I am searching for patterns in multiple files in multiple directories using regular expressions.
I am using findstr command of DOS.
We can specify multiple search strings in the findstr command, and that gives all those files in result which contained strings matching to any of the search patterns specified. (first pattern or second pattern or third pattern and so on, if any one is found, file is output in result)
What I want::
If all of these search patterns are found within the file, only then that file should be output in the result.
What is required for this is either a regular expression that can contain all the patterns (like separated with a delimiter AND) or some other method.
If there is any regular expression that gives results only if all the patters are found, I would really like to know about it, other wise some other method is highly appreciated.
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One method I am thinking of is to create a .bat file that will loop through each of the files output by findstr in the above command and then again second findstr will take each of the file and search for the next pattern, if found only then that file will be output.
But I will have to work hard for it, because I don't know the batch programming syntax.
So I am thinking that if RegularExpression can be manipulated for this requirement, if will be much better for me.
Since findstr does not allow for a AND syntax, you have to chain it. But simple piping will act on the same line only. We have to use a tricky option then:
Sorry for that. For this to work, you have to be in the correct path. findstr does not prepend the /D: folders. So we have to do:
For a single folder:
please ignore the previous code because the output of the first FINDSTR - which is the actual line containing the first search string, is passed to the second FINDSTR and this is not what I intended. My intention was to output the filename from the first FINDSTR as input into the second FINDSTR and but that doesn't work for 2 reasons. Which is why I asked you to ignore it.
The ^| is the general way to include a pipe symbol in FOR loops...
but surely if the current working directory on say D: is d:\temp and the CWD on say F: is f:\ and finally, the CWD on E: is e:\books then CD /D %D will change to the following three folders:
d:\temp
f:\
e:\books
if no path is specified as part of FOR's (D: E: F:) set. It can not be guaranteed any of the drives' CWD is the root at any specific time.
We must be on different planets then.... I could be wrong but here's my understanding and reasoning:
1) for %D in (D: E: F:) do (
During each iteration of the FOR loop, %D will be set to the following values:
D:
E:
F:
2) cd /D %D
Taking just the last iteration as an example, %D is set to F: therefore, the CD /D command will change to drive F: however, as no path was specified as part of the F: in FOR's set you cannot guarantee what the current working directory of drive F: wiil be. The same also applies to drive D: and drive E:.
3) findstr /L /m /i /c:"dudeja" *.txt | findstr /L /m /i /F:/ /c:"puneet"
Nothing wrong with this except you don't know what part of the drive it starts it's searches from becuase you've CD'd blindly into a drive.
4) )
Just to complete the block!!
Does that make any sense?
Suppose you had this instead:
for %D in (D:\ E:\books "F:\Backup 20090825\Books") do (
cd /D %D
findstr /L /m /i /c:"dudeja" *.txt | findstr /L /m /i /F:/ /c:"puneet"
)
Here, the paths are explicit and so during each iteration %D would be set to the following values:
D:\
E:\books
"F:\Backup 20090825\Books"
and so the CD command with the /D option would now change drive AND change to a specific directory. By omitting the path you will ONLY change drives and therefore, you cannot guarantee what directory you'll be thrown into.
Are we on the same planet now?
(PS, if all this gets bunched up then it's EE's rich text formatting's fault)
I understand that piping will work only if we are in a single drive.
If I have test,test1,test2 all in the D: drive, then the following command does not execute::
D:\>findstr /L /m /i /F:test.txt test1.txt test2.txt /c:"puneet"
I want to understand how to specify the /F: option in findstr, so that I could understand how it is taking its input from the output of first findstr through piping.
t0t0, In your script in the following comment:
http://www.experts-exchang
What is ~nxa ?
And what for \< , \> is used. Although I have guessed but I want to confirm.
What does exit /b does ?
%%a is a FOR-loop's variable, in that particular instance it was used for assignment of filenames. By shoving a '~nx' in between the '%%' and 'a' it returns just the name part and the extension part of the filename thereby ignoring the drive letter part and the path part.
If searching a file for say, "ABLE" then FINDSTR will return a successeful match if it encounters any of the following: "table", "able", "enable", "cable" etc... By wrapping '\<' and '\>' around search-string "ABLE", FINDSTR will only return a successful match against "able" and not the others.
Often, you'll see no actual 'end' to a batch file - it merely ends when it runs out of instructions to process. EXIT can be used anywhere in the code to bring the batch file to an end. Without the /B switch, EXIT would actually close the DOS box which iin some situations that might be desirable however, by including the /B, the DOS box stays open when the batch file ends.
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by: QlemoPosted on 2009-08-26 at 04:40:13ID: 25186434
Are you using a single findstr to search all files? Could you give an example how you use it?