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Asked: 2026-05-28T06:54:54+00:00

I have a somewhat large output text file where I need to delete all

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I have a somewhat large output text file where I need to delete all lines between two patterns but retain the pattern match.

The files look vaguely like the following output. 

 TEST #1          
      coef1 |   48.36895    3.32013    14.57   0.000     41.86141    54.87649
      coef2 |  -50.08894   10.47335    -4.78   0.000    -70.61697   -29.56092
            |
  indicator |
         0  |   .6647992   2.646627     0.25   0.802     -4.55925    5.888849
         1  |   2.118701   5.225777     0.41   0.686     -8.19621    12.43361
            |
       year |
         2  |  -.4324005   2.231387    -0.19   0.847    -4.836829    3.972028
         3  |   -.362762    1.97184    -0.18   0.854    -4.254882    3.529358
            |
      _cons |   16.95753   6.342342     2.67   0.008     4.526383    29.38869
 TEST #2          
        coef2 |   48.36895    3.32013    14.57   0.000     41.86141    54.87649
        coef3 |  -50.08894   10.47335    -4.78   0.000    -70.61697   -29.56092
              |
         year |
           4  |   .6647992   2.646627     0.25   0.802     -4.55925    5.888849
           5  |   2.118701   5.225777     0.41   0.686     -8.19621    12.43361
              |
     idnumber |
           6  |  -.4324005   2.231387    -0.19   0.847    -4.836829    3.972028
           7  |   -.362762    1.97184    -0.18   0.854    -4.254882    3.529358
              |
        _cons |   16.95753   6.342342     2.67   0.008     4.526383    29.38869

I need to take the following output and delete all the lines between “year” and “_cons” but I need to retain the line starting with “_cons”. The desired output is like so:

 TEST #1          
      coef1 |   48.36895    3.32013    14.57   0.000     41.86141    54.87649
      coef2 |  -50.08894   10.47335    -4.78   0.000    -70.61697   -29.56092
            |
  indicator |
         0  |   .6647992   2.646627     0.25   0.802     -4.55925    5.888849
         1  |   2.118701   5.225777     0.41   0.686     -8.19621    12.43361
            |
       year |
      _cons |   16.95753   6.342342     2.67   0.008     4.526383    29.38869
 TEST #2          
        coef2 |   48.36895    3.32013    14.57   0.000     41.86141    54.87649
        coef3 |  -50.08894   10.47335    -4.78   0.000    -70.61697   -29.56092
              |
         year |
        _cons |   16.95753   6.342342     2.67   0.008     4.526383    29.38869

I wrote the following script (under OS X):

sed '/^ +year/,/^ +_cons/{/^ +year/!{/^ +_cons/!d}}' input.txt >output.txt

but I got the following error:

sed: 1: "/^ +year/,/^ +_cons/{/^ ...": extra characters at the end of d command

I’m not sure if this approach is even correct because I can’t seem to get sed to execute. Is sed even appropriate here or should I use awk?

One last note, I need this script to work on a relatively generic Unix install. I have to send this to someone who must execute it under a very basic AIX (I think) install. No perl, no python, and I can’t do much troubleshooting on their install over email.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Try adding a semicolon after d to indicate that the command has ended. (GNU sed — the only sed I have handy to test with — doesn’t require this, but maybe another sed would?)

    Also, if you need to support multiple implementations of sed, then you can’t use + to mean “one or more”: it’s not standard, and not all implementations support it. You can use \{1,\}, but that’s pretty ugly . . . I’d just use * and tack on an extra copy.

    So:

    sed '/^ * year/,/^ * _cons/{/^ * year/!{/^ * _cons/!d;}}' input.txt >output.txt

    (Tested, but only using GNU sed, not OS X, and certainly not AIX, sorry.)

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