CODEWITHSUNDEEP
unixsed
Sarathi Kamaraj
Sarathi Kamaraj

Reputation: 697

Need Sed Command to print between two patterns without repetition

I have a pattern like the one below

Start
Hi
How
Are
You
End
Hi
Start
Hi
How
do
You
Do
End

I need the string between the first Start and End.

I don't want the strings between second Start and End.

Is there a way to do this?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 694

Answers (4)

Ed Morton
Ed Morton

Reputation: 203169

sed is an excellent tool for simple substitutions on a single line. For anything else use awk:

$ awk '/End/{exit} found{print} /Start/{found=1}' file
Hi
How
Are
You

When the current line contains Start set the "found" flag. On the next line and every subsequent line the found flag is set so print that line. When a line containing "End" is seen, exit. All very simple and if necessary in future you can easily control whether Start, End, or both are printed just by moving the {} parts around:

$ awk '/End/{exit} /Start/{found=1} found{print}' file 
Start
Hi
How
Are
You
$ awk 'found{print} /End/{exit} /Start/{found=1}' file             
Hi
How
Are
You
End
$ awk '/Start/{found=1} found{print} /End/{exit}' file
Start
Hi
How
Are
You
End

or just set the found flag back to zero instead of exiting if you want all the segments between Start/End:

$ awk '/End/{found=0} found; /Start/{found=1}' file   
Hi
How
Are
You
Hi
How
do
You
Do

If End can occur before Start as suggested in a comment, then just tweak the script to only test for End within the "found" block:

awk 'found{ if (/End/) exit; print } /Start/{ found=1 }' file

Upvotes: 2

potong
potong

Reputation: 58361

This might work for you (GNU sed):

sed -n '/Start/,${//!p;/End/q}' file

Upvotes: 2

Thor
Thor

Reputation: 47089

You could also do it with an ed script:

<<< '/Start/+1,/End/-1p' | ed -s infile

Output:

Hi
How
Are
You

Upvotes: 1

Lev Levitsky
Lev Levitsky

Reputation: 65781

This seems to work for me:

sed -n '/Start/{:a;n;/End/q;p;ba}'

$ echo 'Start
Hi
How
Are
You
End
Hi
Start
Hi
How
do
You
Do
End' | sed -n '/Start/{:a;n;/End/q;p;ba}'
Hi
How
Are
You

Upvotes: 5

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