How to delete everything after the 5th line with awk?

Question

How to delete everything in a file after 5th line using awk?

I can do it by sed, but these days I am moving from sed to awk.

You can't say "I'm moving to `awk`". That would be like saying "I'm starting to see the benefits of a hammer over a screwdriver. I think I'll be using the hammer from now on." It doesn't make sense. — Kusalananda, Feb 21 '17 at 07:57

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited Feb 21 '17 at 06:11

2

awk 'NR <= 5' inputfile would do it (it prints whenever NR, the record number, is less than or equal to five.

edited Feb 21 '17 at 06:11

jordanm

answered Feb 21 '17 at 03:28

dhag

You misread the question; should be `awk 'NR <= 5'`. And you don't need to call `print` explicitly. – Wildcard Feb 21 '17 at 03:48

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 21 '17 at 03:42

2

awk 'NR > 5{exit}1' yourfile

would quit "awk" as soon as the 6th line is reached. But prior to that, the default action would apply, thereby printing lines 1..5.

answered Feb 21 '17 at 03:42

Rakesh Sharma

2 Answers2