Remove lines from a file between lines matching a pattern

Question

If this is my file:

This part can stay
START ALPHA
This should be deleted
And this too
END ALPHA
This should stay
START BETA
This should be deleted
END BETA
This should stay

Everything between the "START (whatever)" and "END (whatever)" lines should be deleted.

How can I do this? I'm can use sed, perl, python, whatever works.

Answer 1

use an ed(1) or sed(1) script:

$ cat filter.sh
#!/bin/sh
exec sed "/START $1/,/END $1/d" data.txt
$ filter.sh ALPHA
This part can stay
This should stay
START BETA
This should be deleted
END BETA
This should stay
$ filter.sh BETA
This part can stay
START ALPHA
This should be deleted
And this too
END ALPHA
This should stay
This should stay
$ _

the $ sign is the shell prompt, I think you'll understand. filter.sh is the script that does what you want.