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Jeremy French
Asked: 2009-05-09 07:23:27 +0800 CST

How can I see what is on line 149351 of a large file?

  • 772

I am trying to import a large MySQL dump file and am getting a consistent error on a certain line 149,351 (out of 4207442). I would like to see what that line is.

The best way I have found to do this is like this:

head -149351 dump.sql | tail

However, this is very slow. I tried loading the file in vi, but it wasn't able to handle a file that big. I am on Windows XP and have cygwin.

dump

9 Answers

  1. Best Answer
    sed -n '149351p' dump.sql

    might be slightly faster than head/tail combinations (but maybe not.) Vartec is correct; there is no quicker way than reading at least the first 149351 lines.

    • 5

  2. You can see the individual line with the following command:

    tail -n+<line number> <file>|head -n1

    in your case: tail -n+149351 dump.sql|head -n1

    That command tails the file starting on line number 149351, and uses the head command to only display the first line of the tail results.

    • 4

  3. I would recommend using the split command to break that huge dump into more manageable pieces:

    split -l20000 mysql.dump mysql.dump.

    Will create files with names mysql.dump.aa, mysql.dump.ab, .... Each file will contain 20000 lines - editing tools should be able to handle those small files easily!

    Once you've fixed the problem, recombine them easily:

    cat mysql.dump.* > mysql.dumptest

    or

    cat mysql.dump.* | mysqlimportcommand
    • 3

  4. I usually just fire up TextPad, even in 1GB files.

    Ctrl+G is the Go To menu in which you can choose line number.

    • 2

  5. If the lines are of variable lengths, there really is no quicker way, then scanning through first 149351 (which is exactly what you do with "head").

    • 2

  6. Surprised no one suggested:

    grep -n 149351 dump.sql
    • 2

  7. Since its windows I'm surprised no one has suggested

    get-content -readcount 0 | select-object -index 149350

    • 2

  8. Surely in vi you can set the line number using:

    :set number

    and then go to line 149351 using:

    :149351

    alternatively you can start vi at a specific line number using:

    vi +36 blah

    hope that helps...

    • 1

  9. Open it with nano (with -w), and once open hit CTRL _ and enter the line number to go to.

    • 1