Command line wildcard matching tool with pipe support for Windows

Question

I have not found any commandline tool which would print output only if it matches given wildcards. Wildcards * and ? needs to be supported.

For example

echo 192.168.1.1 | WildcardMatch "19?.168.*"
echo aa-02-23201 | WildcardMatch "*-??-232*"

Tried to implement this by using a batch file and calling PowerShell but this is way too slow. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/using-the-like-operator-and-wildcard-characters-in-string-comparisons-c472b6df-0d3e-4ffc-a21c-bb5721cc460a

Edit: -i is needed to make the match case-sensitive.

Answer 1

Here is an examaple of how to use PowerShell which supports ? and *.

https://github.com/Tataz2/likeSTR

PowerShell scripts can be compiled to exes.

Answer 2

I have not found any command line tool which would print output only if it matches given wildcards.

Wildcards * and ? needs to be supported.

There are no command line tools that support ? as a rexexp character that I am aware of.

However you can use findstr to do the match you are looking for as follows:

This will match:

F:\test>echo 192.168.1.1 | findstr /r "[1][9][1-9].168.*"
192.168.1.1

This will not match:

F:\test>echo 182.168.1.1 | findstr /r "[1][9][1-9].168.*"

F:\test>

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Further Reading

• An A-Z Index of the Windows CMD command line | SS64.com
• Windows CMD Commands (categorized) - Windows CMD - SS64.com
• Findstr - Search for strings - Windows CMD - SS64.com
• What are the undocumented features and limitations of the Windows FINDSTR command?

Answer 3

You can also install grep for Windows and use more or less basic regexes.

Examples based on yours, with Perl engine in use, but ou could switch to e.g. faster -G instead:

• less accurate IP match:

  echo 192.168.1.1 | grep -P "19\d\.168\..*?"

• more accurate IP match:

  echo 192.168.1.1 | grep -P "19\d\.168\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}"

• pattern match:

  echo aa-02-23201 | grep -P "[a-z]{2}-\d{2}-232\d+"