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Bash method for viewing beginning and end of file


Command to display first few and last few lines of a fileRace Condition for Shell Blocks in Bash?Add character to beginning and end of columnHow to transform two delimited ASCII filesusing awk to create a LaTex table from my data in a text fileAppend columns in a text file to after the final rowRemove spaces and headers from a dumped database tableCount the maximum character length for all the data fields in a simplified csv file and output to txtWriting a program for editing .txt data - Python or Unix?Merging two Unix filesegrep regular expression - same word in the beginning and endhow to evaluate number between a range of numbers using different variables in bash













7















On queue-based clusters the Queue of pending jobs is shown from a command, say showqueue.



The command returns, in columns, a list of reasonable data like names, etc, but the columns/data don't really matter for the question.



I like using the utility watch like watch showqueue at times (with an alias of alias watch="watch " to force alias expansion of my command to watch). There is valuable data (Running jobs), in the first few lines, then pending jobs, etc, and some valuable summaries at the end.



However, at times the output of showqueue goes off the screen (Unbelievable, I know)! Ideally, I'd like some way to be able to see the beginning and end of the file at the same time.



The best I have so far is: showqueue > file; head -n 20 file > file2; echo "..." >> file2 ; tail -n 20 file >> file2; cat file2, and using watch on an alias of that.



Does anyone know of anything a little more flexible or single-utility? My solution gets a little nastier with bash loops to make the "..." break multilined, it's not adaptive to resizing the terminal window at all, and I'm sure there's more that I missed.



Any suggestions?










share|improve this question
























  • Closed as duplicate, but the question only shares similarities (Mine is more about a command, I learned, and not files), and the answers here didn't show up there, but if you insist

    – MadisonCooper
    Mar 26 at 19:59







  • 2





    Fair enough. I've reopened. Note that the answer that you have accepted will only work for large outputs as noted at my answer at Command to display first few and last few lines of a file (try seq 30 | (head && tail) for instance).

    – Stéphane Chazelas
    Mar 26 at 20:16







  • 2





    I meant that answer. That Q&A has two answers of mine because another Q&A was merged with it (see question history)

    – Stéphane Chazelas
    Mar 26 at 20:24
















7















On queue-based clusters the Queue of pending jobs is shown from a command, say showqueue.



The command returns, in columns, a list of reasonable data like names, etc, but the columns/data don't really matter for the question.



I like using the utility watch like watch showqueue at times (with an alias of alias watch="watch " to force alias expansion of my command to watch). There is valuable data (Running jobs), in the first few lines, then pending jobs, etc, and some valuable summaries at the end.



However, at times the output of showqueue goes off the screen (Unbelievable, I know)! Ideally, I'd like some way to be able to see the beginning and end of the file at the same time.



The best I have so far is: showqueue > file; head -n 20 file > file2; echo "..." >> file2 ; tail -n 20 file >> file2; cat file2, and using watch on an alias of that.



Does anyone know of anything a little more flexible or single-utility? My solution gets a little nastier with bash loops to make the "..." break multilined, it's not adaptive to resizing the terminal window at all, and I'm sure there's more that I missed.



Any suggestions?










share|improve this question
























  • Closed as duplicate, but the question only shares similarities (Mine is more about a command, I learned, and not files), and the answers here didn't show up there, but if you insist

    – MadisonCooper
    Mar 26 at 19:59







  • 2





    Fair enough. I've reopened. Note that the answer that you have accepted will only work for large outputs as noted at my answer at Command to display first few and last few lines of a file (try seq 30 | (head && tail) for instance).

    – Stéphane Chazelas
    Mar 26 at 20:16







  • 2





    I meant that answer. That Q&A has two answers of mine because another Q&A was merged with it (see question history)

    – Stéphane Chazelas
    Mar 26 at 20:24














7












7








7








On queue-based clusters the Queue of pending jobs is shown from a command, say showqueue.



The command returns, in columns, a list of reasonable data like names, etc, but the columns/data don't really matter for the question.



I like using the utility watch like watch showqueue at times (with an alias of alias watch="watch " to force alias expansion of my command to watch). There is valuable data (Running jobs), in the first few lines, then pending jobs, etc, and some valuable summaries at the end.



However, at times the output of showqueue goes off the screen (Unbelievable, I know)! Ideally, I'd like some way to be able to see the beginning and end of the file at the same time.



The best I have so far is: showqueue > file; head -n 20 file > file2; echo "..." >> file2 ; tail -n 20 file >> file2; cat file2, and using watch on an alias of that.



Does anyone know of anything a little more flexible or single-utility? My solution gets a little nastier with bash loops to make the "..." break multilined, it's not adaptive to resizing the terminal window at all, and I'm sure there's more that I missed.



Any suggestions?










share|improve this question
















On queue-based clusters the Queue of pending jobs is shown from a command, say showqueue.



The command returns, in columns, a list of reasonable data like names, etc, but the columns/data don't really matter for the question.



I like using the utility watch like watch showqueue at times (with an alias of alias watch="watch " to force alias expansion of my command to watch). There is valuable data (Running jobs), in the first few lines, then pending jobs, etc, and some valuable summaries at the end.



However, at times the output of showqueue goes off the screen (Unbelievable, I know)! Ideally, I'd like some way to be able to see the beginning and end of the file at the same time.



The best I have so far is: showqueue > file; head -n 20 file > file2; echo "..." >> file2 ; tail -n 20 file >> file2; cat file2, and using watch on an alias of that.



Does anyone know of anything a little more flexible or single-utility? My solution gets a little nastier with bash loops to make the "..." break multilined, it's not adaptive to resizing the terminal window at all, and I'm sure there's more that I missed.



Any suggestions?







bash text-processing






share|improve this question















share|improve this question













share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited Mar 26 at 19:11









Rui F Ribeiro

41.9k1483142




41.9k1483142










asked Mar 26 at 19:05









MadisonCooperMadisonCooper

414




414












  • Closed as duplicate, but the question only shares similarities (Mine is more about a command, I learned, and not files), and the answers here didn't show up there, but if you insist

    – MadisonCooper
    Mar 26 at 19:59







  • 2





    Fair enough. I've reopened. Note that the answer that you have accepted will only work for large outputs as noted at my answer at Command to display first few and last few lines of a file (try seq 30 | (head && tail) for instance).

    – Stéphane Chazelas
    Mar 26 at 20:16







  • 2





    I meant that answer. That Q&A has two answers of mine because another Q&A was merged with it (see question history)

    – Stéphane Chazelas
    Mar 26 at 20:24


















  • Closed as duplicate, but the question only shares similarities (Mine is more about a command, I learned, and not files), and the answers here didn't show up there, but if you insist

    – MadisonCooper
    Mar 26 at 19:59







  • 2





    Fair enough. I've reopened. Note that the answer that you have accepted will only work for large outputs as noted at my answer at Command to display first few and last few lines of a file (try seq 30 | (head && tail) for instance).

    – Stéphane Chazelas
    Mar 26 at 20:16







  • 2





    I meant that answer. That Q&A has two answers of mine because another Q&A was merged with it (see question history)

    – Stéphane Chazelas
    Mar 26 at 20:24

















Closed as duplicate, but the question only shares similarities (Mine is more about a command, I learned, and not files), and the answers here didn't show up there, but if you insist

– MadisonCooper
Mar 26 at 19:59






Closed as duplicate, but the question only shares similarities (Mine is more about a command, I learned, and not files), and the answers here didn't show up there, but if you insist

– MadisonCooper
Mar 26 at 19:59





2




2





Fair enough. I've reopened. Note that the answer that you have accepted will only work for large outputs as noted at my answer at Command to display first few and last few lines of a file (try seq 30 | (head && tail) for instance).

– Stéphane Chazelas
Mar 26 at 20:16






Fair enough. I've reopened. Note that the answer that you have accepted will only work for large outputs as noted at my answer at Command to display first few and last few lines of a file (try seq 30 | (head && tail) for instance).

– Stéphane Chazelas
Mar 26 at 20:16





2




2





I meant that answer. That Q&A has two answers of mine because another Q&A was merged with it (see question history)

– Stéphane Chazelas
Mar 26 at 20:24






I meant that answer. That Q&A has two answers of mine because another Q&A was merged with it (see question history)

– Stéphane Chazelas
Mar 26 at 20:24











4 Answers
4






active

oldest

votes


















13














Are you looking to do something like the following? Shows output from both head and tail.



$ showqueue | (head && tail)





share|improve this answer


















  • 5





    Some implementations of head may read more than 10 lines and leave nothing for tail to read. The utility is not supposed to do that and I believe that the GNU tools are well behave in this respect. Use head; echo '...'; tail to get the dots in there as well.

    – Kusalananda
    Mar 26 at 19:18











  • Yeah, combined with @Kusalananda's comment it's much more succinct than my solution. I'll mark as correct for now! Thanks.

    – MadisonCooper
    Mar 26 at 19:22






  • 4





    @Kusalananda, nope, on my system, GNU head (coreutils 8.26) reads blocks of 8192 bytes. It does try to seek back, but obviously can't in case of a pipe. Though anyway, is there really a requirement for head to not over-read? (same on Mac, it seems to read by blocks)

    – ilkkachu
    Mar 26 at 19:22







  • 2





    @ilkkachu yeah, even as it stands the tail part is occasionally blank even on sufficiently long output (I know since I'm using head -n 35, and that's full), but fortunately it's just a convenience to watch and I can wait 3 seconds for a refresh if needed.

    – MadisonCooper
    Mar 26 at 19:27







  • 3





    @Kusalananda, POSIX allows implementations to do that when the input is not seekable and most implementations do. Not doing it would mean reading one byte at a time which would be very inefficient (or put the data back onto the pipe where supported which would cause all sorts of different problems). The only head implementation I know that reads one byte at a time to avoid reading past the 10th newline is ksh93's head builtin.

    – Stéphane Chazelas
    Mar 26 at 20:04


















2














awk solution for an arbitrary number of lines shown from the head and the tail (change n=3 to set the amount):



$ seq 99999 | awk -v n=3 'NR <= n; NR > n a[NR] = $0; delete a[NR-n]; 
END print "..."; for (i = NR-n+1; i <= NR; i++) if (i in a) print a[i]; '
1
2
3
...
99997
99998
99999


As it's written, the head and tail parts will not overlap, even if the input is shorter than 2*n lines.



In some awk implementations, using for (x in a) print a[x]; in the END part also works. But in general, it's not guaranteed to return the array entries in the correct order, and doesn't in e.g. mawk.






share|improve this answer

























  • If m is the number of lines in the file, and m < 2n, that will print 2n - m empty lines. Also have look here ;-). for (x in a) will iterate in order only in GNU awk; if you think that it works in mawk too, test with > 10 values.

    – mosvy
    Mar 26 at 20:31











  • @mosvy, oh, whoops, I forgot to re-check that after realizing x in a wasn't right. Fixed now, thanks. There's also another awk answer in the question Stéphane linked to. I like the modulo trick, though!

    – ilkkachu
    Mar 26 at 20:42



















1














Using the same approach as you, using a temporary file, but doing it slightly shorter:



showqueue >/tmp/q.out; head -n 20 /tmp/q.out; echo '...'; tail -n 20 /tmp/q.out


This would not suffer from the same issues as discussed under another answer, but would possibly show the same lines twice if the output was shorter than 40 lines.






share|improve this answer
































    0














    You can use simple awk script. Added circle buffer there n=3 is for last 3 lines



    awk 'NR<=n print $0 A[NR%n]=$0 END for (i=1; i<=n; ++i) if (NR+i>2*n)print A[(NR+i)%n] ' n=3 < <( seq 10 )


    After update its not simple anymore though,






    share|improve this answer




















    • 1





      This would only show the first and last line. To show more than that, you would have to change NR==1 to NR <= 10 (or something), and then collect lines into a (circular?) buffer that you later output in the END block.

      – Kusalananda
      Mar 26 at 19:32











    • yes let me update

      – Abdurrahim
      Mar 26 at 19:43











    • This will print some lines twice when then the number of lines is less than 2 * n.

      – mosvy
      Mar 26 at 20:39











    • :) ok adding that as well now I am curious what you will find next :D

      – Abdurrahim
      Mar 27 at 7:22











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    4 Answers
    4






    active

    oldest

    votes








    4 Answers
    4






    active

    oldest

    votes









    active

    oldest

    votes






    active

    oldest

    votes









    13














    Are you looking to do something like the following? Shows output from both head and tail.



    $ showqueue | (head && tail)





    share|improve this answer


















    • 5





      Some implementations of head may read more than 10 lines and leave nothing for tail to read. The utility is not supposed to do that and I believe that the GNU tools are well behave in this respect. Use head; echo '...'; tail to get the dots in there as well.

      – Kusalananda
      Mar 26 at 19:18











    • Yeah, combined with @Kusalananda's comment it's much more succinct than my solution. I'll mark as correct for now! Thanks.

      – MadisonCooper
      Mar 26 at 19:22






    • 4





      @Kusalananda, nope, on my system, GNU head (coreutils 8.26) reads blocks of 8192 bytes. It does try to seek back, but obviously can't in case of a pipe. Though anyway, is there really a requirement for head to not over-read? (same on Mac, it seems to read by blocks)

      – ilkkachu
      Mar 26 at 19:22







    • 2





      @ilkkachu yeah, even as it stands the tail part is occasionally blank even on sufficiently long output (I know since I'm using head -n 35, and that's full), but fortunately it's just a convenience to watch and I can wait 3 seconds for a refresh if needed.

      – MadisonCooper
      Mar 26 at 19:27







    • 3





      @Kusalananda, POSIX allows implementations to do that when the input is not seekable and most implementations do. Not doing it would mean reading one byte at a time which would be very inefficient (or put the data back onto the pipe where supported which would cause all sorts of different problems). The only head implementation I know that reads one byte at a time to avoid reading past the 10th newline is ksh93's head builtin.

      – Stéphane Chazelas
      Mar 26 at 20:04















    13














    Are you looking to do something like the following? Shows output from both head and tail.



    $ showqueue | (head && tail)





    share|improve this answer


















    • 5





      Some implementations of head may read more than 10 lines and leave nothing for tail to read. The utility is not supposed to do that and I believe that the GNU tools are well behave in this respect. Use head; echo '...'; tail to get the dots in there as well.

      – Kusalananda
      Mar 26 at 19:18











    • Yeah, combined with @Kusalananda's comment it's much more succinct than my solution. I'll mark as correct for now! Thanks.

      – MadisonCooper
      Mar 26 at 19:22






    • 4





      @Kusalananda, nope, on my system, GNU head (coreutils 8.26) reads blocks of 8192 bytes. It does try to seek back, but obviously can't in case of a pipe. Though anyway, is there really a requirement for head to not over-read? (same on Mac, it seems to read by blocks)

      – ilkkachu
      Mar 26 at 19:22







    • 2





      @ilkkachu yeah, even as it stands the tail part is occasionally blank even on sufficiently long output (I know since I'm using head -n 35, and that's full), but fortunately it's just a convenience to watch and I can wait 3 seconds for a refresh if needed.

      – MadisonCooper
      Mar 26 at 19:27







    • 3





      @Kusalananda, POSIX allows implementations to do that when the input is not seekable and most implementations do. Not doing it would mean reading one byte at a time which would be very inefficient (or put the data back onto the pipe where supported which would cause all sorts of different problems). The only head implementation I know that reads one byte at a time to avoid reading past the 10th newline is ksh93's head builtin.

      – Stéphane Chazelas
      Mar 26 at 20:04













    13












    13








    13







    Are you looking to do something like the following? Shows output from both head and tail.



    $ showqueue | (head && tail)





    share|improve this answer













    Are you looking to do something like the following? Shows output from both head and tail.



    $ showqueue | (head && tail)






    share|improve this answer












    share|improve this answer



    share|improve this answer










    answered Mar 26 at 19:16









    Timothy PulliamTimothy Pulliam

    1,3951025




    1,3951025







    • 5





      Some implementations of head may read more than 10 lines and leave nothing for tail to read. The utility is not supposed to do that and I believe that the GNU tools are well behave in this respect. Use head; echo '...'; tail to get the dots in there as well.

      – Kusalananda
      Mar 26 at 19:18











    • Yeah, combined with @Kusalananda's comment it's much more succinct than my solution. I'll mark as correct for now! Thanks.

      – MadisonCooper
      Mar 26 at 19:22






    • 4





      @Kusalananda, nope, on my system, GNU head (coreutils 8.26) reads blocks of 8192 bytes. It does try to seek back, but obviously can't in case of a pipe. Though anyway, is there really a requirement for head to not over-read? (same on Mac, it seems to read by blocks)

      – ilkkachu
      Mar 26 at 19:22







    • 2





      @ilkkachu yeah, even as it stands the tail part is occasionally blank even on sufficiently long output (I know since I'm using head -n 35, and that's full), but fortunately it's just a convenience to watch and I can wait 3 seconds for a refresh if needed.

      – MadisonCooper
      Mar 26 at 19:27







    • 3





      @Kusalananda, POSIX allows implementations to do that when the input is not seekable and most implementations do. Not doing it would mean reading one byte at a time which would be very inefficient (or put the data back onto the pipe where supported which would cause all sorts of different problems). The only head implementation I know that reads one byte at a time to avoid reading past the 10th newline is ksh93's head builtin.

      – Stéphane Chazelas
      Mar 26 at 20:04












    • 5





      Some implementations of head may read more than 10 lines and leave nothing for tail to read. The utility is not supposed to do that and I believe that the GNU tools are well behave in this respect. Use head; echo '...'; tail to get the dots in there as well.

      – Kusalananda
      Mar 26 at 19:18











    • Yeah, combined with @Kusalananda's comment it's much more succinct than my solution. I'll mark as correct for now! Thanks.

      – MadisonCooper
      Mar 26 at 19:22






    • 4





      @Kusalananda, nope, on my system, GNU head (coreutils 8.26) reads blocks of 8192 bytes. It does try to seek back, but obviously can't in case of a pipe. Though anyway, is there really a requirement for head to not over-read? (same on Mac, it seems to read by blocks)

      – ilkkachu
      Mar 26 at 19:22







    • 2





      @ilkkachu yeah, even as it stands the tail part is occasionally blank even on sufficiently long output (I know since I'm using head -n 35, and that's full), but fortunately it's just a convenience to watch and I can wait 3 seconds for a refresh if needed.

      – MadisonCooper
      Mar 26 at 19:27







    • 3





      @Kusalananda, POSIX allows implementations to do that when the input is not seekable and most implementations do. Not doing it would mean reading one byte at a time which would be very inefficient (or put the data back onto the pipe where supported which would cause all sorts of different problems). The only head implementation I know that reads one byte at a time to avoid reading past the 10th newline is ksh93's head builtin.

      – Stéphane Chazelas
      Mar 26 at 20:04







    5




    5





    Some implementations of head may read more than 10 lines and leave nothing for tail to read. The utility is not supposed to do that and I believe that the GNU tools are well behave in this respect. Use head; echo '...'; tail to get the dots in there as well.

    – Kusalananda
    Mar 26 at 19:18





    Some implementations of head may read more than 10 lines and leave nothing for tail to read. The utility is not supposed to do that and I believe that the GNU tools are well behave in this respect. Use head; echo '...'; tail to get the dots in there as well.

    – Kusalananda
    Mar 26 at 19:18













    Yeah, combined with @Kusalananda's comment it's much more succinct than my solution. I'll mark as correct for now! Thanks.

    – MadisonCooper
    Mar 26 at 19:22





    Yeah, combined with @Kusalananda's comment it's much more succinct than my solution. I'll mark as correct for now! Thanks.

    – MadisonCooper
    Mar 26 at 19:22




    4




    4





    @Kusalananda, nope, on my system, GNU head (coreutils 8.26) reads blocks of 8192 bytes. It does try to seek back, but obviously can't in case of a pipe. Though anyway, is there really a requirement for head to not over-read? (same on Mac, it seems to read by blocks)

    – ilkkachu
    Mar 26 at 19:22






    @Kusalananda, nope, on my system, GNU head (coreutils 8.26) reads blocks of 8192 bytes. It does try to seek back, but obviously can't in case of a pipe. Though anyway, is there really a requirement for head to not over-read? (same on Mac, it seems to read by blocks)

    – ilkkachu
    Mar 26 at 19:22





    2




    2





    @ilkkachu yeah, even as it stands the tail part is occasionally blank even on sufficiently long output (I know since I'm using head -n 35, and that's full), but fortunately it's just a convenience to watch and I can wait 3 seconds for a refresh if needed.

    – MadisonCooper
    Mar 26 at 19:27






    @ilkkachu yeah, even as it stands the tail part is occasionally blank even on sufficiently long output (I know since I'm using head -n 35, and that's full), but fortunately it's just a convenience to watch and I can wait 3 seconds for a refresh if needed.

    – MadisonCooper
    Mar 26 at 19:27





    3




    3





    @Kusalananda, POSIX allows implementations to do that when the input is not seekable and most implementations do. Not doing it would mean reading one byte at a time which would be very inefficient (or put the data back onto the pipe where supported which would cause all sorts of different problems). The only head implementation I know that reads one byte at a time to avoid reading past the 10th newline is ksh93's head builtin.

    – Stéphane Chazelas
    Mar 26 at 20:04





    @Kusalananda, POSIX allows implementations to do that when the input is not seekable and most implementations do. Not doing it would mean reading one byte at a time which would be very inefficient (or put the data back onto the pipe where supported which would cause all sorts of different problems). The only head implementation I know that reads one byte at a time to avoid reading past the 10th newline is ksh93's head builtin.

    – Stéphane Chazelas
    Mar 26 at 20:04













    2














    awk solution for an arbitrary number of lines shown from the head and the tail (change n=3 to set the amount):



    $ seq 99999 | awk -v n=3 'NR <= n; NR > n a[NR] = $0; delete a[NR-n]; 
    END print "..."; for (i = NR-n+1; i <= NR; i++) if (i in a) print a[i]; '
    1
    2
    3
    ...
    99997
    99998
    99999


    As it's written, the head and tail parts will not overlap, even if the input is shorter than 2*n lines.



    In some awk implementations, using for (x in a) print a[x]; in the END part also works. But in general, it's not guaranteed to return the array entries in the correct order, and doesn't in e.g. mawk.






    share|improve this answer

























    • If m is the number of lines in the file, and m < 2n, that will print 2n - m empty lines. Also have look here ;-). for (x in a) will iterate in order only in GNU awk; if you think that it works in mawk too, test with > 10 values.

      – mosvy
      Mar 26 at 20:31











    • @mosvy, oh, whoops, I forgot to re-check that after realizing x in a wasn't right. Fixed now, thanks. There's also another awk answer in the question Stéphane linked to. I like the modulo trick, though!

      – ilkkachu
      Mar 26 at 20:42
















    2














    awk solution for an arbitrary number of lines shown from the head and the tail (change n=3 to set the amount):



    $ seq 99999 | awk -v n=3 'NR <= n; NR > n a[NR] = $0; delete a[NR-n]; 
    END print "..."; for (i = NR-n+1; i <= NR; i++) if (i in a) print a[i]; '
    1
    2
    3
    ...
    99997
    99998
    99999


    As it's written, the head and tail parts will not overlap, even if the input is shorter than 2*n lines.



    In some awk implementations, using for (x in a) print a[x]; in the END part also works. But in general, it's not guaranteed to return the array entries in the correct order, and doesn't in e.g. mawk.






    share|improve this answer

























    • If m is the number of lines in the file, and m < 2n, that will print 2n - m empty lines. Also have look here ;-). for (x in a) will iterate in order only in GNU awk; if you think that it works in mawk too, test with > 10 values.

      – mosvy
      Mar 26 at 20:31











    • @mosvy, oh, whoops, I forgot to re-check that after realizing x in a wasn't right. Fixed now, thanks. There's also another awk answer in the question Stéphane linked to. I like the modulo trick, though!

      – ilkkachu
      Mar 26 at 20:42














    2












    2








    2







    awk solution for an arbitrary number of lines shown from the head and the tail (change n=3 to set the amount):



    $ seq 99999 | awk -v n=3 'NR <= n; NR > n a[NR] = $0; delete a[NR-n]; 
    END print "..."; for (i = NR-n+1; i <= NR; i++) if (i in a) print a[i]; '
    1
    2
    3
    ...
    99997
    99998
    99999


    As it's written, the head and tail parts will not overlap, even if the input is shorter than 2*n lines.



    In some awk implementations, using for (x in a) print a[x]; in the END part also works. But in general, it's not guaranteed to return the array entries in the correct order, and doesn't in e.g. mawk.






    share|improve this answer















    awk solution for an arbitrary number of lines shown from the head and the tail (change n=3 to set the amount):



    $ seq 99999 | awk -v n=3 'NR <= n; NR > n a[NR] = $0; delete a[NR-n]; 
    END print "..."; for (i = NR-n+1; i <= NR; i++) if (i in a) print a[i]; '
    1
    2
    3
    ...
    99997
    99998
    99999


    As it's written, the head and tail parts will not overlap, even if the input is shorter than 2*n lines.



    In some awk implementations, using for (x in a) print a[x]; in the END part also works. But in general, it's not guaranteed to return the array entries in the correct order, and doesn't in e.g. mawk.







    share|improve this answer














    share|improve this answer



    share|improve this answer








    edited Mar 26 at 20:37

























    answered Mar 26 at 19:33









    ilkkachuilkkachu

    63k10103180




    63k10103180












    • If m is the number of lines in the file, and m < 2n, that will print 2n - m empty lines. Also have look here ;-). for (x in a) will iterate in order only in GNU awk; if you think that it works in mawk too, test with > 10 values.

      – mosvy
      Mar 26 at 20:31











    • @mosvy, oh, whoops, I forgot to re-check that after realizing x in a wasn't right. Fixed now, thanks. There's also another awk answer in the question Stéphane linked to. I like the modulo trick, though!

      – ilkkachu
      Mar 26 at 20:42


















    • If m is the number of lines in the file, and m < 2n, that will print 2n - m empty lines. Also have look here ;-). for (x in a) will iterate in order only in GNU awk; if you think that it works in mawk too, test with > 10 values.

      – mosvy
      Mar 26 at 20:31











    • @mosvy, oh, whoops, I forgot to re-check that after realizing x in a wasn't right. Fixed now, thanks. There's also another awk answer in the question Stéphane linked to. I like the modulo trick, though!

      – ilkkachu
      Mar 26 at 20:42

















    If m is the number of lines in the file, and m < 2n, that will print 2n - m empty lines. Also have look here ;-). for (x in a) will iterate in order only in GNU awk; if you think that it works in mawk too, test with > 10 values.

    – mosvy
    Mar 26 at 20:31





    If m is the number of lines in the file, and m < 2n, that will print 2n - m empty lines. Also have look here ;-). for (x in a) will iterate in order only in GNU awk; if you think that it works in mawk too, test with > 10 values.

    – mosvy
    Mar 26 at 20:31













    @mosvy, oh, whoops, I forgot to re-check that after realizing x in a wasn't right. Fixed now, thanks. There's also another awk answer in the question Stéphane linked to. I like the modulo trick, though!

    – ilkkachu
    Mar 26 at 20:42






    @mosvy, oh, whoops, I forgot to re-check that after realizing x in a wasn't right. Fixed now, thanks. There's also another awk answer in the question Stéphane linked to. I like the modulo trick, though!

    – ilkkachu
    Mar 26 at 20:42












    1














    Using the same approach as you, using a temporary file, but doing it slightly shorter:



    showqueue >/tmp/q.out; head -n 20 /tmp/q.out; echo '...'; tail -n 20 /tmp/q.out


    This would not suffer from the same issues as discussed under another answer, but would possibly show the same lines twice if the output was shorter than 40 lines.






    share|improve this answer





























      1














      Using the same approach as you, using a temporary file, but doing it slightly shorter:



      showqueue >/tmp/q.out; head -n 20 /tmp/q.out; echo '...'; tail -n 20 /tmp/q.out


      This would not suffer from the same issues as discussed under another answer, but would possibly show the same lines twice if the output was shorter than 40 lines.






      share|improve this answer



























        1












        1








        1







        Using the same approach as you, using a temporary file, but doing it slightly shorter:



        showqueue >/tmp/q.out; head -n 20 /tmp/q.out; echo '...'; tail -n 20 /tmp/q.out


        This would not suffer from the same issues as discussed under another answer, but would possibly show the same lines twice if the output was shorter than 40 lines.






        share|improve this answer















        Using the same approach as you, using a temporary file, but doing it slightly shorter:



        showqueue >/tmp/q.out; head -n 20 /tmp/q.out; echo '...'; tail -n 20 /tmp/q.out


        This would not suffer from the same issues as discussed under another answer, but would possibly show the same lines twice if the output was shorter than 40 lines.







        share|improve this answer














        share|improve this answer



        share|improve this answer








        edited Mar 26 at 19:46

























        answered Mar 26 at 19:30









        KusalanandaKusalananda

        139k17261433




        139k17261433





















            0














            You can use simple awk script. Added circle buffer there n=3 is for last 3 lines



            awk 'NR<=n print $0 A[NR%n]=$0 END for (i=1; i<=n; ++i) if (NR+i>2*n)print A[(NR+i)%n] ' n=3 < <( seq 10 )


            After update its not simple anymore though,






            share|improve this answer




















            • 1





              This would only show the first and last line. To show more than that, you would have to change NR==1 to NR <= 10 (or something), and then collect lines into a (circular?) buffer that you later output in the END block.

              – Kusalananda
              Mar 26 at 19:32











            • yes let me update

              – Abdurrahim
              Mar 26 at 19:43











            • This will print some lines twice when then the number of lines is less than 2 * n.

              – mosvy
              Mar 26 at 20:39











            • :) ok adding that as well now I am curious what you will find next :D

              – Abdurrahim
              Mar 27 at 7:22















            0














            You can use simple awk script. Added circle buffer there n=3 is for last 3 lines



            awk 'NR<=n print $0 A[NR%n]=$0 END for (i=1; i<=n; ++i) if (NR+i>2*n)print A[(NR+i)%n] ' n=3 < <( seq 10 )


            After update its not simple anymore though,






            share|improve this answer




















            • 1





              This would only show the first and last line. To show more than that, you would have to change NR==1 to NR <= 10 (or something), and then collect lines into a (circular?) buffer that you later output in the END block.

              – Kusalananda
              Mar 26 at 19:32











            • yes let me update

              – Abdurrahim
              Mar 26 at 19:43











            • This will print some lines twice when then the number of lines is less than 2 * n.

              – mosvy
              Mar 26 at 20:39











            • :) ok adding that as well now I am curious what you will find next :D

              – Abdurrahim
              Mar 27 at 7:22













            0












            0








            0







            You can use simple awk script. Added circle buffer there n=3 is for last 3 lines



            awk 'NR<=n print $0 A[NR%n]=$0 END for (i=1; i<=n; ++i) if (NR+i>2*n)print A[(NR+i)%n] ' n=3 < <( seq 10 )


            After update its not simple anymore though,






            share|improve this answer















            You can use simple awk script. Added circle buffer there n=3 is for last 3 lines



            awk 'NR<=n print $0 A[NR%n]=$0 END for (i=1; i<=n; ++i) if (NR+i>2*n)print A[(NR+i)%n] ' n=3 < <( seq 10 )


            After update its not simple anymore though,







            share|improve this answer














            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer








            edited Mar 27 at 7:22

























            answered Mar 26 at 19:25









            AbdurrahimAbdurrahim

            1012




            1012







            • 1





              This would only show the first and last line. To show more than that, you would have to change NR==1 to NR <= 10 (or something), and then collect lines into a (circular?) buffer that you later output in the END block.

              – Kusalananda
              Mar 26 at 19:32











            • yes let me update

              – Abdurrahim
              Mar 26 at 19:43











            • This will print some lines twice when then the number of lines is less than 2 * n.

              – mosvy
              Mar 26 at 20:39











            • :) ok adding that as well now I am curious what you will find next :D

              – Abdurrahim
              Mar 27 at 7:22












            • 1





              This would only show the first and last line. To show more than that, you would have to change NR==1 to NR <= 10 (or something), and then collect lines into a (circular?) buffer that you later output in the END block.

              – Kusalananda
              Mar 26 at 19:32











            • yes let me update

              – Abdurrahim
              Mar 26 at 19:43











            • This will print some lines twice when then the number of lines is less than 2 * n.

              – mosvy
              Mar 26 at 20:39











            • :) ok adding that as well now I am curious what you will find next :D

              – Abdurrahim
              Mar 27 at 7:22







            1




            1





            This would only show the first and last line. To show more than that, you would have to change NR==1 to NR <= 10 (or something), and then collect lines into a (circular?) buffer that you later output in the END block.

            – Kusalananda
            Mar 26 at 19:32





            This would only show the first and last line. To show more than that, you would have to change NR==1 to NR <= 10 (or something), and then collect lines into a (circular?) buffer that you later output in the END block.

            – Kusalananda
            Mar 26 at 19:32













            yes let me update

            – Abdurrahim
            Mar 26 at 19:43





            yes let me update

            – Abdurrahim
            Mar 26 at 19:43













            This will print some lines twice when then the number of lines is less than 2 * n.

            – mosvy
            Mar 26 at 20:39





            This will print some lines twice when then the number of lines is less than 2 * n.

            – mosvy
            Mar 26 at 20:39













            :) ok adding that as well now I am curious what you will find next :D

            – Abdurrahim
            Mar 27 at 7:22





            :) ok adding that as well now I am curious what you will find next :D

            – Abdurrahim
            Mar 27 at 7:22

















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