Search Options (The Org Manual)

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### 4.8 Search Options in File Links

File links can contain additional information to make Emacs jump to a particular location in the file when following a link. This can be a line number or a search option after a double colon34. For example, when the command `org-store-link` creates a link (see Handling Links) to a file, it encodes the words in the current line as a search string that can be used to find this line back later when following the link with `C-c C-o`.

Note that all search options apply for Attachment links in the same way that they apply for File links.

Here is the syntax of the different ways to attach a search to a file link, together with explanations for each:

    [[file:~/code/main.c::255]]
    [[file:~/xx.org::My Target]]
    [[file:~/xx.org::*My Target]]
    [[file:~/xx.org::#my-custom-id]]
    [[file:~/xx.org::/regexp/]]
    [[attachment:main.c::255]]

‘`255`’

  Jump to line 255.

‘`My Target`’

  Search for a link target ‘`<<My Target>>`’, or do a text search for ‘`my target`’, similar to the search in internal links, see Internal Links. In HTML export (see HTML Export), such a file link becomes a HTML reference to the corresponding named anchor in the linked file.

‘`*My Target`’

  In an Org file, restrict search to headlines.

‘`#my-custom-id`’

  Link to a heading with a ‘`CUSTOM_ID`’ property

‘`/REGEXP/`’

  Do a regular expression search for REGEXP. This uses the Emacs command `occur` to list all matches in a separate window. If the target file is in Org mode, `org-occur` is used to create a sparse tree with the matches.

As a degenerate case, a file link with an empty file name can be used to search the current file. For example, ‘`[[file:::find me]]`’ does a search for ‘`find me`’ in the current file, just as ‘`[[find me]]`’ would.

#### Footnotes

### (34)

For backward compatibility, line numbers can also follow a single colon.

Next: Custom Searches, Previous: Link Abbreviations, Up: Hyperlinks [Contents][Index]