Need to go back two lines one a match is found

[Andrew Rich]

Howdy,

I have a need to do this :-

1. find a match
2. go back three lines
3. read out lines 1 2 3

eg

apples
bannanas
oranges

match on oranges

back up three lines, output three lines

apples
bannanas
oranges

[Jim Gibson]

Re: Need to go back two lines one a match is found

In article <3f7decaa_1@new s.iprimus.com.a u>, Andrew Rich
<vk4tec@hotmail .com> wrote:
[color=blue]
> Howdy,
>
> I have a need to do this :-
>
> 1. find a match
> 2. go back three lines
> 3. read out lines 1 2 3
>
> eg
>
> apples
> bannanas
> oranges
>
> match on oranges
>
> back up three lines, output three lines
>
> apples
> bannanas
> oranges
>[/color]

I infer that you are asking how to do this in perl. No?

If your file is not too big, you can read the whole thing into an
array, line by line. Then you can access any line:

__CODE__

#!/opt/perl/bin/perl

use strict;

my $infile = 'fruit.dat';
my @array_of_lines ;
open(INPUT, $infile) or die "Unable to open $infile: $!\n";
@array_of_lines = <INPUT>;
close(INPUT);

for( my $i = 2; $i <= $#array_of_line s; $i++ ) {
if( $array_of_lines[$i] =~ /oranges/ ) {
print "match found at line $i:\n";
print $array_of_lines[$i-2];
print $array_of_lines[$i-1];
print $array_of_lines[$i];
}
}

__END__

If your file is too big, then you can read the file line-by-line and
keep the last two lines read in an array:

__CODE__

@array_of_lines = ();
open(INPUT, $infile) or die "Unable to open $infile: $!\n";
$array_of_lines[0] = <INPUT>;
$array_of_lines[1] = <INPUT>;
my $n = 2;
while(defined(m y $line=<INPUT>)) {
$n++;
print "$n: $line";
if( $line =~ /oranges/ ) {
print "match found at line $n:\n";
print $array_of_lines[0];
print $array_of_lines[1];
print $line;
}
shift(@array_of _lines);
push(@array_of_ lines,$line);
}
close(INPUT);

__END__

[nobull@mail.com]

Re: Need to go back two lines one a match is found

Andrew Rich <vk4tec@hotmail .com> wrote in message news:<3f7decaa_ 1@news.iprimus. com.au>...[color=blue]
> Howdy,
>
> I have a need to do this :-
>
> 1. find a match
> 2. go back three lines
> 3. read out lines 1 2 3
>
> eg
>
> apples
> bannanas
> oranges
>
> match on oranges
>
> back up three lines, output three lines[/color]

# Untested!

my @buffer;
$#buffer = 2;
while (<>) {
push @buffer => $_;
shift @buffer;
print @buffer if /oranges/;
}

This newsgroup does not exist (see FAQ). Please do not start threads here.