find out which byte terminates the first 300 lines.  maybe...

~$ BYTES=$(head -300 nameofbigfile.txt | wc -c)

then use that info with dd skip the first part of the input file...

~$ dd if=nameofbigfile.txt of=truncatedversion.pl ibs=$BYTES  skip=1

one of many ways, I'm sure.  I think this way should be pretty fast
because it works on a line by line basis for just a small part of the
file.  The rest, with dd, is done in larger pieces.

- Anna


On Wed, Jun 28, 2006 at 01:01:03PM -0700, Grant Kelly wrote:
> Alright unix fans, who can answer this the best?
> 
> I have a text file, it's about 2.3 GB. I need to delete the first 300
> lines, and I don't want to have to load the entire thing into an
> editor.
> 
> I'm trying `sed '1,300d' inputfile > output file`  but it's taking a
> long time (and space) to output everything to the new file.
> 
> There has got to be a better way, a way that can do this in-place...
> 
> 
> Grant
> 
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