Getting out of sed on first NOT match

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

i have a large file where i want to look for any record that is is larger or smaller than 21 and if it is the case i want to report and break SED .. how can i achieve it ?
i dont want sed to scan the complete file after one non match is found.

2

Hello boncuk,

Since you haven't given any samples so can't test it, could you please try following and let me know if this helps you.

awk 'length($0)>21{exit} 1' Input_file

Thanks,
R. Singh

3

I think the long line should be reported, not the previous lines.

awk 'length>21 {print; exit}' file

With sed

sed -n '/.\{21\}./ {p; q;}' file
4

So:

awk 'length != 21 {print; exit}' file

EDIT: and, mayhap, sed :

sed -n '/^.\{21\}$/ !{p; q;}' file
5

Ah yes, I saw post#2 and thought "larger".
Then this thread and the previous thread actually have become duplicates.