Alex Rivera | Logout

Windows recursive grep command-line

Asked 2009-03-30T16:46:14.970
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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)?

windows command-line grep
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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:

answered 2009-03-30T22:26:18.863

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