Shell Programming and Scripting

sed -n /start_pattern/,/end_pattern/p FILENAME

$
$ cat -n f6
     1  this is line 1
     2  this is line 2
     3  begin
     4  some stuff here
     5  that spans
     6  multiple lines
     7  end
     8  this is line 8
     9  this is line 9
$
$ # to print everything between "begin" and "end" both inclusive
$
$ perl -lne 'print if (/begin/../end/)' f6
begin
some stuff here
that spans
multiple lines
end
$
$ # to print everything between "begin" and "end" both exclusive
$
$ perl -lne 'BEGIN{undef $/} print $1 if (/begin\n(.*?)\nend/s)' f6
some stuff here
that spans
multiple lines
$
$