grep in windows batch file
I am trying to write a Windows batch file that will look through a specific html index file that looks something like this (simplified)
<a href=emergency.htm>Emergency Calls</a><br>
<a href=EmeRgency.htm>Emergency Calls</a><br>
<a href=Emergency.htm>Emergency Calls</a><br>
<a href=EMERGENCY.htm>Emergency Calls</a><br>
<a href=E911.htm>Emergency Calls</a><br>
<a href=e911.htm>Emergency Calls</a><br>
and print all links whose filenames contain any uppercase letters so that they may be corrected not to so include any.
The following works in unix:
$ grep -v '^<a href=[^A-Z]*\.htm' helpindex.htm
<a href=EmeRgency.htm>Emergency Calls</a><br>
<a href=Emergency.htm>Emergency Calls</a><br>
<a href=EMERGENCY.htm>Emergency Calls</a><br>
<a href=E911.htm>Emergency Calls</a><br>
(the -v reverses the match)
But using the UnxUtils grep under Windows, which is a direct port of unix grep, I can't come up with a way of quoting the regex that works. This would be necessary to use it in a batch file. I've tried ', " with no joy and also the -E switch. Is there any way to do this using this particular toolset?
@janos led me to the findstr command in Windows but it still doesn't work. Looking at the findstr help I see:
FINDSTR [/B] [/E] [/L] [/R] [/S] [/I] [/X] [/V] [/N] [/M] [/O] [/P] [/F:file] [/C:string] [/G:file] [/D:dir list] [/A:color attributes] [/OFF[LINE]] strings [[drive:][path]filename[ ...]]
...
/V Prints only lines that do not contain a match. ...
/C:string Uses specified string as a literal search string. ...Use spaces to separate multiple search strings unless the argument is prefixed with /C. For example, 'FINDSTR "hello there" x.y' searches for "hello" or "there" in file x.y. 'FINDSTR /C:"hello there" x.y' searches for "hello there" in file x.y.
However, this doesn't work either:
C:\home\sftp>findstr /V /C:"^<a href=[^A-Z]*\.htm" helpindex.htm
<a href=emergency.htm>Emergency Calls</a><br>
<a href=EmeRgency.htm>Emergency Calls</a><br>
<a href=Emergency.htm>Emergency Calls</a><br>
<a href=EMERGENCY.htm>Emergency Calls</a><br>
<a href=E911.htm>Emergency Calls</a><br>
<a href=e911.htm>Emergency Calls</a><br>
Either findstr is garbage or there is some subtle difference from grep.
Answer
This works fine for me in Windows command console:
grep -v "^<a href=[^A-Z]*\.htm" helpindex.htm
FINDSTR does not work with [^A-Z] because it uses a non-standard collation sequence: See Why does findstr not handle case properly (in some circumstances)?
You can use FINDSTR to get your desired output using:
findstr /rvc:"^<a href=[^ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ]*\.htm" helpindex.htm
The /C option is needed to force the entire string to be considered one search term.
The /R option is needed to force interpretation of the search term as a regex. The default for the /C option is a string literal.
You might want to have a look at What are the undocumented features and limitations of the Windows FINDSTR command?. There is a long list of "gotchas"
Edit
UnxUtils is an old, outdated distribution of GNU unix utilities for Windows. You should get newer releases from GNU Coreutils: see Difference between UnxUtils and GNU CoreUtils
I believe I got my distribution of GNU Coreutils from http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/coreutils.htm. I'm not sure if that is the most up-to-date package, but it should solve your grep problem. It provides a convenient package of many utilities.
Another option is to get individual GNU utilities for Windows from http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages.html