findstr

CMDDraft — pending expert review4 practice missions

Search for text in files or piped output (the Windows grep)

Finds lines that contain a text. By default a search string with spaces is treated as SEVERAL words joined by OR; to search for an exact phrase use /c:"the phrase". It reads files, or the output of another command through a pipe.

Practice findstr

Usage

findstr [/i] [/n] [/v] [/s] [/c:"phrase"] strings [files]

Options and flags

strings
text to look for (or the files when /c: is used)
files
files to search (omit to read piped input)
/i
ignore upper/lower case
/n
print the line number before each match
/v
invert: print lines that do NOT match
/s
search subdirectories too
/c: PHRASE
search for the exact phrase (spaces included)

Examples

findstr /i failed security.log
Lines containing 'failed' in any case.
findstr /i /n failed security.log
Same, with line numbers.
findstr /i /v debug app.log
Everything except debug lines.
findstr /c:"logon failure" security.log
The exact phrase, not 'logon' OR 'failure'.

Common mistakes

findstr "logon failure" security.log findstr /c:"logon failure" security.log

Without /c: the space means OR — you would also get lines containing only 'logon' or only 'failure'.

Related commands

netstat grep