find (command)

In computing, find is a command in the command line interpreters (shells) of DOS, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows. It is used to search for a specific text string in a file or files. The command sends the specified lines the standard output device.

The Unix command find performs an entirely different function analogous to dir /s.

Overview

The find command is filter to find lines in the input data stream that contain or don't contain a specified string and send these to the output data stream.

Syntax

FIND [/V] [/C] [/N] [/I] "string" [[drive:][path]filename[...]]

Arguments:

• "string" This command-line argument specifies the text string to find.
• [drive:][path]filename Specifies a file or files to search.

Flags:

• /V Displays all lines NOT containing the specified string.
• /C Displays only the count of lines containing the string.
• /N Displays line numbers with the displayed lines.
• /I Ignores the case of characters when searching for the string.

Note: If a pathname is not specified, FIND searches the text typed at the prompt or piped from another command.

Example

find "keyword" < inputfilename > outputfilename

See also

• Regular expression
• Wildcard character
• List of DOS commands
• grep

References

• Microsoft TechNet Find article