Buffering the output of a "dir" command

You can try:
dir | findstr /v /i "\myfile.txt$" > myfile.txt

in case symbols don't make it

:) I don't know much about switches and whatnot, searched google with: cmd dir exclude files

this came up:
Excluding files of particular extension using DIR command on windows command line - Super User

then added your "> text.file" part to it, tried in my PC, posted for you

Ztruker said:

No regular expression there: dir | findstr /v /i "\myfile.txt$" > myfile.txt

The text in red is a regular expression. At least it's supposed to be.

GokAy, your regex, \myfile.txt$, is slightly incorrect.


Recalling a few special character meanings in regular expressions:

• "\" is an escape character,
• "." represents any single character,
• "$" at the end of a regex means that the string to match should only be matched at the end of a line (immediately before any line break).

So the regex \myfile.txt$ actually says to match the string literal myfile, any character, and the string literal txt. $ at the end of a regex says that the string to match must be at the end of a line, before a line break character. Escaping the literal character m doesn't do anything.

This particular regular expression can be expressed in wildcard notation too. Its wildcard notation would be myfile?txt (where ? in wildcard notation represents any single character). This, however, will not say to match at the end of a line.

The correct regular expression that should be used in the Findstr command should be myfile\.txt$.


I presume you've already realised this by now, but there is no way to extend the output buffer of commands, Swiftie. GokAy's solution of filtering the output of Dir is exactly how your problem should be tackled.