Shell Tips !

In our list of “CLI workaround for Windows XP“, a missing command is GREP. Now, you can have a GREP-Like command with the DOS command QGREP. Get the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit tools on microsoft.com.

# display help

QGREP /?

usage: qgrep [-?BELOXlnzvxy][-e string][-f file][-i file][strings][files]
-? – print this message
-B – match pattern if at beginning of line
-E – match pattern if at end of line
-L – treat search strings literally (fgrep)
-O – print seek offset before each matching line
-X – treat search strings as regular expressions (grep)
-l – print only file name if file contains match
-n – print line number before each matching line
-z – print matching lines in MSC error message format
-v – print only lines not containing a match
-x – print lines that match exactly (-BE)
-y – treat upper and lower case as equivalent
-e – treat next argument literally as a search string
-f – read search strings from file named by next argument (- = stdin)
-i – read file list from file named by next argument (- = stdin)
White space separates search strings unless the argument is prefixed with -e, e.g., ‘qgrep “all out” x.y’ means find either “all” or “out” in x.y, while ‘qgrep -e “all out” x.y’ means find “all out”.

# Example for UNIX-Like regexp search

QGREP -X “[a-Z]” MYFILE.TXT

System Requirements