How to Display File Names with Specific Character Count in Command Line

Are you looking for "howdy doody" in the filename, or within the file?

# find files with "howdy doody" in the filename
find * -name "*howdy doody*" -print0 | xargs -0 ...

xargs is what you need to use to split the null-terminated output from find -print0. In your example, the echo is extraneous; don't bother with it.

# find files containing "howdy doody"
find * -print0 | xargs -0 grep -l "howdy doody"

# find files containing "howdy doody" and do further processing

# multiple xargs version
find * -print0 | xargs -0 grep -l "howdy doody" | xargs -i{} do-something "{}"

# "sh -c" version
find * -print0 | xargs -0 -i{} sh -c 'grep -l "howdy doody" "{}" && do-something "{}"'

# notes: 
#   "sh -c" allows us to run a complex command with a single xargs
#   "{}" handles spaces-in-filename
#   handles any &&, ||, | command linking

You can also run your command directly from the find with -exec. The difference is that find -exec runs the command once per file found; xargs adds filenames to the end of the command (up to system limit), so it runs the command fewer times. You can simulate this with xargs -n1 to force xargs to only run one command per input.

# grep once per file
find * -exec grep -l "howdy doody" {} \; | ...

I was asking (not only to myself) "doesn't it work a simple..."?

copy  C:\ORIG_DIR\?????.txt C:\Dest_Dir

Thanks to G-Man it is tested that in powershell it works, meanwhile in cmd.exe the above command will copy each match up to five characters and with all the extension that start with .txt.

Question mark (?)

Use the question mark as a substitute for a single character in a name. For example, if you type gloss?.doc, you will locate the file Glossy.doc or Gloss1.doc but not Glossary.doc.

Reference:

• Wildcards under windows.

• Powershell, text and regular expressions.