Get text between two words in bash (multilines)

Question

i am fighting with this issue. I have this text:

Executables:   manatee-curl
Dependencies:  base ==4.*, manatee-core >=0.1.1, dbus-client ==0.3.*,
               stm >=2.1.2.0, containers >=0.3.0.0, gtk >=0.12.0,
               text >=0.7.1.0, mtl >=1.1.0.2, old-time -any,
               old-locale -any, glib >=0.12.0, gio >=0.12.0,
               filepath >=1.1.0.3, utf8-string >=0.3.4, bytestring -any,
               network -any, curl >=1.3.7, directory -any,
               template-haskell -any, derive -any, binary -any,
               regex-tdfa -any, dbus-core -any
Cached:        No

and i want to get all those words between "Dependencies:" and "Cached". you can treat this text as a variable, for example:

echo $text | grep /dostuff/

To be clear, the output I want to get is:

base ==4.*, manatee-core >=0.1.1, dbus-client ==0.3.*,
stm >=2.1.2.0, containers >=0.3.0.0, gtk >=0.12.0,
text >=0.7.1.0, mtl >=1.1.0.2, old-time -any,
old-locale -any, glib >=0.12.0, gio >=0.12.0,
filepath >=1.1.0.3, utf8-string >=0.3.4, bytestring -any,
network -any, curl >=1.3.7, directory -any,
template-haskell -any, derive -any, binary -any,
regex-tdfa -any, dbus-core -any

Thank you.

anubhava · Answer 1 · 2016-07-09T08:00:54.407

0

You can use sed to get text between 2 patterns:

text=$(sed -n '/^Dependencies:/,/^Cached:/{$d;s/Dependencies: *//;p;}' file)

echo "$text"

base ==4.*, manatee-core >=0.1.1, dbus-client ==0.3.*,
               stm >=2.1.2.0, containers >=0.3.0.0, gtk >=0.12.0,
               text >=0.7.1.0, mtl >=1.1.0.2, old-time -any,
               old-locale -any, glib >=0.12.0, gio >=0.12.0,
               filepath >=1.1.0.3, utf8-string >=0.3.4, bytestring -any,
               network -any, curl >=1.3.7, directory -any,
               template-haskell -any, derive -any, binary -any,
               regex-tdfa -any, dbus-core -any

IDEOne Working Demo

edited Jul 09 '16 at 08:00

answered Jul 08 '16 at 22:44

anubhava

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Sorry but it's not working, when i try to output $text i just get nothing... :( – Christopher Loen Jul 08 '16 at 22:52
1

@ChristopherLoen please specify which `sed` ... linux diff than default OSX for example – nhed Jul 09 '16 at 04:23
This was tested on OSX sed as well as on GNU sed – anubhava Jul 09 '16 at 05:33

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 09 '16 at 04:44

awk to the rescue!

$ awk '/^Dependencies:/{$1="";p=1} /^Cached:/{p=0} p{sub(/^ +/,"");print}' file

base ==4.*, manatee-core >=0.1.1, dbus-client ==0.3.*,
stm >=2.1.2.0, containers >=0.3.0.0, gtk >=0.12.0,
text >=0.7.1.0, mtl >=1.1.0.2, old-time -any,
old-locale -any, glib >=0.12.0, gio >=0.12.0,
filepath >=1.1.0.3, utf8-string >=0.3.4, bytestring -any,
network -any, curl >=1.3.7, directory -any,
template-haskell -any, derive -any, binary -any,
regex-tdfa -any, dbus-core -any

you can assign to a variable as usual

$ text=$(awk ...)

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:58

With GNU grep:

echo "$text" | grep -Poz 'Dependencies:  \K(.*\n)*(?=Cached:)' | grep -Po '^ +\K.*'

Output:

base ==4.*, manatee-core >=0.1.1, dbus-client ==0.3.*,
stm >=2.1.2.0, containers >=0.3.0.0, gtk >=0.12.0,
text >=0.7.1.0, mtl >=1.1.0.2, old-time -any,
old-locale -any, glib >=0.12.0, gio >=0.12.0,
filepath >=1.1.0.3, utf8-string >=0.3.4, bytestring -any,
network -any, curl >=1.3.7, directory -any,
template-haskell -any, derive -any, binary -any,
regex-tdfa -any, dbus-core -any

See: The Stack Overflow Regular Expressions FAQ

Get text between two words in bash (multilines)

3 Answers3