KLayout offers a "search and replace" function which provides a basic search and search+replace, but also a very generic and powerful extended feature called "custom queries" (see below for that). The search and replace dialog can be found in the "Edit" menu under "Search and replace".
The dialog provides four tabs in the left panel: "Find", "Delete", "Replace" and "Custom". The functionality of these four tabs is explained below.
The left side of the dialog will hold results for operations which deliver a result, for example the "Find" operation. The result is a list which displays various items, depending on the nature and parameters of the operation. If the item represents a layout object, for example a shape or a cell instance, the items selected in the list are highlighted in the layout to indicate their position. The length of the list is limited to avoid performance degradation for very long lists. The number of items shown can be configured on the configuration page.
The configuration page which allows configuration of the search and replace dialog's behavior is shown when the "Configure" button at the left bottom corner is pressed. It can be found as well in the setup dialog under "Browsers", "Search Result Browser".
The functionality of the "Find" tab is simple: Various conditions can be specified and all objects matching that condition are listed when the "Find" button is pressed.
The parameters of that function involve: Object type, cell scope and object specific conditions. The object type is either "Instances" or a shape object. For shapes, the shape type can be confined to "Box", "Polygon", "Path" or "Text" which enables specific features.
The cell context can be one of:
Depending on the object type various parameters are available to be included in the condition. Each condition applies to one specific parameter and is usually composed of an operator (less, less than, equal ...) and a value against which the value of the parameter is checked. Length and area values are given in micron or square micron units.
String values can be matched against glob pattern using the tilde ("~") match and non-match ("!~") operators. Glob pattern are the ones used for file names on the command line and use "*" for an arbitrary sequence of characters and "?" for a single arbitrary character. Here are some examples for glob pattern:
| A* | The string must start with a capital "A" |
| *A* | The string must contain a capital "A" somewhere |
| ABC? | "ABC" followed by any character |
| N{AND,OR} | "NAND" or "NOR" |
| A[0-9] | "A" followed by a digit |
| A[^0-9] | "A" followed by a non-digit |
If the value field is left empty, no check is made on that parameter. All conditions which are checked must be fulfilled to make the object listed on the results page.
Similar to the find page, this function asks for an object type, a cell context and object specific conditions.
If the "Delete All" button is pressed, all selected objects are deleted.
If the "Select+Delete" button is pressed, the selected objects will first be shown in the result page, similar to the "Find" function. Then, some or all of them can be selected and deleted by pressing the "Delete" button below the list.
Similar to the find page, this function asks for an object type, a cell context and object specific conditions. In addition, the function allows specification of replacement values for the parameters. If an entry field is left empty for the replacement value, no replacement is made.
For strings with glob pattern matching, name parts can be reused in the replacement string. For example, if the operator is "~" on a text's string and the match string is "A(*)", the replacement string can be set to "B\1". "\1" means the value of the first bracket in the match string, hence this setup replaces all leading "A"'s by "B".
If the "Replace All" button is pressed, the replacement parameters are set on all selected objects.
If the "Select+Replace" button is pressed, the selected objects will first be shown in the result page, similar to the "Find" function. Then, some or all of them can be selected and the replacement is made on them the "Replace" button is pressed below the list.
The full power of this dialog is unleashed when using that page. Custom queries are not only able to provide the functionality of the three other pages (find, delete and replace), but provide functionality far beyond that simple scenarios.
Custom queries are statements resembling SQL statements with embedded expressions and a rich language to describe shape or cell instantiation details. A in-depth description can be found here: About Custom Layout Queries.
The custom query dialog page offers an entry field to enter the query and below an "Execute" button to run it. The most recently used queries can be pulled back into the edit field using the drop-down box below the edit field. Custom queries can be saved under a given name and reused. The list of saved queries can be manipulated with the buttons right to it. See the button's tooltips for a description of the button's functionality.
If the tab is switched to another tab and back, the custom query will be updated reflecting the query corresponding to the current functionality selected on the other tab.