Contents

find (Windows)

find

The ReactOS find command
Developer(s)	Microsoft, IBM, DR, Datalight, Novell, Jim Hall, ReactOS Contributors
Initial release	March 1983; 41 years ago (1983-03)
Written in	MS-DOS: x86 assembly language FreeDOS, ReactOS: C
Operating system	MS-DOS, PC DOS, FlexOS, SISNE plus, DR DOS, ROM-DOS, FreeDOS, 4690 OS, Windows, OS/2, eComStation, ArcaOS, ReactOS
Platform	Cross-platform
Type	Command
License	MS-DOS: MIT FreeDOS, ReactOS: GPLv2+

Incomputing, find is a command in the command-line interpreters (shells) of a number of operating systems. It is used to search for a specific text string in a file or files. The command sends the specified lines to the standard output device.^[1][2]

The find command is a 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. It does not support wildcard characters.^[3]

The command is available in DOS,^[4] Digital Research FlexOS,^[5] IBM/Toshiba 4690 OS,^[6] IBM OS/2,^[7] Microsoft Windows,^[8] and ReactOS.^[9]OnMS-DOS, the command is available in versions 2 and later.^[10] DR DOS 6.0^[11] and Datalight ROM-DOS^[12] include an implementation of the find command. The FreeDOS version was developed by Jim Hall and is licensed under the GPL.^[13]

The Unix command find performs an entirely different function, analogous to forfiles on Windows. The rough equivalent to the Windows find is the Unix grep.^[14]

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 in which to search the specified string.

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.

C:\>find "keyword" < inputfilename > outputfilename

C:\>find /V "any string" FileName

• Findstr, Windows and ReactOS command-line tool to search for patterns of text in files.
• find (Unix), a Unix command that finds files by attribute, very different from Windows find
• grep, a Unix command that finds text matching a pattern, similar to Windows find
• forfiles, a Windows command that finds files by attribute, similar to Unix find
• Regular expression
• List of DOS commands

• Cooper, Jim (2001). Special Edition Using MS-DOS 6.22, Third Edition. Que Publishing. ISBN 978-0789725738.
• Kathy Ivens; Brian Proffit (1993). OS/2 Inside & Out. Osborne McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0078818714.
• Frisch, Æleen (2001). Windows 2000 Commands Pocket Reference. O'Reilly. ISBN 978-0-596-00148-3.

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Guide to Windows Commands

• Open source FIND implementation that comes with MS-DOS v2.0