What is the best, free, grep application for use with Windows instead of Linux?
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findstr is an alternative and comes with windows.– MoronAug 9, 2010 at 17:45
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possible duplicate of Unicode grep for Windows– akiraApr 6, 2012 at 20:12
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6 Answers
You could also download Cygwin, which has a full Unix-style toolkit, including grep, AWK, and all the servers.
answered Aug 9, 2010 at 18:20
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I understand that all of Cygwin can sound intimidatingly heavyweight to some Windows developers, but I have to say: If you aren't using this set of unixy command-line tools, even on your Windows projects, you are stunting your development as a programmer. The reason they are 40 years old but still thriving is that they are simply the best tool for many jobs, and smart people will still be using them to solve difficult problems 40 years from now. How many other technologies could remotely come close to claiming the same thing? Jun 8, 2012 at 12:14
Either use Grep for Windows or the findstr command suggested by Moron.
answered Aug 9, 2010 at 18:06
http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/ has a bunch of GNU tools ported to Windows.
Newer versions of Windows include a built-in grep, called findstr. It'll do just about whatever you need. For example
C:\>findstr /I windows c:\boot.ini
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professio
nal" /fastdetect /NOEXECUTE=ALWAYSON
For more info, just run findstr /? on a command prompt.
I know this has been dormant, but I don't see very many options listed. I just came across AstroGrep referenced by twlichty at How to search inside files... and it works fine for me. As to "best", I think that is subjective, but I prefer command line grep and this is a GUI tool, but my preference is not enough to keep me looking...
FART provides some of the functionality of grep, depends on your requirements but I recommend you take a look:
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