Get specific line from text file using just shell script

sed:

sed '5!d' file

awk:

awk 'NR==5' file

linux shell unix sh

Assuming line is a variable which holds your required line number, if you can use head and tail, then it is quite simple:

head -n $line file | tail -1

If not, this should work:

x=0want=5cat lines | while read line; do  x=$(( x+1 ))  if [ $x -eq "$want" ]; then    echo $line    break  fidone

linux shell unix sh

You could use sed -n 5p file.

You can also get a range, e.g., sed -n 5,10p file.

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