I have a file with two-line paragraphs and want to extract only the first
line of each paragraph to an output file. Sample input file:
line 1
line 2
line 1
line 2
line 1
line 2
I thought the awk 'next' statement would do this but my attempts failed.
For example:
$ gawk '{ print $0, next, next }' testfile.txt > out.txt
gawk: cmd. line:1: { print $0, next, next }
gawk: cmd. line:1: ^ syntax error
gawk: cmd. line:1: { print $0, next, next }
gawk: cmd. line:1: ^ syntax error
and
$ gawk '{ print $0, \n, \n }' testfile.txt > out.txt
gawk: cmd. line:1: { print $0, \n, \n }
gawk: cmd. line:1: ^ backslash not last character on line
gawk: cmd. line:1: { print $0, \n, \n }
gawk: cmd. line:1: ^ syntax error
I didn't find an example in my SED AWK book or my web searches. I'm sure
there must be a way to do this and I'd like to learn how.
TIA,
Rich
