regex - How to find the multiline pattern match (they must be first time match)? -

i know question how find patterns across multiple lines using grep? think problem more complicated. need help.

i have dictionary file bcfile as

boundary {     inlet     {         type            fixedvalue;         value           uniform (5 0 0);     }      outlet     {         type            inletoutlet;         inletvalue      $internalfield;         value           $internalfield;     }      .... } 

i writing script print out inlet boundary condition fixedvalue, , outlet boundary condition inletoutlet.

if use cat bcfile | grep "type" | awk '{printf $2}' | tr -d ";", won't work keyword type occurs many times.

if use awk -v rs='}' '/inlet/ { print $4 }' bcfile, won't work either, because keyword inlet occurs many times.

i need way find pattern first search key word inlet , search closest { , }.

anyone knows how smartly?

since didn't provide expected output input posted we're guessing @ want output how in gnu awk:

$ cat tst.awk begin{ rs="\0" } {    print "inlet:",  gensub(/.*\yinlet\y[^}]*type\s+(\w+).*/,"\\1","")    print "outlet:", gensub(/.*\youtlet\y[^}]*type\s+(\w+).*/,"\\1","") } $ gawk -f tst.awk file inlet: fixedvalue outlet: inletoutlet 

explanation:

rs="\0" 

= set record separator null string awk reads whole file single record.

gensub(/.*\yinlet\y[^}]*type\s+(\w+).*/,"\\1","") 

= word inlet followed characters except } (so stop before first } after inlet instead of last } in file) , word type followed white space. alpha-numeric string after (\w+) word want printed remember , replace whole record string saved in \\1.

setting rs="\0" , gensub() both gawk-specific.