Windows 2000 Command Reference Main PageSearches for strings in files using literal text or regular expressions. Click Devinfo Notes in the Related Topics list for a list of the regular expression symbols accepted by findstr.
findstr [/b] [/e] [/l] [/c:string] [/r] [/s] [/i] [/x] [/v] [/n] [/m] [/o] [/g:file] [/f:file] [/d:dirlist] [/a:color attribute] [strings] [[drive:][path] filename [...]]
Parameters
/b
Matches the pattern if at the beginning of a line.
/e
Matches the pattern if at the end of a line.
/l
Uses search strings literally.
/c: string
Uses specified text as a literal search string.
/r
Uses search strings as regular expressions. This switch is not required; findstr interprets all metacharacters as regular expressions unless the /l switch is used.
/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 file name if a file contains a match.
/o
Prints seek offset before each matching line.
/g file
Gets search strings from the specified file.
/f file
Reads file list from the specified file.
/d dirlist
Searches a comma-delimited list of directories.
/a color attribute
Specifies color attributes with two hexadecimal digits.
Use spaces to separate multiple search strings unless the argument is prefixed with /c, as shown in the following example:
findstr "hello there" x.y
searches for "hello" or "there" in file x.y. However, the following command searches for "hello there" in file x.y.
findstr /c:"hello there" x.y