Windows recursive grep command-line

Question

I need to do a recursive grep in Windows, something like this in Unix/Linux:

grep -i 'string' `find . -print`

or the more-preferred method:

find . -print | xargs grep -i 'string'

I'm stuck with just cmd.exe, so I only have Windows built-in commands. I can't install Cygwin, or any 3rd party tools like UnxUtils on this server unfortunately. I'm not even sure I can install PowerShell. Any suggestions using only cmd.exe built-ins (Windows 2003 Server)?

Answer 1

Select-String worked best for me. All the other options listed here, such as findstr, didn't work with large files.

Here's an example:

select-string -pattern "<pattern>" -path "<path>"

note: This requires Powershell

Answer 2

findstr /spin /c:"string" [files]

The parameters have the following meanings:

• s = recursive
• p = skip non-printable characters
• i = case insensitive
• n = print line numbers

And the string to search for is the bit you put in quotes after /c:

Answer 3

for /f %G in ('dir *.cpp *.h /s/b') do  ( find /i "what you search"  "%G") >> out_file.txt

Answer 4

If you have Perl installed, you could use ack, available at http://beyondgrep.com/.

Answer 5

I just searched a text with following command which listed me all the file names containing my specified 'search text'.

C:\Users\ak47\Desktop\trunk>findstr /S /I /M /C:"search text" *.*

Answer 6

findstr can do recursive searches (/S) and supports some variant of regex syntax (/R).

C:\>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] [/OFF[LINE]]
        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.
  /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
  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 occurrences 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.