How to get first match with sed?

Question

I am tired of this sed :D So I have a small file:

version = "1.1" group= "com.centurion.eye" archivesBaseName = "eye" impmet { version = "4.1614" runDir = "eclipse" }

And here is my sed command:

sed -n -e '/version/ s/.* = *//p' "build.gradle"

And I need to get ONLY version 1.1. So when I execute this command, the output is:

"1.3" "4.1614"

But desired one is:

"1.3"

How can I achieve that? Thanks!

did you get a chance to check my solution?

JRG
– JRG

2017-07-23 19:27:51 +00:00
Commented Jul 23, 2017 at 19:27 — JRG
– JRG, Commented Jul 23, 2017 at 19:27

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-22 21:40:20Z

19

Quit after matching the first one.

sed -n -e '/version/ {s/.* = *//p;q}' build.gradle

answered Jul 22, 2017 at 21:40

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

804k160 gold badges1.4k silver badges1.4k bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

JRG · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-22 20:47:30Z

pipe your commands output to head -1 to get only the first entry.

sed -n -e '/version/ s/.* = *//p' "build.gradle" | head -1

Sample Run

[ /c]$ cat build.gradle version = "1.1" group= "com.centurion.eye" archivesBaseName = "eye" impmet { version = "4.1614" runDir = "eclipse" } [ /c]$ sed -n -e '/version/ s/.* = *//p' build.gradle | head -1 "1.1"

While this is definitely the simplest approach I will say it doesn't work for my use-case at all. I have a MASSIVE file that I'm running sed against and I really need to stop processing the millisecond I get a match. This command will still wait for sed to complete before outputting the top result.

SLePort · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-23 06:11:41Z

4

With GNU sed, you can also use 0 in the address range to apply substitution only on the first match:

sed -n -e '0,/version/s/.* = *//p' build.gradle

edited Jul 23, 2017 at 6:11

answered Jul 23, 2017 at 6:04

SLePort

15.5k3 gold badges40 silver badges45 bronze badges

1 Comment

superqwerty Over a year ago

This is bad, because this will find and print all lines before the first match, if the first match is not at the first line

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How to get first match with sed?

3 Answers 3

Comments

2 Comments

1 Comment

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

Comments

2 Comments

1 Comment

Related