CMD Search a directory to Find a string inside a file

Question

I need to find the files in a directory that have specific strings, using Windows CMD prompt.

E.g., I need to find the files that have a string like this:

<h1>Select an Item</h1>

Jujutsu

Answer 1

"findstr" iswhat you are looking for.

findstr /I "<h1>Select\ an\ Item</h1>" *.*

findstr is the command, /I is a flag to match the string case insensitive. "<h1>Select\ an\ Item</h1>" is your string (note the escaped spaces!) and *.* means "in all files in this directory".

The basic syntax is findstr "seachString" filename.ext. You may replace filename.ext with *.ext or *.* to filter cretin file types or look in all files. This will look only in the current directory and not recursively.

More information about the command findstr documentation

Tannenwald

just add /S if you want results for subfolders as well – Kelt

Answer 2

The command you require is fundamentally findstr.

type

findstr /?

at the prompt for directions.

The command that may work for you is

findstr /m /g:"a file containing your string or strings" *

or

findstr /m /L /c:"<h1>Select an Item</h1>" *

Where some experimentation with the contents of the "quoted string" may be required, especially wrt characters line <>() and others with a particular meaning to cmd.exe.

Bathsheb

Answer 3

1. Open up a Windows console (or CMD).
2. Go to the folder, from where you want to start the search.
3. Let's say you search for a text (e. g. "abc") in a folder, specifically in all the Word files (e. g. ".doc" and "docx"). Then the command should look like this

findstr /s /i /m /c:"abc" *.docx *.doc

You will get a list with all the Word documents, that contain the text, including the the subfolders.

Hypogeous

Answer 4

Find some string inside all text files in current directory:

cls & for %i in (*.txt) do find /i "search text" < "%i" && (echo : %i & echo -)

Tested in Win 10

Jeremy