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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+

In computing, 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.

Overview

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.

The command is available in DOS, Digital Research FlexOS, IBM/Toshiba 4690 OS, IBM OS/2, Microsoft Windows, and ReactOS. On MS-DOS, the command is available in versions 2 and later. DR DOS 6.0 and Datalight ROM-DOS include an implementation of the find command. The FreeDOS version was developed by Jim Hall and is licensed under the GPL.

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.

Syntax

FIND     "string" filename]

Arguments:

• "string" This command-line argument specifies the text string to find.
• 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.

Examples

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

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

See also

• 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

References

1. Paterson, Tim (2013-12-19) . "Microsoft DOS V1.1 and V2.0: /msdos/v20source/FIND.ASM". Computer History Museum, Microsoft. Retrieved 2015-10-01.
2. Shustek, Len (2014-03-24). "Microsoft MS-DOS early source code". Software Gems: The Computer History Museum Historical Source Code Series. Retrieved 2015-10-01.
3. "Find - Search for text - Windows CMD - SS64.com". ss64.com.
4. Jamsa, Kris A. (1993), DOS: The Complete Reference, Osborne McGraw-Hill, p. 206, ISBN 0078819040.
5. "FlexOS User's Guide" (PDF). www.bitsavers.org. 1986. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-09-25. Retrieved 2020-09-14.
6. "Users guide". archive.org. Retrieved 2020-09-14.
7. "JaTomes Help - OS/2 Commands". Archived from the original on 2019-04-14. Retrieved 2019-07-20.
8. "Find". Archived from the original on 2017-08-26. Retrieved 2017-08-26.
9. "reactos/reactos". GitHub. 3 January 2022.
10. Wolverton, Van (2003). Running MS-DOS Version 6.22 (20th Anniversary Edition), 6th Revised edition. Microsoft Press. ISBN 0-7356-1812-7.
11. DR DOS 6.0 User Guide Optimisation and Configuration Tips
12. "Datalight ROM-DOS User's Guide" (PDF). www.datalight.com.
13. "ibiblio.org FreeDOS Package -- find (FreeDOS Base)". www.ibiblio.org.
14. "Equivalent of UNIX Grep command in Dos/Windows". January 26, 2009.

Further reading

• 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.

External links

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

• Windows commands
• External DOS commands
• Microcomputer software
• Microsoft free software
• OS/2 commands
• ReactOS commands
• Pattern matching
• Windows administration