Print all line between the search pattern into different files using perl or any method - perl

Question

Could someone help out on this
I want to print all line between the search pattern (START & END) to different files (new_file_name can be any incremental name provided)
But the search pattern repeats in file hence each time it finds the pattern it should dump the line b/w them into different files
The file is something like this
START --- ./body1/b1
##########################
123body1
abcbody1
##########################
END --- ./body1/b1
START --- ./body2/b2
##########################
123body2
defbody2
##########################
END --- ./body2/b2

Answer 1

perl solution,
perl -MFile::Basename -MFile::Path -ne '
($a) = /^START.+?(\S+)$/;
$b = /^END/;
$a..$b or next;
if ($a){ mkpath(dirname $a); open STDOUT,">",$a; }
$a||$b or print;
' file

Answer 2

Here is my awk solution:
# print_between_patterns.awk
/^START/ { filename = $NF ; next } # On START, use the last field as file name
/^END/ { next } # On END, skip
{ print > filename } # For the rest of the lines, print to file
Assume your data file is called data.txt, the following will do what you want:
awk -f print_between_patterns.awk data.txt
Discussion
After the script ran, you will have ./body1, ./body2, and so on.
If you don't want to skip the BEGIN and END parts, remove the next commands.
Update
If you want to control the output filename in a sequential way:
/^START/ { filename = sprintf("out%04d.txt", ++count) ; next }
/^END/ { next }
{ print > filename }

Answer 3

To get automatically generated incremental file names:
awk '
/^END/ { inBlock=0 }
inBlock { print > outfile }
/^START/ { inBlock=1; outfile = "outfile" ++count }
' file
To use the file names from your input:
awk '
/^END/ { inBlock=0 }
inBlock { print > outfile }
/^START/ {
inBlock=1
outdir = outfile = $NF
sub(/\/[^\/]+$/,"",outdir)
system("mkdir -p \"" outdir "\"")
}
' file
The problem #JamesBond was having below was that I wasn't escaping the "/" within the character list in the sub() so I've updated my answer above to do that now. There's absolutely no reason why that should need to be escaped but apparently both nawk and /usr/xpg4/bin/awk require it:
$ cat file
the
quick/brown
dog
$ gawk '/[/]/' file
quick/brown
$ nawk '/[/]/' file
nawk: nonterminated character class [
source line number 1
context is
>>> /[/ <<< ]/
$ /usr/xpg4/bin/awk '/[/]/' file
/usr/xpg4/bin/awk: /[/: [ ] imbalance or syntax error Context is:
>>> /[/ <<<
and gawk doesn't care either way:
$ gawk --lint --posix '/[/]/' file
quick/brown
$ gawk --lint '/[/]/' file
quick/brown
$ gawk --lint --posix '/[\/]/' file
quick/brown
$ gawk --lint '/[\/]/' file
quick/brown
They all work just fine if I escape the backslash without putting it in a character list:
$ /usr/xpg4/bin/awk '/\//' file
quick/brown
$ nawk '/\//' file
quick/brown
$ gawk '/\//' file
quick/brown
So I guess that's something worth remembering for portability in future!

Answer 4

Using awk:
awk 'sub(/^START/, ""){out=sprintf("out%d", c++); p=1}
sub(/^END/, ""){print > out; p=0} p{print > out}' file
This will find and store each match between START and END into separate files named out1, out2 etc.

Answer 5

This is one way to do it in Bash.
#!/bin/bash
[ -n "$BASH_VERSION" ] || {
echo "You need Bash to run this script."
exit 1
}
shopt -s extglob || {
echo "Unable to enable extglob shell option."
exit 1
}
IFS=$' \t\n' ## Use default.
while read KEY DASH FILENAME; do
if [[ $KEY == START && $DASH == --- && -n $FILENAME ]]; then
CURRENT_FILENAME=$FILENAME
DIRNAME=${FILENAME%%+([^/])}
if [[ -n $DIRNAME ]]; then
mkdir -p "$DIRNAME" || {
echo "Unable to create directory $DIRNAME."
exit 1
}
fi
exec 4>"$CURRENT_FILENAME" || {
echo "Unable to open $CURRENT_FILENAME for output."
exit 1
}
for (( ;; )); do
IFS= read -r LINE || {
echo "End of file reached finding END block of $CURRENT_FILENAME."
exec 4>&-
exit 1
}
read -r KEY DASH FILENAME <<< "$LINE"
if [[ $KEY == END && $DASH == --- && $FILENAME == "$CURRENT_FILENAME" ]]; then
break
else
echo "$LINE" >&4
fi
done
exec 4>&-
fi
done
Make sure you save the script in UNIX file format then run it as bash script.sh < file.

Answer 6

I guess you need to see this.
perl -lne 'print if((/START/../END/) and ($_!~/START/ and $_!~/END/))' your_file
Tested below:
> cat temp
START --- ./body1
##########################
123body1
abcbody1
##########################
END --- ./body1
START --- ./body2
##########################
123body2
defbody2
##########################
END --- ./body2
> perl -lne 'print if((/START/../END/) and ($_!~/START/ and $_!~/END/))' temp
##########################
123body1
abcbody1
##########################
##########################
123body2
defbody2
##########################
>

Answer 7

This might work for you:
csplit -z file '/^START/' '{*}'
Files will be named xx00 xx01 xx..