How to get a specific word in a file?

[coaxfiber]

hi,

how can i get the particular line/word in the file.

Ex:
$ cat my_file.txt
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

I want to get the "7" in the file my_file.txt. Tnx.


-coax

[mac11]

I suppose there is a million ways to do this. The command line:

cat file.txt | grep "7"

would "get" the 7, but what do you want to do with the 7 after you "get" it?

[coaxfiber]

What I want is to have exactly that specific line?
Intentionally I used AWK but I want to have my input as my search text.
this is what exactly what i mean,


$ Input your name: 7

And then I want to get that 7 from the file my_file.txt which contains the following inside the file:

$cat my_file.txt

102 7 SanFracisco
102 3 Lasvegas7
105 5 Nevada7
106 7 Japan


If I will going to use "cat file.txt | grep "7" then surely I'll get the following result


102 7 SanFracisco
102 3 Lasvegas7
106 7 Japan


which means that all lines contain '7' will be the result.

What I want to be the result:

102 7 SanFracisco
106 7 Japan

only the line which the second word is 7.

-thanks

[prn]

How about:

#! /bin/sh
echo -n "Input your name: "
read NAME
echo "Name to find is: $NAME"
grep -e "\d* $NAME " my_file.txt
 

This appears to do what you are looking for. If this file is named "find.sh" and your data is in "my_file.tx t" then

[prn@deimos ~]$ ./find.sh
Input your name: 7
Name to find is: 7
102 7 SanFracisco
106 7 Japan

HTH,
Paul

[ghostdog74]

I suppose there is a million ways to do this. The command line:

cat file.txt | grep "7"

would "get" the 7, but what do you want to do with the 7 after you "get" it?

this is Useless use of cat UUOC. grep takes in a file as input

grep "7" inputfile
 

[coaxfiber]

Yeah, "grep -e "\d* $NAME " my_file.txt"


This will really a big help for my script.
I tried to 'man grep', i dont usually look for the manual to seek help because sometimes it's more complicated than to ask someone like you.

Can you tell me what is the purpose of " \d* " in the grep statement you have given to me? Then one more thing again,

How about when if it is the 3 word in the line I want to grep.
Now I need the 8. I think after this I could use grep better.

102 7 8 SanFracisco
102 3 8 Lasvegas7
105 5 5 Nevada7
106 7 2 Japan

> 102 7 8 SanFracisco
> 102 3 8 Lasvegas7

I wish I give sense to this. Thank You Very Much.

-coax

[ghostdog74]

What I want is to have exactly that specific line?
Intentionally I used AWK but I want to have my input as my search text.
this is what exactly what i mean,


$ Input your name: 7

And then I want to get that 7 from the file my_file.txt which contains the following inside the file:

$cat my_file.txt

102 7 SanFracisco
102 3 Lasvegas7
105 5 Nevada7
106 7 Japan


If I will going to use "cat file.txt | grep "7" then surely I'll get the following result


102 7 SanFracisco
102 3 Lasvegas7
106 7 Japan


which means that all lines contain '7' will be the result.

What I want to be the result:

102 7 SanFracisco
106 7 Japan

only the line which the second word is 7.

-thanks

it can be done in awk.

awk '$2 == 7 {print }' "file"  #or awk '$2 == 7' "file"
 

[ghostdog74]

Yeah, "grep -e "\d* $NAME " my_file.txt"


This will really a big help for my script.
I tried to 'man grep', i dont usually look for the manual to seek help because sometimes it's more complicated than to ask someone like you.

Can you tell me what is the purpose of " \d* " in the grep statement you have given to me? Then one more thing again,

How about when if it is the 3 word in the line I want to grep.
Now I need the 8. I think after this I could use grep better.

102 7 8 SanFracisco
102 3 8 Lasvegas7
105 5 5 Nevada7
106 7 2 Japan

> 102 7 8 SanFracisco
> 102 3 8 Lasvegas7

I wish I give sense to this. Thank You Very Much.

-coax

also in awk:

awk '$2 == 7 && $3 == 8 {print }' "file" # or awk '$2 == 7 && $3 == 8' "file"
 

[coaxfiber]

also in awk:

awk '$2 == 7 && $3 == 8 {print }' "file" # or awk '$2 == 7 && $3 == 8' "file"
 

Hi.. I think I almost found exactly what will really answer my question.. What if the third word is not always '8'. How about it will depend on my input?
$Input ID: 6
then it will search for all lines that contain 6 in the 3rd word. Thanks.

[prn]

Can you tell me what is the purpose of " \d* " in the grep statement you have given to me? Then one more thing again,

How about when if it is the 3 word in the line I want to grep.
Now I need the 8. I think after this I could use grep better.

"\d* " means an arbitrary number of digits (\d) followed by a space.

As for the question of "8" as the third word, I might suggest you rethink the whole premise of the question.

The more different things you want your script to do, the more you need to write with that in mind from the beginning. You have now asked for 3 pretty different criteria (just search for "7", "7" as the second "word", and now "8" as the third "word"). If you want something so general that it can do any one or all of these, then you need to decide from the beginning what information you need, how you want to interpret that information and then what you want to do with it. I don't think it's very profitable for any of us to answer a question and then be asked again: "OK, but what if ...?"

Take a short break and think about what you are really looking for. Ghostdog74 is probably on the right track if you want to manipulate "words" on lines. awk is a good choice for that. If you're going off in some other direction, then awk may (or may not) turn out to be best for that. So far, we're all just proposing answers based on the couple of examples you give us at a time. Think about what your real data might look like and what you really want to extract from it.

Best Regards,
Paul