How to select lines between two marker patterns which may occur multiple times with awk/sed

Using awk or sed how can I select lines which are occurring between two different marker patterns? There may be multiple sections marked with these patterns.

For example: Suppose the file contains:

abc
def1
ghi1
jkl1
mno
abc
def2
ghi2
jkl2
mno
pqr
stu

And the starting pattern is abc and ending pattern is mno So, I need the output as:

def1
ghi1
jkl1
def2
ghi2
jkl2

I am using sed to match the pattern once:

sed -e '1,/abc/d' -e '/mno/,$d' <FILE>

Is there any way in sed or awk to do it repeatedly until the end of file?

Solution 1:

Use awk with a flag to trigger the print when necessary:

$ awk '/abc/{flag=1;next}/mno/{flag=0}flag' file
def1
ghi1
jkl1
def2
ghi2
jkl2

How does this work?

• /abc/ matches lines having this text, as well as /mno/ does.
• /abc/{flag=1;next} sets the flag when the text abc is found. Then, it skips the line.
• /mno/{flag=0} unsets the flag when the text mno is found.
• The final flag is a pattern with the default action, which is to print $0: if flag is equal 1 the line is printed.

For a more detailed description and examples, together with cases when the patterns are either shown or not, see How to select lines between two patterns?.

Solution 2:

Using sed:

sed -n -e '/^abc$/,/^mno$/{ /^abc$/d; /^mno$/d; p; }'

The -n option means do not print by default.

The pattern looks for lines containing just abc to just mno, and then executes the actions in the { ... }. The first action deletes the abc line; the second the mno line; and the p prints the remaining lines. You can relax the regexes as required. Any lines outside the range of abc..mno are simply not printed.

Solution 3:

This might work for you (GNU sed):

sed '/^abc$/,/^mno$/{//!b};d' file

Delete all lines except for those between lines starting abc and mno