Get specific line from text file using just shell script

Question

I am trying to get a specific line from a text file.

So far, online I have only seen stuff like sed, (I can only use the sh -not bash or sed or anything like that).

Answer 1

Assuming line is a variable which holds your required line number, if you can use head and tail, then it is quite simple:

head -n $line file | tail -1

If not, this should work:

x=0
want=5
cat lines | while read line; do
  x=$(( x+1 ))
  if [ $x -eq "$want" ]; then
    echo $line
    break
  fi
done