search for a string spread in multiple lines

finder255 · 10-22-2008, 01:07 PM

Hi,

I have to look for the full string below in a large file(>5GB) , but that string may be spread in two lines.

string :-- "f8f8 f5f0 f0f0 f1f7 f4f7 f7c1"

By grep "f8f8 f5f0 f0f0 f1f7 f4f7 f7c1" file | tail -1
, I am getting incorrect result because there is a line after this also which contains same string in two lines which does not get caught above ..

Please help..

Finder..

pixellany · 10-22-2008, 02:06 PM

This--and your other post---looks like homework. Please give us some context to help understand what the overall problem is.

finder255 · 10-22-2008, 03:16 PM

yeah , I just figured out the way ...

I am actually writing a script for ebcdic to ascii conversion , followed by cutting of header and trailer together with record itself, buried in between, when sizes of file go beyond 2GB

Using sed, I am able to do it ...

sed -n '
/f8f8/{
N
s/f8f8 *\n*f5f0 *\n*f0f0 *\n*f1f7 *\n*f4f6 *\n*f7c1//
p
}' file | tail -1

Thx..