UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

grep -B 10 "pattern" filename

It will give the result but this -B is not supported.

ya i know that i din't suggested that because we try give answer
in such a way that it will work on all type of unix and linux machine..
happy scripting

Generic ed script to request any number of lines before and after a single search string... (Note: the search string is echo'd in the first line, so you will want to parse that out either via another pipe to ed or to the tail command)

Step 1) create the simple script, call it before_n_after.sh
Step 2) Usage: before_n_after.sh SearchString #LinesBeforeAndAfter File

Note that quotes will be needed for the search string if it contains non-printable characters or whitespaces.

Code:

#!/bin/sh

echo "/"$1  >   /tmp/b_n_a.input
echo -$2,+$2p >> /tmp/b_n_a.input

ed -s $3 <   /tmp/b_n_a.input

rm -f  /tmp/b_n_a.input