Shell Programming and Scripting

Hello experts,
I have this complicated code that output value in between pattern and add "a string" to the front of the output.
The problems I have many pattern that are the same.
so I want to know how to get the value between 1st pattern, 2nd pattern etc.
Any suggestions?

sed -n '/<pattern>/s/.*>\(.*\)<.*/a string\1/gp' file


file:
<Pattern>file<\Pattern>
<Pattern>file2<\Pattern>
..
<Pattern>file3<\Pattern>
..
<Pattern>file4<\Pattern>

sed -n '/<pattern>/s/.*>\(.*\)<.*/string=\1/gp' file
returns:

string=file
string=file2
string=file3
string=file4

but I want a sed command that gets only the value between the 3rd occurrence of pattern

string=file3

Please post examples.

Jean-Pierre.

ok

so
file:
<Pattern>file<\Pattern>
<Pattern>file2<\Pattern>
..
<Pattern>file3<\Pattern>
..
<Pattern>file4<\Pattern>

sed -n '/<pattern>/s/.*>\(.*\)<.*/string=\1/gp' file
returns:

string=file
string=file2
string=file3
string=file4

but I want a sed command that gets only the value between the 3rd occurrence of pattern

string=file3

original sed command:
sed -n '/<pattern>/s/.*>\(.*\)<.*/string=\1/gp' file

Code:

sed -n '3,/<pattern>/s/.*>\(.*\)<.*/string=\1/gp' file

hm.. I tried this one before, it output all values up to the 1st pattern.

so
file:
<before>blah<\before>
<before>blah1<\before>
<before>blah2<\before>
<Pattern>file<\Pattern>
..
<Pattern>file2<\Pattern>

outputs:

string=blah
string=blah1
string=blah2
string=file

Code:

awk 'BEGIN{FS="<|>"}/<Pattern>/{c++}c==3{print "string="$3}' file

Regards