How to use FINDSTR in PowerShell to find strings where all words in the search string match in any order

You can use Select-String

to search based on regular expression using multiple files.

To match all multiple search terms on the same line with regular expressions, you will need to use a search assertion :

Get-ChildItem -Filter *.abc -Recurse |Select-String -Pattern '^(?=.*\bword1\b)(?=.*\bword2\b)(?=.*\bword3\b).*$'

      

        
        
        
      

    

In the example above, this is what happens with the first command:

Get-ChildItem -Filter *.abc -Recurse

      

        
        
        
      

    

Get-ChildItem

searches for files in the current directory
-Filter *.abc

only shows us files ending with *.abc


-Recurse

searches for all subfolders

We then pass the resulting FileInfo objects into Select-String

and use the following regex pattern:

^(?=.*\bword1\b)(?=.*\bword2\b)(?=.*\bword3\b).*$
^              # start of string  
 (?=           # open positive lookahead assertion containing
    .*         # any number of any characters (like * in wildcard matching)
      \b       # word boundary
        word1  # the literal string "word1"
      \b       # word boundary
 )             # close positive lookahead assertion
 ...           # repeat for remaining words
 .*            # any number of any characters
$              # end of string

      

        
        
        
      

    

Since each lookahead group is only asserted for correctness, and the position of the lookahead within the string never changes, the order doesn't matter.

If you want it to match lines containing any of the words, you can use a simple non-capturing group:

Get-ChildItem -Filter *.abc -Recurse |Select-String -Pattern '\b(?:word1|word2|word3)\b'

      

        
        
        
      

    

\b(?:word1|word2|word3)\b
\b          # start of string  
  (?:       # open non-capturing group
     word1  # the literal string "word1"
     |      # or
     word2  # the literal string "word2"
     |      # or
     word3  # the literal string "word3"
  )         # close positive lookahead assertion
\b          # end of string

      

        
        
        
      

    

This can of course be diverted into a simple proxy function .

I generated the block param

and most of the body of the function definition Select-Match

below:

$slsmeta = [System.Management.Automation.CommandMetadata]::new((Get-Command Select-String))
[System.Management.Automation.ProxyCommand]::Create($slsmeta)

      

        
        
        
      

    

Then unnecessary parameters were removed (including -AllMatches

and -Pattern

), then the template generator was added (see inline comments):

function Select-Match
{
    [CmdletBinding(DefaultParameterSetName='Any', HelpUri='http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=113388')]
    param(
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true, Position=0)]
        [string[]]
        ${Substring},

        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true, ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true)]
        [Alias('PSPath')]
        [string[]]
        ${LiteralPath},

        [Parameter(ParameterSetName='Any')]
        [switch]
        ${Any},

        [Parameter(ParameterSetName='Any')]
        [switch]
        ${All},

        [switch]
        ${CaseSensitive},

        [switch]
        ${NotMatch},

        [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
        [ValidateSet('unicode','utf7','utf8','utf32','ascii','bigendianunicode','default','oem')]
        [string]
        ${Encoding},

        [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]
        [ValidateCount(1, 2)]
        [ValidateRange(0, 2147483647)]
        [int[]]
        ${Context}
    )

    begin
    {
        try {
            $outBuffer = $null
            if ($PSBoundParameters.TryGetValue('OutBuffer', [ref]$outBuffer))
            {
                $PSBoundParameters['OutBuffer'] = 1
            }

            # Escape literal input strings
            $EscapedStrings = foreach($term in $PSBoundParameters['Substring']){
                [regex]::Escape($term)
            }

            # Construct pattern based on whether -Any or -All was specified 
            if($PSCmdlet.ParameterSetName -eq 'Any'){
                $Pattern = '\b(?:{0})\b' -f ($EscapedStrings -join '|')
            } else {
                $Clauses = foreach($EscapedString in $EscapedStrings){
                    '(?=.*\b{0}\b)' -f $_
                }
                $Pattern = '^{0}.*$' -f ($Clauses -join '')
            }

            # Remove the Substring parameter argument from PSBoundParameters
            $PSBoundParameters.Remove('Substring') |Out-Null

            # Add the Pattern parameter argument
            $PSBoundParameters['Pattern'] = $Pattern

            $wrappedCmd = $ExecutionContext.InvokeCommand.GetCommand('Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility\Select-String', [System.Management.Automation.CommandTypes]::Cmdlet)
            $scriptCmd = {& $wrappedCmd @PSBoundParameters }
            $steppablePipeline = $scriptCmd.GetSteppablePipeline($myInvocation.CommandOrigin)
            $steppablePipeline.Begin($PSCmdlet)
        } catch {
            throw
        }
    }

    process
    {
        try {
            $steppablePipeline.Process($_)
        } catch {
            throw
        }
    }

    end
    {
        try {
            $steppablePipeline.End()
        } catch {
            throw
        }
    }
    <#

    .ForwardHelpTargetName Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility\Select-String
    .ForwardHelpCategory Cmdlet

    #>

}

      

        
        
        
      

    

Now you can use it like this, and it will behave something like Select-String

:

Get-ChildItem -Filter *.abc -Recurse |Select-Match word1,word2,word3 -All