
 ===============================================================
 Using ProFinder to Search for LOTS of Keywords in a Single File
 ===============================================================

               Copyright 1990 by Robert J. Sawyer
                            76702,747
                          26 June 1990


I know a lot of people here don't use ProFinder, the file locator 
bundled with WordStar 5.0 and above, but I thought I'd share an 
application that I find it ideally suited for.

Besides CompuServe, I also subscribe to GEnie.  Over there, I 
download tons of messages from the Science Fiction RoundTable (I 
don't pay connect time when in that RT -- members of the Science 
Fiction Writers of America are free-flagged there.)

Anyway, there's so much traffic over there, I don't have time to 
read the entire message file carefully.  But I'm also afraid of 
missing something relevant to me.  

ProFinder to the rescue!  First, I have installed my default 
LOCATE options with PFINST to be:

   Whole words only    NO
   Case ignore        YES
   Lightning synonyms  NO
   User synonyms      YES   <-- this is the crucial one
   Direction       GLOBAL

And I have a batch file called SCAN.BAT, which looks like this:

      c:\pf\pf c:\aladdin\sf.msg gsf %1 %2 /k="{Enter}"

That says:  run ProFinder against the file SF.MSG (which is my 
capture file for messages from the SF RoundTable), searching for 
the keyword GSF and any other two keywords I might have specified 
on the command line.  Now, GSF is not a particularly important 
word to me.  But my USERSYN.PF file has a line that looks like 
this (broken over two lines for uploading here):

  gsf, advance, amazing, canada, curtis, dinosaur, fleece, 
  golden, rj, r.j., robert, sawyer, stirling, stith, toronto 

That makes ProFinder look for all of these words when I tell it 
to look for gsf.  Thus ProFinder opens the SF.MSG with every one 
of the words listed above highlighted in the text.  I can jump 
from one highlighted word to the next with ^L.  If a screen is 
full of irrelevant highlighted words (golden, say, when not in 
reference to my book GOLDEN FLEECE), then a quick ^C scrolls me 
past them.  In almost no time at all, I can scan several hundred 
messages and be sure I haven't missed much that would be crucial 
to me.  Works like a champ.

Obviously the same technique would work just as well with 
CompuServe capture files.

                             --30--
