finding line number for particular word 1

[peac3]

Hi guys,

Just wondering how to find the line number for particular word within the file without opening the file because the file contains millions of record.

Thanks,

 

[feherke]

Hi

Just wondering how to find the line number for particular word within the file without opening the file because the file contains millions of record.

No way. The content of a file can not be examined without reading it. And the content of a file can not be read without opening it.

Anyway, here are some possible ways, test their speed yourself :

grep -n 'word' /input/file

sed -n '/word/=' /input/file

awk '/word/{print NR}' /input/file

perl -ne 'print"$.\n"if/word/' /input/file

ruby -ne 'puts$.if$_.match(/word/)' /input/file

If you are sure there is only one occurrence of the word, or you are interested only by the first one, you can stop searching after founding one, which can speed up the work :

grep -n -m 1 'word' /input/file

sed -n '/word/{=;q}' /input/file

awk '/word/{print NR;exit}' /input/file

perl -ne 'if(/word/){print$.;exit}' /input/file

ruby -ne 'if$_.match(/word/):print$.;exit;end' /input/file

Tested with GNU [tt]grep[/tt], GNU [tt]sed[/tt], [tt]gawk[/tt] and [tt]mawk[/tt].

Feherke.

http://free.rootshell.be/~feherke/

 

[peac3]

Great, Thanks Feherke
I'll test them up later which one is faster.