My system has findstr.exe but when I try to execute it, it gives me the following error

FINDSTR: Bad command line

Tried so many things but unable to fix. I need to use regex in my batch script.

Any other suggestion?

1

4 Answers

You need to at least give it some strings to look for. That error message is the one you get if it doesn't think you've provided a search string (everything else is optional):

C:\Documents and Settings\Pax> 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 occurances 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 \ Word position: end of word
For full information on FINDSTR regular expressions refer to the online Command
Reference.

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For example, this shows how you can use regular expressions:

C:\Documents and Settings\Pax> type qq.cmd @setlocal enableextensions enabledelayedexpansion @echo off set startdir=%cd% set temp=%startdir% set folder= :loop if not "x%temp:~-1%"=="x/" ( set folder=!temp:~-1!!folder! set temp=!temp:~1,-1! goto :loop ) echo.startdir = %startdir% echo.folder = %folder% endlocal

C:\Documents and Settings\Pax> findstr d.r% qq.cmd set temp=%startdir% echo.startdir = %startdir% echo.folder = %folder%

C:\Documents and Settings\Pax> findstr
FINDSTR: Bad command line

For anyone else who is struggling with this, try this simple syntax for a start:

findstr /s /i hello *.*

(ignore case, search all subdirectories in current folder)

Of course, you didn't specify any command after FINDSTR command. Type FINDSTR /? for help.

This an example how to use FINDSTR command:

FINDSTR /R /C:"your_regex" filename.txt

That's what findstr says when you give it no command line arguments. Try

 findstr/?

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