UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

hi,

I have a 20 line file.

I need a command which will brinf back a specific line based upon the line number I enter.

e.g. the file looks like this and is called file1

jim is a man
john is a woman
james is a man
wendy is a woman
lesley is a woman

i want a command that will output any one of this lines based upon the number i pass it as parameter.

eg.

$ ./script file1 2 (script being the command)

will show

$ john is a woman

any help will be much appreciated

thanks in advance

Suresh

sed -n 2p file1
should do it.

Alternatively,
awk NR==2 file1

Using either of these two methods within a script would be easy, using positional parameters

Code:

#!/bin/sh
sed -n $2p $1
awk NR==$2 $1

Take a look at your shells manual page to learn more about positional parameters and passing arguments to scripts.

You could also implement error checking by ensuring that the file passed exists (look at the "test" or "[" builtins/commands)....

Cheers
ZB

Sorry this is late..


Many Thanks, much appreciated.