- 1 year ago
Windows command line: findstr.exe cannot find a string in certain files when find find.exe finds it
The difference in behavior between findstr.exe
and find.exe
when searching for a string in certain files can be attributed to the way these tools handle text encoding and line endings. findstr.exe
and find.exe
are two different utilities for searching text in files on Windows, and they have some differences in their functionality.
Here are a few possible reasons why findstr.exe
may not find a string that find.exe
can find:
Text Encoding:
findstr.exe
may have issues with certain text encodings or Unicode characters in the files. By default,findstr.exe
treats files as ASCII text files, and if the file contains non-ASCII characters, it may not be able to find the string. You can try specifying the/U
switch withfindstr.exe
to interpret the input as Unicode text, which might help in finding the string.For example:
arduinofindstr /U "search_string" file.txt
Line Endings:
findstr.exe
may have problems with certain line endings in the file. If the file uses a different line ending format (e.g., Unix LF or Mac CR),findstr.exe
may not correctly recognize the lines and fail to find the string. Make sure that the line endings in the file are in the Windows format (CRLF).Regular Expression Patterns:
findstr.exe
uses regular expression patterns by default, so if the search string contains special characters with special meanings in regular expressions, it may not be interpreted as a plain string search. To perform a literal search withfindstr.exe
, you can use the/C
switch.For example:
mathematicafindstr /C:"search_string" file.txt
Case Sensitivity:
By default,findstr.exe
performs a case-insensitive search, whereasfind.exe
is case-sensitive. If the string you are searching for has a different case, it may not be found withfindstr.exe
. You can use the/I
switch withfindstr.exe
to perform a case-insensitive search.For example:
mathematicafindstr /I "search_string" file.txt
If findstr.exe
still cannot find the string after trying the above options, you may want to check the contents of the file, its encoding, and line endings to ensure that the string is present and correctly formatted for the search. Additionally, you can also check the command syntax to make sure there are no typos or mistakes in the command.