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Search string and return only the 5th line

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# 1  
Old 02-01-2009
Search string and return only the 5th line
I have looked at almost every posting on here regarding, grep, sed, awk, nawk, perl methods to perform this function, but they are just not returning the results I hope to see.

Example File:

abcdef
123456
ghijkl
7890123
7890123
7890123
7890123
mnopqrs
456789

This is the most effective one line command that I have found thus far:

 awk '{a[NR]=$0}$0~/7890123/{printf("%s\n%s\n%s \n",a[NR-4],a[NR-2],a[NR-1])}' <filename>

RESULTS:

123456
ghijkl

ghijkl
7890123
123456
7890123
7890123
ghijkl
7890123
7890123

As you can see, it returns the string I want '123456', but the downfall is it returns the value multiple times and returns a lot of uneeded lines. I would just like to return one instance of '123456'.

Any help would be appreciated?

# 2  
Old 02-01-2009
Quote:
Originally Posted by doza22
I have looked at almost every posting on here regarding, grep, sed, awk, nawk, perl methods to perform this function, but they are just not returning the results I hope to see.

What, exactly, is that function?
Quote:

Example File:

abcdef
123456
ghijkl
7890123
7890123
7890123
7890123
mnopqrs
456789

This is the most effective one line command that I have found thus far:

awk '{a[NR]=$0}$0~/7890123/{printf("%s\n%s\n%s \n",a[NR-4],a[NR-2],a[NR-1])}' <filename>

You'll get more help if you post legible code; that means using [code] tags and formatting the code legibly.

Is this what you want?

Code:
awk '{ a[NR] = $0 }
 $0 ~ /7890123/ {
     printf "%s\n%s\n%s \n", a[NR-4], a[NR-2], a[NR-1]
     exit
 }
' <filename>

# 3  
Old 02-01-2009
Thanks for the reply. Sorry, I just copy and pasted just as I pulled it off another site.

Your recommendation returned:

123456
ghijkl

Is there any way to get rid of the 'ghijkl' line?

Thanks again!
# 4  
Old 02-01-2009
Quote:
Originally Posted by doza22
Thanks for the reply. Sorry, I just copy and pasted just as I pulled it off another site.

You can learn a lot about code by simply reformatting it.
Quote:

Your recommendation returned:

123456
ghijkl

Is there any way to get rid of the 'ghijkl' line?
Code:
awk '{ a[NR] = $0 }
 $0 ~ /7890123/ {
     printf "%s\n", a[NR-2]
     exit
 }
' FILENAME

# 5  
Old 02-01-2009
Thank you very much! It works perfectly!
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