Printing all contents EXCEPT matching range pattern using awk

Question

In Awk, the range pattern is not an expression, so canot use the \"!\" to not it. so how to implement it (Printing all contents EXCEPT matching range pattern using awk)?

Answer 1

If you really need to use awk, something like this should work:

awk 'BEGIN{x=1} /startpattern/{x=0} /endpattern/{x=1;next} x{print}'

Although the sed alternative might be a simpler approach (it's less typing, at least).

Edit: @Kent pointed out you have the same start and end pattern, which makes it a bit more tricky, but this should work:

awk 'BEGIN{x=1} /pattern/{x=!x;next} x{print}'

That basically toggles x every time it sees the pattern, and only prints when x!=0. The next in there avoids printing the pattern when it's turning printing back on.