Can I search for multiple strings in one "find" command in batch script?

Question

I have a windows batch script that will look for a string within a file

find /i "WD6"  %Inputpath%file.txt
if %errorlevel% == 0 GOTO somestuff

Currently this is what my code looks like. I've come across a new string I want to search for in the same file and do the same action if it finds it, it stored it in a variable called %acctg_cyc% can I search for both strings in one line of code? I tried this:

find /i "WD6" %acctg_cyc%  %Inputpath%file.txt
if %errorlevel% == 0 GOTO somestuff

But it seems to ignore the %acctg_cyc% and only look for "WD6" in file.txt. I tried testing where %acctg_cyc% is in file.txt and when it is not and it passes both times.

Any thoughts? I know I could do this in more lines of code but I'm really trying to avoid that right now. Maybe it's just not possible.

Thank you for any help!

Stephan · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-20T15:17:34.240

11

find isn't very powerful. It searches for one string only (even if it is two words): find "my string" file.txt looks for the string my string.

findstr has much more power, but you have to be careful how to use it:

findstr "hello world" file.txt

finds any line, that contains either hello or world or both of them.

see findstr /? for more info.

Finding both words in one line is possible with (find or findstr):

find "word1" file.txt|find "word2"

finding both words scattered over the file (find or findstr):

find "word1" file.txt && find "word2" file.txt
if %errorlevel%==0 echo file contains both words

edited Jul 20 '15 at 15:17

answered Jul 20 '15 at 14:14

Stephan

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The `find "word1" file.txt|find "word2"`does not appear to be working. – IGRACH Jul 20 '17 at 20:52
1

Also you can use `findstr /c:"test1 test2"` flag for whole strings. – IGRACH Jul 23 '17 at 01:49

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 04 '17 at 08:03

6

I tried findstr with multiple /C: arguments (one for each to be searched sentence) which did the trick in my case. So this is my solution for finding multiple sentences in one file and redirect the output:

findstr /C:"the first search" /C:" a second search " /C:"and another" sourcefile.txt > results.txt

answered Dec 04 '17 at 08:03

Piemol

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Thanks, just what I needed. I found it also works piping the output from another program (no file needed) using `some_program.exe | findstr /C:"first" /C:"second"` – Willie Aug 04 '20 at 22:33
You can also do it like this: some_program.exe | findstr "first second". If you want to find the string "first second" the syntax is some_program.exe | findstr /C:"first second" – dstroupe Mar 19 '21 at 21:08

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 05 '18 at 17:29

I used this. Maybe not much orthodox, but works! It waits until browsers dismiss

:do_while_loop
rem ECHO LOOP %result%
rem pause
tasklist /NH | find "iexplore.exe"
set result=%ERRORLEVEL%
tasklist /NH | find "firefox.exe"
set result=%result%%ERRORLEVEL%
if not "%result%"=="11" goto :do_while_loop

Can I search for multiple strings in one "find" command in batch script?

3 Answers3