file operation searching and printing strings from file

[farjibaba]

Dear friends

I have a file say file.txt
and contents are

mdffaf klafjsa fa
fka f ljafkljsaf
akf safksafa
AAAA ZZZZ afjla fsa kfjsaflaa fa fsa afa faf a
kafksa f dsa fa afhsaf; akksa; a fsal fsa sa
a hs;af 'safhjksa
sa hjasakflfjl sakj sajklf sa
a jfklajf sasa
f jklafsa fsaf
safjksaf safa
BBBB XXXX fagsa gag aafa
kljafs;aklfjf
ajsafjlsafjdsafsa
klafjsajfklfsa
.
.
.so on

now I want to make a script which prints the line starting with AAAA ZZZZ and ending with line BBBB XXXX
there are two words with one tab space I tried the formula at http://www.unix.com/unix-dummies-que...text-file.html
but it prints all the line except both two line but i really want that it should print the lines between these two lines including both only.

anybody having idea please share....

[andystmartin]

sed -n -e '/^AAAA ZZZZ/,/^BBBB XXXX/p' /file.txt

[jlittle]

If that's just one space between AAAA and ZZZZ, and BBBB and XXXX:

awk '/AAAA ZZZZ/,/BBBB XXXX/' file.txt

Simpler, IMO, than using sed. You say "one tab space"; here's "at least one tab or space, any mix accepted":

awk '/AAAA[\t ]+ZZZZ/,/BBBB[\t ]+XXXX/' file.txt

Regards, John Little

[farjibaba]

If that's just one space between AAAA and ZZZZ, and BBBB and XXXX:

awk '/AAAA ZZZZ/,/BBBB XXXX/' file.txt

Simpler, IMO, than using sed. You say "one tab space"; here's "at least one tab or space, any mix accepted":

awk '/AAAA[\t ]+ZZZZ/,/BBBB[\t ]+XXXX/' file.txt

Regards, John Little

Thanks to you all there is another method for others:
I does not working for me But i found it some where else
http://www.unix.com/shell-programmin...using-awk.html
f=0
while read line
do
case $line in
OUTPUT*) f=1; continue ;;
END* ) f=0
esac
if [ "$f" -eq 1 ]; then
echo $line
fi
done < "file"

[andystmartin]

All of these solutions will work. Whichever one you like is the best.

I don't know where the irrational fear of "sed" comes from. In addtion, I have talked to some kernel developer folks who have an irrational fear of "awk". Both are extremely useful tools. Neither is difficult to use. A few hours spent learning how to use sed or awk, is time well spent.