How do I use the Find command in windows command-line to match the first character only?

Question

For example if the dir command produces something like this:

> dir
file1.txt
file2.txt
another file3.txt
another file4.txt

I want to be able to filter all file names that start with the letter 'f'. Any ideas?

I've tried the following command but that returns ALL file names with an 'f' anywhere in the name:

>dir | find "f"
file1.txt
file2.txt
another file3.txt
another file4.txt

Unless I've missed something, the documentation here doesn't say how to do this.

Siim K · Answer 1 · 2011-05-05 09:14:49Z

The documentation says:

You cannot use wildcards (that is, * and ?) in file names or extensions that you specify with the find command

Try using findstr instead:

dir /B | findstr /b "s"

I'm using dir with the /B option because I want the Bare format (no heading, file sizes or summary)
findstr /b Matches the pattern if at the beginning of a line

1 Answer