Use the FINDSTR command to search for a specific string
in a file or files and send the specified lines to your output
device.
FINDSTR was introduced in the
Windows NT 4 Resource Kit
and is now a native command in Windows 2000 and later.
FINDSTR
Searches for strings in files.
| FINDSTR | [/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]filename[ ...]] |
| /B | Matches pattern if at the beginning of a line. |
| /E | Matches pattern if at the end of a line. |
| /L | Uses search strings literally. |
| /R | Uses search strings as regular expressions. |
| /S | Searches for matching files in the current directory and all subdirectories. |
| /I | Specifies that the search is not to be case-sensitive. |
| /X | Prints lines that match exactly. |
| /V | Prints only lines that do not contain a match. |
| /N | Prints the line number before each line that matches. |
| /M | Prints only the filename if a file contains a match. |
| /O | Prints character offset before each matching line. |
| /P | Skip files with non-printable characters. |
| /A:attr | Specifies color attribute with two hex digits. See "color /?" |
| /F:file | Reads file list from the specified file(/ stands for console). |
| /C:string | Uses specified string as a literal search string. |
| /G:file | Gets search strings from the specified file(/ stands for console). |
| /D:dir | Search a semicolon delimited list of directories. |
| strings | Text to be searched for. |
| [drive:][path]filename | Specifies a file or files to search. |
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.
| . | Wildcard: any character |
| * | Repeat: zero or more occurances of previous character or class |
| ˆ | Line position: beginning of line |
| $ | Line position: end of line |
| [class] | Character class: any one character in set |
| [ˆclass] | Inverse class: any one character not in set |
| [x-y] | Range: any characters within the specified range |
| \x | Escape: literal use of metacharacter x |
| \<xyz | Word position: beginning of word |
| xyz\> | Word position: end of word |
To learn more about regular expressions read
Mastering
Regular Expressions (2nd Edition) by Jeffrey E.F. Friedl.
More titles on regular expressions can be found
here.
FINDSTR may not be available on every system your batch file targets: though native in Windows 2000 and later, it has to be bought and installed separately on Windows NT 4 systems.
The following code snippet can be used to detect if FINDSTR is available:
FINDSTR /? >NUL 2>&1
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 ECHO FINDSTR not available!
or:
FINDSTR /? >NUL 2>&1 || ECHO FINDSTR not available!
This trick has been used in ReadReg.bat to decide if FINDSTR or EGREP should be used.