- Grep is a very powerful and useful tool used in Linux and Unix operating systems. It is mainly used to match and print specified text in given text files in different formats. Grep also have subversions like egrep which will provide extended functionality like regular expressions.
- There are many alternatives to grep for Mac if you are looking to replace it. The most popular Mac alternative is DocFetcher, which is both free and Open Source.If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked 32 alternatives to grep and 12 are available for Mac so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement.
- Having such a text-searching tool for the command line would be a valuable addition to Unix; naturally, such a tool exists. It is called grep, and it is the subject of today's column.
The
grep
command in Linux is widely used for parsing files and searching for useful data in the outputs of different commands.The
findstr
command is a Windows grep
equivalent in a Windows command-line prompt (CMD).In a Windows PowerShell the alternative for
grep
is the Select-String
command.Tools that work with ack AckMate. Users of TextMate, the programmer's editor for the Mac, can use the AckMate plugin by Trevor Squires:. TextMate users know just how slow its 'Find in Project' can be with large source trees.
Below you will find some examples of how to “grep” in Windows using these alternatives.
Grep Command in Windows
Grep the output of a
netstat
command for a specific port:If a command in PowerShell returns some objects, before parsing, they should be converted to strings using the
Out-String -Stream
command:Grep a file for a pattern that matches a regular expression (case insensitive):
Grep Gui Mac
Display
help
for the Windows grep
command equivalents: