Xref: utzoo comp.unix.wizards:9167 comp.unix.questions:7466
Path: utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!brianc
From: brianc@cognos.uucp (Brian Campbell)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: grep replacement
Message-ID: <3127@cognos.UUCP>
Date: 7 Jun 88 14:17:57 GMT
Article-I.D.: cognos.3127
References: <7882@alice.UUCP> <5630@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> <6866@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> <4524@vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com> <1036@cfa.cfa.harvard.EDU> <7 Jun 88 14:17:57 GMT
Reply-To: brianc@cognos.UUCP (Brian Campbell)
Organization: Cognos Incorporated, Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 23

In article <4524@vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com> Bruce G. Barnett writes:
> There have been times when I wanted a grep that would print out the
> first occurrence and then stop.

In article <1036@cfa.cfa.harvard.EDU> Bill Wyatt suggests:
> grep '(your_pattern_here)' | head -1

In article <4537@vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com> Bruce G. Barnett replies:
> There are times when I want the first occurrence of a pattern without
> reading the entire (i.e. HUGE) file.

If we're talking about finding subject lines in news articles:
	head -20 file1 file2 ... | grep ^Subject:

> Or there are times when I want the first occurrence of a pattern from
> hundreds of files, but I don't want to see the pattern more than once.

In this case, the original suggestion seems appropriate:
	grep pattern file1 file2 ... | head -1
-- 
Brian Campbell        uucp: decvax!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!brianc
Cognos Incorporated   mail: POB 9707, 3755 Riverside Drive, Ottawa, K1G 3Z4
(613) 738-1440        fido: (613) 731-2945 300/1200/2400, sysop@1:163/8