How to force `findstr` to ignore `Cannot open` returns

windows cmd findstr
Foad picture Foad · Jan 31, 2018 · Viewed 9.7k times · Source

I'm trying to use findstr to search inside a folder looking for some string:

findstr /spin /c:"string" *

however it returns back with a lot of Cannot open errors which make it difficult for me to find the exact matches found.

When using Cmder command:

grep -r "string" .

I got Permission denied error for the same folders. If I use the command:

grep -rs "string" .

it gives me the results nice and clean. Is there a similar flag for findstr or a combination of cmd commands to do the same?

there are already some posts for findstr Cannot open error, explaining what is wrong and how to solve it, but I don't care why it is happening. I just want the command to ignore the Cannot open lines and prints out just the lines with exact matches.

Answer

FatalBulletHit picture FatalBulletHit · Jan 31, 2018

You can make use of 2>nul:

FINDSTR /SPIN /C:"string" * 2>nul

This will pipe the standard-error stream to null (read more), thus only matches are displayed.

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