Search isn't supported");
  } else {
    // Iterate over search results
    const it = sr.iterator();
    while (it.hasNext()) {
      const s = it.next();
      // Print the found text and highlights
      console.log(`${s.getLeftHighlightItem().getText()}${s.getText()}${s.getRightHighlightItem().getText()}`);
    }
  }
} finally {
  parser.close();
}
process.exit(0);

Here are the steps to search a text with page numbers:

• Instantiate the Parser object for the initial document;
• Instantiate the SearchOptions object with searchByPages set to true;
• Call the search method and obtain the collection of SearchResult objects;
• Check if the collection isn’t null (search is supported for the document);
• Iterate through the collection and get the position, text and page index.

The following example shows how to search a text with page numbers:

const groupdocs = require('@groupdocs/groupdocs.parser');

// Create an instance of Parser class
const parser = new groupdocs.Parser('sample.pdf');
try {
  // Search a keyword with page numbers
  const sr = parser.search('lorem', new groupdocs.SearchOptions(false, false, false, true));
  // Check if search is supported
  if (sr == null) {
    console.log("Search isn't supported");
  } else {
    // Iterate over search results
    const it = sr.iterator();
    while (it.hasNext()) {
      const s = it.next();
      // Print an index, page number and found text
      console.log(`At ${s.getPosition()} (${s.getPageIndex()}): ${s.getText()}`);
    }
  }
} finally {
  parser.close();
}
process.exit(0);

The output for sample.pdf looks like this (the position is counted from the page start):

At 0 (0): Lorem
At 7 (0): Lorem
At 471 (0): lorem
At 893 (0): lorem
At 1274 (0): lorem
At 154 (1): lorem

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