UNIX: Using egrep or sed to find the line with the first occurrence of a string?

Question

I am working in a bash shell and I am trying to print only the line of the first occurrence of the string. For example, for the string 'auir', if I have the file myfile.txt and it contains:

123 asdf 4wirajw forauir somethingelse starcraft mylifeforauir auir something else tf.rzauir

I want to output "forauir somethingelse"

So far, I use the command

sed -n '/auir/p' myfile.txt

which gives me all the occurrences of this string. How can I only get the first line that 'auir' occurs on? It'd be great if it was just a single command or pipeline of commands.

Any insight is greatly appreciated.

starcraft as example. awesome.

cmo
– cmo

2013-04-25 15:11:54 +00:00
Commented Apr 25, 2013 at 15:11 — cmo
– cmo, Commented Apr 25, 2013 at 15:11
Surely you will be looking for "Aiur"?

Pankrates
– Pankrates

2014-02-20 17:47:24 +00:00
Commented Feb 20, 2014 at 17:47 — Pankrates
– Pankrates, Commented Feb 20, 2014 at 17:47

Somnath Muluk · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-08 06:54:01Z

20

Use this:

grep -m1 auir myfile.txt

edited Jun 8, 2012 at 6:54

Somnath Muluk

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answered May 20, 2012 at 18:56

the paul

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2 Comments

Rickster Over a year ago

Yeup, grep is alright, beerbjay beat you to it by 2 minutes though, gotta give him the points. Always nice to know multiple ways to do the same thing though. thanks for the response!

Dennis Williamson Over a year ago

The redirection isn't necessary.

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-21 18:25:39Z

10

This sed command

sed -n '/auir/p' myfile.txt | head -1

solves your problem.

edited May 21, 2012 at 18:25

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'

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answered May 20, 2012 at 18:54

beerbajay

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4 Comments

tripleee Over a year ago

You might as well use a sed script which quits after printing the first occurrence; like sed '/auir/!d;q'

Rickster Over a year ago

Thanks so much for the quick response! Works! :)

Rickster Over a year ago

@tripleee Oh that's imaginative, I'm new to shell stuff, gonna try that out. Thanks!

beerbajay Over a year ago

@tripleee's answer is much more clever than mine :(

potong · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-20 19:26:26Z

5

This might work for you:

sed '/auir/!d;q' file

or

sed -n '/auir/{p;q}' file

answered May 20, 2012 at 19:26

potong

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Comments

loganaayahee · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-01 10:01:50Z

2

sed -n -e '4s/auir/auir/p' file

answered Oct 1, 2012 at 10:01

loganaayahee

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Comments

mawia · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-20 22:10:11Z

1

Or it can be as simple as this

grep auir myFile.txt|head -1

answered May 20, 2012 at 22:10

mawia

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