How to search a phrase in all text files of a folder for lines having the words foo and bar

and print the text between these words, on the Windows command line - Noob vs. Pro

AI Noob Answer:

"use the command line tool "for" and "findstr":

for /r %i in (*.txt) do @for /f "tokens=1-3 delims=:" %a in ('findstr /r "foo.*bar" %i ^| findstr /b ":"') do
@echo %i:%c

... who shall remember this?? and it just produces: syntax error at unexpected word '%i' !

Alternatively, you can use the "powershell" command, the basic syntax is:


Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\path\to\folder" -Filter *.txt -Recurse -Force | Select-String -Pattern "foo.*bar" -Context 0,1 | % { $_.Context.PostContext[0] }

... produces no output. Should that be a starting point for hour-long trial and error?

Great solution! ... if you have an alien neighbour who can translate it for humans.

But if he can't, you're rather lost, and need the

Pro answer:

Forget the above junk, download the free open source SFK for any system and type in one line:

sfk xfind -pure mydir "/foo*bar/[part2]\n/"

Done. Example output:

:file mydir\log1.txt and the :file mydir\log2.txt with some

Read the full syntax here.

Secret command discovered!
How to list all files having a word in their filename

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