CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cmdfindstr
tvCa
tvCa

Reputation: 816

findstr cannot use start and end of line

I don't get it; the FINDSTR usage is clear, but I can't get it to work. I want to FINDSTR on a text file, using the ^ and the $ character. This way:

findstr /C:"^test$" test.txt

I have made the file (test.txt) in several ways (all on Windows), and there is no trailing space, but still, it doesn't find a matching line.

And it does work without ^ and $.

But it obviously ignores any characters or positions before and after test.

I want to match only lines containing just test and nothing else.

Why does the command not work as expected?

Upvotes: 4

Views: 4725

Answers (2)

Steve Hollasch
Steve Hollasch

Reputation: 2123

As an additional note, findstr expects CR-LF line endings. If your file uses simple linefeeds, it will not properly process the $ metacharacter.

Upvotes: 3

Mofi
Mofi

Reputation: 49096

The findstr documentation of Microsoft is indeed not the best. The SS64 documentation for findstr is much better and contains the section Default type of search: Literal vs Regular Expression explaining when FINDSTR runs by default a literal and when a regular expression find if not explicitly defined with /L for literal OR /R for regular expression.

There are several solutions for this task to match only entire lines case-sensitive as by default which can be changed to case-insensitive with /I.

The first one was given already by apandit.

%SystemRoot%\system32\findstr.exe /R /C:"^test$" test.txt

This runs a regular expression find which matches and outputs only lines containing just the word test case-sensitive and nothing else as expected.

Another solution also using a regular expression find is

%SystemRoot%\system32\findstr.exe "^test$" test.txt

Yes, without /C: and because of search string containing the meta-characters ^ and $, this find is executed as regular expression find.

One more solution would be using a literal find which should output only lines matching entirely the specified search string.

%SystemRoot%\system32\findstr.exe /X /C:"test" test.txt

The same result would produce also this literal search.

%SystemRoot%\system32\findstr.exe /B /E /L /C:test test.txt

The parameter /L is not really needed because in this case the find is by default literal. But I think, it is good practice to always specify /L OR /R to make it clear for FINDSTR as well as for the reader of the command which find is executed: a literal or a regular expression find.

Upvotes: 2

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