Diff for "BashFAQ/011"

Differences between revisions 14 and 31 (spanning 17 versions)

How can I print the n'th line of a file?

One dirty (but not quick) way is:

   1 sed -n "${n}p" "$file"

But this reads the entire file even if only the third line is desired, which can be avoided by using the q command to quit on line $n, and deleting all other lines with the d command:

   1 sed "${n}q;d" "$file"

Another method is to grab the last line from a listing of the first n lines:

   1 head -n "$n" "$file" | tail -n 1

Another approach, using AWK:

   1 awk "NR==$n{print;exit}" "$file"

If more than one line is needed, it's easy to adapt any of the previous methods:

   1 x=3 y=4
   2 sed -n "$x,${y}p;${y}q;" "$file"                # Print lines $x to $y; quit after $y.
   3 head -n "$y" "$file" | tail -n $((y - x + 1))   # Same
   4 head -n "$y" "$file" | tail -n "+$x"            # If your tail supports it
   5 awk "NR>=$x{print} NR==$y{exit}" "$file"        # Same

Or a counter with a simple read loop:

   1 # Bash/ksh
   2 m=0
   3 while ((m++ < n)) && read -r _; do
   4     :
   5 done
   6 
   7 head -n 1

To read into a variable, it is preferable to use read or mapfile rather than an external utility. More than one line can be read into the given array variable or the default array MAPFILE by adjusting the argument to mapfile's -n option:

   1 # Bash4
   2 mapfile -ts $((n-1)) -n 1 x <"$file"
   3 printf '%s\n' "$x"

-  ⇤ ← Revision 14 as of 2010-04-06 15:36:18 → 
  Size: 1252
  Editor: 109-126-52-27
  Comment:
+   ← Revision 31 as of 2016-09-20 10:12:31 → ⇥
  Size: 1648
  Editor: geirha
  Comment: There's a better mapfile example further down
-Deletions are marked like this.
+Additions are marked like this.
 Line 3:
-The dirty (but not quick) way would be:
+One dirty (but not quick) way is:
 Line 5:
-{{{
    sed -n ${n}p "$file"
+{{{#!highlight bash
sed -n "${n}p" "$file"
 Line 9:
-but this reads the whole input file, even if you only wanted the third line.
+But this reads the entire file even if only the third line is desired, which can be avoided by using the `q` command to quit on line `$n`, and deleting all other lines with the `d` command:
 Line 11:
-This one avoids that problem:
{{{
    sed -n "$n{p;q;}" "$file"
+{{{#!highlight bash
sed "${n}q;d" "$file"
-Line 16:
+Line 15:
-At line $n the command "p" is run, printing it, with a "q" afterwards: quit the program.
+Another method is to grab the last line from a listing of the first `n` lines:
-Line 18:
+Line 17:
-Another way, more obvious to some, is to grab the last line from a listing of the first ''n'' lines:
{{{
   head -n $n $file | tail -n 1
+{{{#!highlight bash
head -n "$n" "$file" | tail -n 1
-Line 24:
+Line 22:
-{{{
   awk "NR==$n{print;exit}" file
+{{{#!highlight bash
awk "NR==$n{print;exit}" "$file"
-Line 28:
+Line 27:
-If you want more than one line, it's pretty easy to adapt any of the previous methods:
+If more than one line is needed, it's easy to adapt any of the previous methods:
-Line 30:
+Line 29:
-{{{
   x=3 y=4
   sed -n "$x,${y}p;${y}q;" "$file"                # Print lines $x to $y; quit after $y.
   head -n $y "$file" | tail -n $(($y - $x + 1))   # Same
   awk "NR>=$x{print} NR==$y{exit}" "$file"        # Same
+{{{#!highlight bash
x=3 y=4
sed -n "$x,${y}p;${y}q;" "$file"                # Print lines $x to $y; quit after $y.
head -n "$y" "$file" | tail -n $((y - x + 1))   # Same
head -n "$y" "$file" | tail -n "+$x"            # If your tail supports it
awk "NR>=$x{print} NR==$y{exit}" "$file"        # Same
 Line 37:
-=== Note ===
In most cases, you should sanitize your variable n to be sure, that it's not containing any of non-digits, before feeding it to sed or awk. You can do it with such simple code:
{{{
   # Bash
   n=${n//[!0-9]/}
+Or a counter with a simple `read` loop:
-Line 43:
+Line 39:
-   # POSIX
   n=$(printf "%s" "$n"|tr -cd '0-9')
+{{{#!highlight bash
# Bash/ksh
m=0
while ((m++ < n)) && read -r _; do
    :
done

head -n 1
-Line 46:
+Line 48:
+To read into a variable, it is preferable to use `read` or `mapfile` rather than an external utility. More than one line can be read into the given array variable or the default array `MAPFILE` by adjusting the argument to mapfile's -n option:

{{{#!highlight bash
# Bash4
mapfile -ts $((n-1)) -n 1 x <"$file"
printf '%s\n' "$x"
}}}

=== See Also ===
 * [[BashFAQ/001]]
 * http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/commands/builtin/mapfile