Easy way to copy lines from one file to another

Question

Possible Duplicate:
cat line X to line Y on a huge file

Very simple issue but can't seem to find a simple resolution!

I have a massive text file from which I only need around 150 lines. The lines are really long and therefore viewing it in putty is a bit of a nightmare. I just want to copy these lines to another file so that I can view it properly in an editor. (I can't view the original file in an editor as my Windows machine can't handle it).

The lines I want start at around line 2000.

Thanks,

If you have xsel installed you could use sed with xsel. `sed -n '2000,2150p' youfile| xsel` — McNisse, Jan 18 '13 at 10:01
If bandwidth is not an issue, you can use editor or pager like `more` or `less` remotely. Remember to resize the PuTTY window to get some more context. — peterph, Jan 18 '13 at 10:59
@Berndard: "... so I view it properly in an editor." I got the idea that Rich wanted the lines in an editor in windows. With `xsel` there is no need to copy the file as well. — McNisse, Jan 18 '13 at 13:27

score 11 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 18 '13 at 12:32

11

I have an easy shell function for it (put in .bashrc), which uses sed

printLine () 
{ 
    sed -n -e "$1p" "$2"
}

You can easily use it by

$ printLine 2000,2250 file

I am using the function, because I always forget the correct sed-syntax.

You want to store the output in a different file, than it is easy:

$ printLine 2000,2250 file > output

edited Jan 18 '13 at 12:32

Stéphane Chazelas

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answered Jan 18 '13 at 10:09

Bernhard

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I'm using ksh (should have mentioned that) and printLine doesn't work :S – Rich Jan 18 '13 at 11:42
Sorted it... thanks to kev82 here - http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-software-2/cat-output-specific-number-of-lines-130360/ The following outputs lines 10 to 30... – Rich Jan 18 '13 at 11:47
4

`head -30 text.file | tail -20 > output.file` – Rich Jan 18 '13 at 11:50
@Rich ksh also supports functions, afaik, so you can probably easily port it. – Bernhard Jan 18 '13 at 12:19

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 18 '13 at 10:24

1

If you just look for a certain token, the grep command could be useful.

cat filename | grep pattern > extractedFilename

answered Jan 18 '13 at 10:24

Christian Graf

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I don't think this really answers the question. Also, why are you using `cat` here? – Bernhard Jan 18 '13 at 11:34

Easy way to copy lines from one file to another

2 Answers2