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5 Selecting records

Sometimes it is useful to operate or inspect only a subset of all the records on the file. To this end, rec-mode provides several ways of using the searching facilities of recutils.

Selection can be done using two mechanisms:

• selection expressions, which are expressions that can be applied to a record. These offer a powerful query language for records. See Selection Expressions in GNU Recutils manual.
• fast string searches, which match records whose field values match a string.

For instance, you can create a new buffer out of the current buffer, so that only the records that match your search are copied. This way you can create new recfiles out of existing ones based on selections.

To help navigate the buffer based on a search, you can create a new navigation mode where the commands for moving between records only move to those matching a search. This is known as selection mode.

• Buffer from selection
• Selection mode