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Bash - Get Lines of Text Between Two Words

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Get Lines of Text Between Two Words

Overview

Sources:

Extract text between two patterns - useful for extracting changelog entries, log sections, or any delimited content.

Code

Using sed

# extract lines between two patterns (excluding the pattern lines)
sed -n -e '/PATTERN1/,/PATTERN2/ p' file.txt | sed -e '1d;$d'

Using awk

# extract lines between two patterns (excluding the pattern lines)
awk '/PATTERN1/,/PATTERN2/' file.txt | awk 'NR>2 {print last} {last=$0}'

Practical Example: Extract Latest Changelog

# extract content between latest version and previous version
sed -n -e '/## \[2.0.0\]/,/## \[1.0.0\]/ p' CHANGELOG.md | sed -e '1d;$d'
 
# or with awk
awk '/## \[2.0.0\]/,/## \[1.0.0\]/' CHANGELOG.md | awk 'NR>2 {print last} {last=$0}'

Include Pattern Lines

# with sed (include both pattern lines)
sed -n '/PATTERN1/,/PATTERN2/p' file.txt
 
# with awk (include both pattern lines)
awk '/PATTERN1/,/PATTERN2/' file.txt

Details

sed Explanation

  • sed -n - Suppress automatic printing
  • /PATTERN1/,/PATTERN2/ p - Print lines from PATTERN1 to PATTERN2
  • sed -e '1d;$d' - Delete first and last line (the pattern lines)

awk Explanation

  • /PATTERN1/,/PATTERN2/ - Range pattern matching
  • NR - Current line number being processed
  • NR>2 {print last} - Print previous line (skips first line)
  • {last=$0} - Store current line for next iteration

Appendix

Note created on 2025-12-23 and last modified on 2025-12-23.

See Also

(c) No Clocks, LLC | 2025

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