May I suggest to simply stick to what is common practice with REs? I.e. respect case-sensitivity unless the i flag is specified. Everything else is… unexpected. Although database search is case-insensitive, it does not permit REs anyway, so one does not really need alignment in this respect. My opinion, of course.
What is the current functionality regarding regular expressions in smart rules?
It seems that the current version 3.9.9 of DT doesn’t consider the modifier (?-i), meaning it doesn’t support case-sensitive matching.
I have the impression that DT doesn’t consider the regexp in the Scan Text action at all. In any case, the smart rule returns all records in the search range, regardless of whether I use (?-i)(\bGHT\b), (?-i)(GHT), or simply (GHT) as the regular expression. Or what am I doing wrong?
On the other hand, a Spotlight search for “GHT” apparently returns all hits available in DT! And I’ve always wondered why Spotlight should index the documents archived in DT!
That’s not the correct syntax. ICU regex is (?i) for case-insensitivity. Case is considered by default, which is pretty much standard behavior in regex.
Are your documents in a group that has been excluded from search in the Generic info inspector?
Select the parent group and press Command-Shift-I to open the Generic info popover.
On the other hand, a Spotlight search for “GHT” apparently returns all hits available in DT! And I’ve always wondered why Spotlight should index the documents archived in DT!
Spotlight is optional and will work per-database if File > Database Properties > Create Spotlight Index is enabled.
How can I tell if the Scan Text action was successful?
If I manually apply the following smart rule, then the documents that match the RegEx condition should be tagged with ‘GHT’, right? But no document was tagged during the action.