- 1 year ago
Text file search tool for Windows (command line) with an extremely large pattern list
For searching text files using a large pattern list on the Windows command line, you can use the findstr
command along with the /G:
switch, which allows you to specify a file containing the list of patterns to search for. Here's how you can use it:
Create a File with Patterns:
Create a text file (let's call itpatterns.txt
) containing your list of patterns, each on a separate line:pythonpattern1
pattern2
pattern3
...
Use
findstr
with Pattern File:
Open the Command Prompt and navigate to the directory where your text files are located. Then, use the following command to search for the patterns in your text files:shellfindstr /I /G:patterns.txt *.txt
/I
performs a case-insensitive search./G:patterns.txt
specifies the file containing the patterns.*.txt
specifies the files to search through. You can adjust this to match your file extension or naming pattern.
This command will search for occurrences of any pattern from
patterns.txt
in all.txt
files in the current directory.
Keep in mind that findstr
is a basic text search tool available in Windows, and its performance might degrade significantly with a very large pattern list or large text files. If you're dealing with extremely large datasets, more powerful text search utilities might be more suitable, such as grep
(which you can use through tools like Git Bash, Cygwin, or Windows Subsystem for Linux) or third-party text search tools with advanced features and optimizations.
As of my last knowledge update in September 2021, these recommendations hold true, but it's always a good idea to check for updates and newer tools that might have become available since then.