Find a word in a lot txt files

[GSquadron]

Hi guys!
Is there a way to find a specific word in a lot of txt files?
I have like 200 files and it takes me a lot of time to find the word in the files
I need to find a command inside the txt files as quickly as possible
Is there a program to find the word inside all of the 200 txt files?

 

[Yukikaze]

If you are on Linux you can use "grep", but I assume you are on Windows, so try: http://www.wingrep.com

 

[W1zzard]

+1 for grep

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

Yes this is a perfect example of something *nix can do better than any...

 

[RejZoR]

Erm, has anyone of you ever used Windows search? Just check the option to actually scan the content of files and it will look into all of them. It's even easier if it's plaintext...

 

[Deleted member 3]

Or you can just use the Windows search function. Look under indexing options > advanced > file types > and have windows index file contents for txt files.

 

[digibucc]

Yes this is a perfect example of something *nix can do better than any...

it's a horrible example of that. it's a better example of people assuming
linux can do something better, without having the complete knowledge to
know it's a function available in most operating systems.

 

[W1zzard]

does windows search speak regexp ?

 

[digibucc]

fair enough, for regular expressions grep is needed, but was that the question?
i highly doubt that was what he was specifically referring to when he said nix can do better...

edit: grep isn't needed, other tools can do it. but windows native search cannot.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I'd use EditPlus. It has a "Find in files..." feature which can even search binaries (executables, DLLs, etc.) for a string. Last I checked, you can use it for free--you'll just get a nag screen popping up everytime you start it.

 

[Easy Rhino]

i know i am going off topic but wouldnt it also be true that given the same system specs grep would find a specific word in 200+ txt files much faster than windows indexer? i mean, come on.

 

[cheesy999]

i know i am going off topic but wouldnt it also be true that given the same system specs grep would find a specific word in 200 txt files much faster than windows indexer? i mean, come on.

Its 200txt files -how long do you think that takes?

 

[erocker]

In notepad or wordpad I use ctrl+f, enter value and search. I'm not sure if we're talking about different things or not?

 

[cheesy999]

In notepad or wordpad I use ctrl f, enter value and search. I'm not sure if we're talking about different things or not?

not unless controlf works with all 200 txt files at the same time (imagines going through them one at a time)

 

[Easy Rhino]

Its 200txt files -how long do you think that takes?

beats me. but it is faster using grep. what's more, in a business if you were scan through tens of thousands of documents the time saved would really add up. just saying.

In notepad or wordpad I use ctrl+f, enter value and search. I'm not sure if we're talking about different things or not?

the OP has a bunch of txt files and he is trying to avoid doing what you suggested because it takes forever when youve got a bunch of files.

 

[erocker]

Yeah, the 200 files at once kinda went over my head. I'm going to try grep as this could be really handy for work.

 

[Deleted member 3]

does windows search speak regexp ?

Does grep speak Klingon? I don't see how any of those questions matter for this purpose.

 

[W1zzard]

grep -i -e "hab.*sosll\s+quch" klingonopera.txt ?

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Its 200txt files -how long do you think that takes?

If they aren't huge, less than a second.


Example (each line is "path"(line#,column#):line that contains the searched string):

139 KiB (143,258 bytes) in 91 files searched over gigabit LAN.

Double click on one of them to open just that document in EditPlus. Right-click and select "Open All" to open them all in EditPlus. If you do Open All, you can then perform a replace on "all open documents" if that is what you want. EditPlus doesn't freak out at opening large files like Notepad does.

 

[de.das.dude]

i think in qindows there is something called search in content. so if you create a folder and put all the to be searched files there, then you can use this technique.