There are quite a few discussions online about whether one can "trawl through" or "troll through", looking for something. From what I can see, both are fishing terms so both are legitimate in particular contexts.
What I was hoping was to clarify which of the two specifically means "work hard", as in: "I had to [trawl/troll] through lots of archives to find what I wanted". A guide I'm reading has the following phrase, which I suspect is used incorrectly:
"without trolling through each script to find all the files they call"
Thanks.
Best Answer
Trawl and troll are both fishing methods. Trolling is when you drag a line behind a slowly moving boat. Trawling is trolling with a net.
Trawling is more likely to be associated with commercial fishing and a large catch, so I would guess this would equally imply harder work than trolling, although the terms refer more to the idea of catching something than they do to how difficult that endeavor is, so either term would work in your context.
Trolling, on the other hand, can also mean baiting someone online, so it might cause confusion or have a negative connotation.
That said, I think you would be understood best if you said something like "I had to trawl each script to find the called files."