Findstr

In computing, findstr is a command in the command line interpreters (shells) of Microsoft Windows. It is used to search for a specific text string in files. The command sends the specified lines to the standard output device.

Syntax

FINDSTR flags strings drive:[path]filename...

Arguments:

flags                  This can be any combination of flags described below.
strings                Text to be searched for.
[drive:][path]filename Specifies a file or files to search.

Flags:

 /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.
 /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(/ 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
 

Note: Following command displays the detailed help about this command:

 FINDSTR /?

Example

Save your running services into file _services.txt and search in this file for lines containing word "network" - case insensitive:

  @echo off
  set searchstr=network
  net start>_services.txt  
  FINDSTR /I "%searchstr%" _services.txt
  pause

output would be:

 Network Connections
 Network List Service
 Network Location Awareness
 Network Store Interface Service
 Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service
Press any key to continue . . .

See also

• Regular expression
• Wildcard character
• List of DOS commands
• find
• grep

References

• Microsoft documentation for findstr
• Excellent documentation on usage of findstr
• History of Findstr from Raymond Chen