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mahen3d
Asked: 2012-07-26 18:46:24 +0800 CST

How to search for text in a PuTTY console window

  • 772

Is there a easy way for me to:

  • search for a string in the output window of the putty ?
  • or even a Linux command to search and highlight a string in the output ?

I have 20,000+ lines in the output and sometimes I have to search for customer_id : 1111 and currently I have to copy them to word or notepad and then search.

Is there a better way to do this ?

linux

4 Answers

  1. I use a very clever trick (if I do say so).

    Answer is NO, putty can't do a find in the scroll back buffer.

    Here's my workaround:

    I enable putty session logging, and then have the session log open in GxTail, which is a text viewer that updates in real time. I have the windows open side by side (or one on each monitor), and when I issue a command in putty, the output is in the GxTail window. GxTail has full find (ctrl-f) like any text editor.

    It's the next best thing to having ctrl-f working in putty. Works great for long cisco running-configs, where the | inc pipe command has shortcomings.

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  2. Best Answer

    If you don't care about the rest of the output, then

    yourcommand | grep "some regular expression"

    will only print the lines that contain "some regular expression".

    yourcommand | less

    will send the output of your command to the less command which lets you scroll up and down the output. You can search by typing /some regular expression and pressing enter. q will close the program.

    If you do want to save the file, then

    yourcommand > outputfile

    will send the output to a file instead of the screen, which you can open in an editor and search instead of displaying it on the screen. If it exists, outputfile will be erased before yourcommand runs. You can add the output to the end of an existing file if you use >> instead.

    The tee program lets you save the output to a file and send it to another program at the same time:

    yourcommand | tee outputfile | somethingelse

    This will save the original output to outputfile and pass it to some other command.

    • 6

  3. I'd suggest that in the future you enable PuTTY logging, ensuring the log size is appropriate. Doing that you can use any half decent text editor to open the log and search for any part of the text you desire, whether it's your input or the remote system's output.

    • 1

  4. To search for characters in the file:

    $ more YourFile

    then you type / and type the character you are looking for:

    eg: /a

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