findstr
| findstr | |
|---|---|
| Other names | qgrep |
| Developers | Microsoft, ReactOS Contributors |
| Operating system | Windows, ReactOS |
| Platform | Cross-platform |
| Type | Command |
| License | Windows: Proprietary commercial software ReactOS: GNU General Public License |
| Website | docs |
findstr is a shell command that searches for text in files[1] and prints matching lines to standard output.[2]
The command provides similar functionality as find, but findstr supports regular expressions. However, findstr does not support UTF-16 whereas find does. findstr cannot search for null bytes commonly found in Unicode computer files.[3]
findstr was first released as part of the Windows 2000 Resource Kit under the name qgrep.[4]
The command is available in Windows[5][6] and ReactOS.[7]
Use
[edit]The command syntax can be described as:
findstr FLAGS TEXT PATH...
- TEXT
- Text to search for.
- PATH
- Path to a file.
FLAGS:
/B- Match pattern if at the beginning of a line.
/E- Match pattern if at the end of a line.
/L- Use search strings literally.
/R- Use search strings as regular expressions.
/S- Search for matching files in the current directory and all subdirectories.
/I- Ignore case for matching.
/X- Print lines that match exactly.
/V- Print lines that do not match.
/N- Print the line number before each line that matches.
/M- Print only the file name if a file contains a match.
/O- Print character offset before each matching line.
/P- Skip files with non-printable characters.
/OFF[LINE]- Do not skip files with offline attribute set.
/A:attr- Specifies color attribute with two hex digits. See "color /?"
/F:file- Reads file list from the specified file (/ for console).
/C:string- Use specified string as a literal search string.
/G:file- Get search strings from the specified file (/ for console).
/D:dir- Search a semicolon delimited list of directories
/?- Print help information about the command.
Example
[edit]The following command searches the file named "services.txt" for lines containing "network" ignoring case.
findstr /i "network" services.txt
See also
[edit]
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Guide to Windows Commands
- List of DOS commands
- Find (Unix) – Shell command for finding files
- grep – Command-line utility for text search
References
[edit]- ^ MS-DOS and Windows command line findstr command
- ^ Excellent documentation on usage of findstr
- ^ Findstr - Search for strings - Windows CMD - SS64.com
- ^ History of Findstr from Raymond Chen
- ^ Microsoft WinXP documentation for findstr
- ^ Microsoft Server 2012/2016 documentation for findstr
- ^ "Reactos/Reactos". GitHub. 16 October 2021.
Further reading
[edit]- Stanek, William R. (2008). Windows Command-Line Administrator's Pocket Consultant, 2nd Edition. Microsoft Press. ISBN 978-0735622623.
- John Paul Mueller (2007). Windows Administration at the Command Line for Windows Vista, Windows 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0470165799.