How can I search and extract lines which contain a specific string in a large text file on Windows?

Question

I have a large text file (3MB over 50,000 lines) and I would wish to perform a filter on it.

I see that it's quite possible to do on a Linux machine, but I don't know how to go about filtering it on windows.

I would like every line that includes a specified string (e.g. cake) to be copied into a new text file - simple as that. I just have no idea.

Thanks :)

If you are comfortable with nix environments, try 'cygwin'... — MJSG, Dec 23 '14 at 17:25
Possible duplicate of [Filter a text file into a new text file](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8297706/filter-a-text-file-into-a-new-text-file) — Wolf, Jan 25 '17 at 10:40
This size `3MB over 50,000` may be considered "large" for interactive filtering, but it's indeed small for filtering in an automated way. See [Large file support - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_file_support) — Wolf, Jan 25 '17 at 10:48

Yellows · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-23T17:30:49.757

5

You might want to use the MS-DOS find command with redirection. For example:

find "cake" yourfile.txt > output.txt

You'll have to execute the line in the directory where your large text file is located.

Source: http://ss64.com/nt/find.html

edited Dec 23 '14 at 17:30

answered Dec 23 '14 at 17:24

Yellows

693
4
14

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:29

C# with Visual Studio.

c# search string in txt file

int counter = 0;
string current;
string[] cakeLines;

System.IO.StreamReader file = new System.IO.StreamReader("c:\\test.txt");
System.IO.StreamReader file2 = new System.IO.StreamReader("c:\\test2.txt");
while((current = file.ReadLine()) != null)
{
    if ( current.Contains("cake") )
    {
        cakeLines[counter] = current;
        file2.WriteLine(cakeLines[counter]);
    }

   counter++;
}

file.Close();
file2.Close();

How can I search and extract lines which contain a specific string in a large text file on Windows?

2 Answers2