Often you may want to use sed to print out specific lines from a file.
You can use the following methods to do so:
Method 1: Print One Specific Line from File
sed -n '4p' cities.txt
This particular example will print line number 4 from the file named cities.txt.
Method 2: Print Multiple Specific Lines from File
sed -n '4p;7p' cities.txt
This particular example will print line numbers 4 and 7 from the file named cities.txt.
Method 3: Print Range of Lines from File
sed -n '4,7p' cities.txt
This particular example will print line numbers 4 through 7 from the file named cities.txt.
The following example shows how to use each of these methods in practice with a file named cities.txt that contains the names of various U.S. cities:
Example 1: Print One Specific Line from File
Suppose that we would like to print only line number 4 from the cities.txt file.
We can use the following syntax to do so:
sed -n '4p' cities.txt
The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:
Notice that this prints only line number 4 from the cities.txt file.
Example 2: Print Multiple Specific Lines from File
Suppose that we would like to print only line numbers 4 and 7 from the cities.txt file.
We can use the following syntax to do so:
sed -n '4p;7p' cities.txt
The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:
Notice that this prints only line numbers 4 and 7 from the cities.txt file.
Example 3: Print Range of Lines from File
Suppose that we would like to print line numbers 4 through 7 from the cities.txt file.
We can use the following syntax to do so:
sed -n '4,7p' cities.txt
The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:
Notice that this prints line numbers 4 through 7 from the cities.txt file.
Related Tutorials
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in sed:
How to Use sed to Print Out Line Numbers
How to Use sed to Insert Line at Specific Line Number
How to Use sed to Extract All Lines Containing a Pattern
