Search Files allows searching for files in node attachments and in arbitrary directories. Text is extracted by externally provided helper applications.

Helper Applications

In order to extract text, this module calls 'helper apps' such as cat and pdftotext. Drupal administrators can configure any helpers they like. Helper apps need to be installed on the server and need to be setup to print to stdout.

Most Linux distributions have the following helper apps available:

• cat - generic text (txt) files
• pdftotext - Adobe Acrobat (pdf) Documents
• catdoc - Microsoft Word (doc) Documents
• xls2csv - Microsoft Excel (xls) files
• catppt - Microsoft Power Point (ppt) files
• unrtf - Rich Text Format (rtf) files

For more information about helpers and how to configure them, see hints for Linux and Windows. It is also possible to configure helpers in a shared hosting environment.

History and Development

The 6.x-2.x versions combine Search Files, previously only capable of indexing files in directories, with Search Attachments, only capable of indexing files in attachments. Outcome is three modules search_files_directories and search_files_attachments with common code moved to search_files. The modules can be enabled/disabled individually with search_files being required by any of the two others.

Version 2 of this module has been sponsored by: Actual Size Creative and OpenPKG GmbH.