Command to get nth line of STDOUT
Using sed, just for variety:
ls -l | sed -n 2pUsing this alternative, which looks more efficient since it stops reading the input when the required line is printed, may generate a SIGPIPE in the feeding process, which may in turn generate an unwanted error message:
ls -l | sed -n -e '2{p;q}'I've seen that often enough that I usually use the first (which is easier to type, anyway), though ls is not a command that complains when it gets SIGPIPE.
For a range of lines:
ls -l | sed -n 2,4pFor several ranges of lines:
ls -l | sed -n -e 2,4p -e 20,30pls -l | sed -n -e '2,4p;20,30p'