[SOLVED] Get text between markers that span over multiple lines

Issue

Say I've got input that looks like this:

something

START MARKER
foo
I
just
want
this
foo
END MARKER

something else

foo
I don't want this
foo

Can I use sed to get the text that is between both START MARKER and END MARKER and between the foos, which appear as nested markers?

Currently I'm able to do this with two passes:

sed -n '/START MARKER/,/END MARKER/ { // !p; }' < input \
| sed -n '/foo/ !p;'

However, I feel like this isn't as optimal as it could be...

Solution

OP's attempt can be simplified to delete the lines containing foo along with the start and end markers:

sed -n '/START MARKER/,/END MARKER/ {//d; /foo/d; p}'

This works with GNU sed, but other implementations might differ w.r.t. the behavior of the empty pattern //.

Answered By - Sundeep

Answer Checked By - David Marino (WPSolving Volunteer)