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AWK - Display line before the matching string

awk '/the_string/{print x};{x=$0}' file.txt

NOTE: This starts at the bottom of the file searching upwards and once it finds the search string it displays everything else above.

Example

Assuming a file, test.txt, exists with the following contents:

10   Peter     Terence   Roux        45
11   Virginia  Genevieve  Roux        45
12   Felix     Devon     Roux         5
13   David     Bruce     Stevenson   48
14   Bob       James     Smith       16
48   Adam      Winter    Ridley      23

Running

awk '/Peter/{print x};{x=$0}' test.txt

returns:

Running

awk '/Roux/{print x};{x=$0}' test.txt

returns:

10   Peter     Terence   Roux        45
11   Virginia  Genevieve  Roux       45

Running

awk '/4/{print x};{x=$0}' test.txt

returns:

10   Peter     Terence   Roux        45
12   Felix     Devon     Roux         5
13   David     Bruce     Stevenson   48
14   Bob       James     Smith       16