Jump to content
Compatible Support Forums
Sign in to follow this  
ViolentGreen

Searching for a file using DOS commands

Recommended Posts

I need to use DOS to search for a file containing a certain string in it's text. Is there a way to do this?

Share this post


Link to post

Or if its 2k/XP/2k3 then use findstr (Find String). Here is the output from 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.

 

Regular expression quick reference:

. Wildcard: any character

* Repeat: zero or more occurances 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-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

 

For full information on FINDSTR regular expressions refer to the online Command

Reference.

Share this post


Link to post

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×