Question

I am trying to search strings in files and display the file name which contains the strings

I have written a script like below.

Function GetFileContainsData ([string] $Folderpath,[string] $filename, [string] $Data) { 

    $Files=Get-ChildItem $Folderpath -include $filename -recurse | Select-String -pattern $Data | group path | select name
    return,$Files
}

$configFiles= GetFileContainsData "C:\MyApplication" "web.config" "localhost"
Foreach ($file in $configFiles) { Add-Content -Path "Filelist.txt" -Value $file.Name}

This script writes all the filename which contains the string “localhost” into Filelist.txt.

I would like to find more than one string. If i pass an array

$stringstofind=("localhost","$env:ComputerName")
Foreach ($strings in $stringsToFind) {
    $configFiles= GetFileContainsData $Installpath "web.config" $strings
    Foreach ($file in $configFiles) { Add-Content -Path "Filelist.txt" -Value $file.Name}
}

It will look for each string in array with the list of files and update it. If the same file has both the strings , it will have 2 entries of that file in Filelist.txt.

Is it possible to find more than one string in a file and list out the name of the file? [so that redundant entry of file name may eliminated]

Answer 1

The following script will solve the problem i had. Thanks for carlpett’s useful inputs

<#
    .NAME
        Get-FilenameHasString
    .SYNOPSIS
        To search strings in file and return the filenames.
    .DESCRIPTION
        This script will be useful to find strings in list of files.
        It will eliminate the duplicate filenames
    .PARAMETER Filenames
        This parameter will be having filenames where the string needs to be searched.
    .PARAMETER FolderPath
        This parameter will be having folder where it will look for the filenames
    .PARAMETER StringsToFind
        This parameter will be having the strings to be searched
    .EXAMPLE
       .\Get-FilenameHasString -Filenames "Web.config" -FolderPath "C:\Program Files (x86)\MyProj" -$StringsToFind ("$env:ComputerName","localhost")
       To get the  list of web.config files which is there in Folder path having StringsTofind. The result will be saved in Filelist.log by default.
    #>

Param ( 
    $Filenames="web.config",
    $FolderPath="C:\Program Files (x86)\MyProj",
    $StringsToFind=("$env:ComputerName","localhost"),
    $Logfile="FileList.log"
    )

$configFiles= Get-ChildItem $FolderPath -Include $Filenames -Recurse | Select-String -Pattern $StringsToFind | Group path | select name | Get-Unique -AsString
Foreach ($file in $configFiles) { Add-Content -Path $Logfile -Value $file.Name}