PowerShell: Need to search content of several different file types for certain string and display name + path

Question

I want to search a folder the the recurse subfolder's files for a certain string (e.g. "Banana"). I can't seem to get it to work...

This is what I got:

$Searchstring='Banana'
$PathArray=@()
$Path='C:\users\myuser'
$content= Get-Content $_.FullName 

 Get-ChildItem $Path | 
  Where-Object { $_.Attributes -ne "Directory"}

      ForEach-Object ( 
         If ($content | Select-String -Pattern $Searchstring) {
           $PathArray += $_.FullName

         }
      )

unfortunately, this script does not do what I want.

zstefanova · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-08 11:17:02Z

Here is a very simple solution:

$SearchInDirectory = "C:\SearchingFolder";
$SearchForString = "Banana"; #String for searching
$SearchInFormats = "*.asp", "*.txt", "*.js"; #If empty will search in all file formats

echo 'Searching in progress...'
Get-ChildItem  $SearchInDirectory  -include $SearchInFormats   -recurse  |  Select-String  -pattern  $SearchForString  -SimpleMatch  |  group path  |  select name

It searches (recursively) in all directories and sub-directories for all the results and then prints them, so if you have a lot of files and directories it may take some time. Also, you can specify the file types you need to check (but not necessarily).

And also, I have a script that puts the results into file:

$SearchInDirectory = "C:\SearchingFolder";
$SearchForString = "Banana"; #String for searching
$SearchInFormats = "*.asp", "*.txt", "*.js"; #You can specify the file types
$PutSearchResultsInFile = ""; #link to a file or if blank - the results to be displayed on screen

Cls;

function SearchFilesByString_results () {
    Get-ChildItem  $SearchInDirectory  -include $SearchInFormats   -recurse  |  Select-String  -pattern  $SearchForString  -SimpleMatch  |  group path  |  select name
}

if($PutSearchResultsInFile){
        if(!(Test-Path -Path $PutSearchResultsInFile)){
           New-Item $PutSearchResultsInFile -itemType "file" -confirm:$false | Out-Null 
           echo "`nNew file created. `n";
        } 
        echo "Searching in progress... `n";
        SearchFilesByString_results > $PutSearchResultsInFile;
        echo "Search completed! Find results here: " $PutSearchResultsInFile "`n";
} else {
    echo "`nSearching in progress.... `n";
    SearchFilesByString_results
    echo "`nSearch completed! `n";
}

Hope it helps! :)

Martin Brandl · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-08 11:03:30Z

0

You are not updateing the $content which you are using to search. Also, you can simplify this:

$Searchstring='Banana'
$Path='C:\users\myuser'

$PathArray = Get-ChildItem $Path -File | Select-String -Pattern $Searchstring | select -ExpandProperty Path

edited Jul 8, 2016 at 11:03

answered Jul 8, 2016 at 8:30

Martin Brandl

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3 Comments

Dave Sexton Over a year ago

You don't need the ForEach loop, You can piple the Get-Childitem directly into Select-String like so: Get-ChildItem $Path -File | Select-String -Pattern $Searchstring | select -ExpandProperty FileName

Martin Brandl Over a year ago

@DaveSexton Thanks for the hint.

zstefanova Over a year ago

This shows only the file names, while the guy wants to see the path too. You can add that too :)

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