The findstr (short for find string) command is used in MS-DOS to locate files containing a specific string of plain text.
AvailabilityFindstr.exe is an external command that is available for the following Microsoft operating systems.
Tip Microsoft Windows and MS-DOS users who do not have support for this command can use the find command. Syntax
Windows Vista and later syntaxFINDSTR [/B] [/E] [/L] [/R] [/S] [/I] [/X] [/V] [/N] [/M] [/O] [/P] [/F:file] [/C:string] [/G:file] [/D:dir list] [/A:color attributes] [/OFF[LINE]] strings [[drive:][path]file name[ ...]]/BMatches pattern if at the beginning of a line./EMatches pattern if at the end of a line./LUses search strings literally./RUses search strings as regular expressions./SSearches for matching files in the current directory and all subdirectories./ISpecifies that the search is not to be case-sensitive./XPrints lines that match exactly./VPrints only lines that do not contain a match./NPrints the line number before each line that matches./MPrints only the file name if a file contains a match./OPrints character offset before each matching line./PSkip files with non-printable characters./OFF[LINE]Do not skip files with offline attribute set./A:attrSpecifies color attribute with two hex digits. See "color /?"/F:fileReads file list from the specified file(/ stands for console)./C:stringUses specified string as a literal search string./G:fileGets search strings from the specified file(/ stands for console)./D:dirSearch a semicolon-delimited list of directories.stringsText to be searched.[drive:] [path:] file nameSpecifies a file or files to search. You'll need to use spaces to separate multiple search strings unless the argument is prefixed with /C. For example, 'FINDSTR "hello there" x.y' searches for "hello" or "there" in file x.y. 'FINDSTR /C:"hello there" x.y' searches for "hello there" in file x.y. Regular expression quick reference: .Wildcard: any character.*Repeat: zero or more occurrences of previous character or class.^Line position: beginning of line.$Line position: end of line.[class]Character class: any one character in set.[^class]Inverse class: any one character not in set.[x-z]Range: any characters in the specified range.\xEscape: literal use of metacharacter x.\<xyzWord position: beginning of word.xyz\>Word position: end of word.Windows XP and earlier syntaxFINDSTR [/B] [/E] [/L] [/R] [/S] [/I] [/X] [/V] [/N] [/M] [/O] [/P] [/F:file] [/C:string] [/G:file] [/D:dir list] [/A:color attributes][strings] [[drive:][path]file name[ ...]]/BMatches pattern if at the beginning of a line./EMatches pattern if at the end of a line./LUses search strings literally./RUses search strings as regular expressions./SSearches for matching files in the current directory and all subdirectories./ISpecifies that the search is not to be case-sensitive./XPrints lines that match exactly./VPrints only lines that do not contain a match./NPrints the line number before each line that matches./MPrints only the file name if a file contains a match./OPrints character offset before each matching line./PSkip files with non-printable characters./A:attrSpecifies color attribute with two hex digits. See "color /?"/F:fileReads file list from the specified file(/ stands for console)./C:stringUses specified string as a literal search string./G:fileGets search strings from the specified file(/ stands for console)./D:dirSearch a semicolon-delimited list of directories.stringsText to be searched.[drive:] [path:] file nameSpecifies a file or files to search. You'll need to use spaces to separate multiple search strings unless the argument is prefixed with /C. For example, 'FINDSTR "hello there" x.y' searches for "hello" or "there" in file x.y. 'FINDSTR /C:"hello there" x.y' searches for "hello there" in file x.y. Regular expression quick reference: .Wildcard: any character.*Repeat: zero or more occurrences of previous character or class.^Line position: beginning of line.$Line position: end of line.[class]Character class: any one character in set.[^class]Inverse class: any one character not in set.[x-z]Range: any characters in the specified range.\xEscape: literal use of metacharacter x.\<xyzWord position: beginning of word.xyz\>Word position: end of word.Examplesfindstr "computer help" myfile.txt In the example above, any lines containing "computer help" would be printed to the screen. findstr /s "computer help" *.txt Similar to the first example, the code above would find lines containing "computer help" in any txt file in the current directory and all subdirectories. findstr /x /c:"computer help" *.txt Match .txt files that contain an exact match on "computer help"; therefore, files that contain "computer helps" or other non-exact matches are not shown. Realize though that using /x must be a line that exactly matches "computer help"; in other words, if anything else is on the same line, it's not an exact match. findstr /n /i /c:"computer help" * Search for any file containing "computer help" regardless of its case and display the line where the text is found. Below is an example of how the results in the example above may look. |
