Hi, Patrick : I have been developing apps using Forms for a long time, let me see if I can help you :
a. you want/need to search text only in the PL/SQL code (triggers) of the .FMB files , or not ? Inside how many .FMBs you need to search ?
If you need to search text only in PL/SQL code and just in a handful of .FMBs, you could open all the .FMBs in Form Builder and use the Search and Replace PL/SQL menu item...
b. if a. is out of question, really a possible option could be export/convert all the .FMBs to text files and use OS tools to serach inside the text files : all versions of Forms have scripts/tools to export/convert .FMBs in batch mode, via command line
c. is possible (in some versions of Forms/Reports, mainly 6i) to save the .FMBs to custom-created database tables : check if this colud be done in your version and see if it helps in searching
d. another option could be the Administrative reports : all Forms versions have some kind of tool to generate admin/usage reports, listing components and details of the target form/report
e. both .FMB and .RDF are rich-text files : some content is in binary mode BUT normally all the PL/SQL code is present in clear-form text : try to open the .FMB/.RDF in a binary-text capable editor (such as Textpad or Notepad++) , use some external tool such as
http://winmerge.org/ and/or use the OS tools capable of dump/search files excluding binaries, such as od , debug, strings, etc
f. as a last option, check the third-part tools capable of searching inside .FMBs/.RDFs :
http://www.orcl-toolbox.com/formstool/ is one of them
Regards,
J. Laurindo Chiappa