grep across multiple lines

UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users
1

How do you grep 'select * from table_name' string from a script if the select * and from table_name are on 2 different lines ? like
select *
from table_name

Any help would be greatly appreciated !!!

Thanks
RDR

2

You can't grep across multiple lines.

3

Not sure if this helps but the following code will print out the required lines

sed '/select/,/table_name/!d' file1.txt

OR

sed '/select \*/,/from/!d' file1.txt
4

Hi.

       Unlike grep, egrep, or fgrep, cgrep allows the matching of patterns,
       delimiters, or trail_patterns that may span multiple lines of text
       through the use of literal newline characters.  The section, MULTI-LINE
       MATCHING, explains this in more detail.

-- excerpt from man cgrep

available at:

cgrep | Download cgrep software for free at SourceForge.net

Best wishes ... cheers, drl

5

how about this?

echo "a
###select *
from table_name####
sein
select *
egeg
from table_name###" |awk -v RS='select \\*$\nfrom table_name' '{print RT}'
select *
from table_name