There is no input file its a simple command and the results of the command are my input. There is no way to know what the output will be when the error occurs nor how many lines. I can presume it would be no more than say 10 lines at most. That's why I was hoping I could just find some way to say. If you see this word then print all output that can be printed.

---------- Post updated at 09:06 PM ---------- Previous update was at 05:54 PM ----------

Code:

 awk '{ if (!a && $0~/error/) {a=1;next;}} a'

Well I did this and it is partially successful. It does print the lines after the match. However it doesn't print the original line with the error on it. Thats not critical and I could live without it. Would be cleaner if the original error line printed also.

However the pattern match doesn't seem to work as my original command did. It runs subsequent date command every time it runs the command regardless of a match to the pattern.

Code:

 while true ; do command | awk '{ if (!a && $0~/failed/system ("date")) {a=1;next;}} a' ;sleep 2; done

I wind up getting this as my output when the output is OK. Ideally I only want to see any output when it fails. So I gotta figure out how to get the Date command to only execute when the pattern matches.

Thu Apr 7 19:00:24 PDT 2011
Thu Apr 7 19:00:26 PDT 2011
Thu Apr 7 19:00:28 PDT 2011
Thu Apr 7 19:00:32 PDT 2011
Thu Apr 7 19:00:34 PDT 2011
Thu Apr 7 19:00:36 PDT 2011

So I have two 50% answers so far. I just need to combine the two into one perfect command. But, must sleep!!!!