Can I read a specific line (ex, Line #12) in Unix shell? 1

[kobewins]

I have a huge file (about 25 millions lines). Is this a way to read Line n directly, without looping througth each line of the file?

Any ideas are appreciated.

David

 

[columb]

Use head and then tail. So to get line 250

head -250 bigfile | tail -1

Columb Healy

 

[columb]

Of course you could always use

awk 'NR=250 {print}' bigfile

Columb Healy

 

[columb]

Oops
Spot the mistake in the awk example
should have been

awk 'NR==250{print}' bigfile

Columb Healy

 

[kobewins]

Thanks alot for ALL.

David

 

[SamBones]

Also...

sed -n '250p' bigfile

 

[p5wizard]

sed -n '250p;q' bigfile

this would end faster I believe, without having to read the whole file.

HTH,

p5wizard

 

[p5wizard]

make that

sed -n '250p;251q' bigfile

or

sed '250q;d' bigfile

google for sed oneliners and take your pick...

HTH,

p5wizard

 

[feherke]

Hi

Good point, p5wizard, I should think to such optimization too.
Just as a third way to implement your suggestion :

sed -n '250{;p;q;}'

Feherke.

http://rootshell.be/~feherke/

 

[Annihilannic]

Or a similar optimisation for awk

awk 'NR==250{print;exit}' bigfile

Annihilannic.