Windows Grep

Windows Grep

Windows Grep is a command-line utility for searching text and retrieving matching lines in files. It allows using regular expressions to match complex patterns. As it runs on Windows, it provides grep functionality natively without needing additional Linux tools.
Windows Grep image
grep search regex windows cli utility

Windows Grep: Command-line Utility for Searching Text and Retrieving Matching Lines

Windows Grep is a command-line utility for searching text and retrieving matching lines in files. It allows using regular expressions to match complex patterns. As it runs on Windows, it provides grep functionality natively without needing additional Linux tools.

What is Windows Grep?

Windows Grep is a command-line tool that provides functionality similar to the grep command available in Linux and UNIX systems. It can be used to search files and output lines matching a specified text or regular expression pattern.

Some key features of Windows Grep include:

  • Supports basic and extended regular expressions for complex pattern matching
  • Can search across multiple files and directories recursively
  • Outputs matched lines with file names and line numbers
  • Color coding of matched text in output
  • Additional options like ignore case, count matches, etc.
  • Native Windows executable, so no need for Linux subsystems

As it implements the basic grep tool that many software developers find indispensable, Windows Grep makes it easy to harness the power of grep even when working in a Windows environment. It can be used from the Command Prompt or PowerShell to search logs, source code, text files, and various other file formats conveniently.

Windows Grep Features

Features

  1. Command-line interface for searching text
  2. Support for regular expressions
  3. Recursive searching through directories
  4. Plain text and binary file searching
  5. Unicode and ASCII encoding support
  6. Search results highlighting
  7. Search and replace functionality
  8. Extensible through plugins

Pricing

  • Free
  • Open Source

Pros

Lightweight and fast

Powerful regex search capabilities

Cross-platform functionality on Windows

Free and open source

Cons

Lacks a GUI

Steep learning curve for regex

Less user-friendly than other search tools


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