Getting to '/^GET/ { print $3 }' takes a lot more characters in python than awk. True. Then there is Perl which is closer to awk/sed (intentionally, too) an

Getting to '/^GET/ { print $3 }' takes a lot more characters in python than awk. True. Then there is Perl which is closer to awk/sed (intentionally, too) and thus more compact than Python. perl -lane 'print $F[2] if (-m /^GET/)' It tends to grow unwieldy as the problems (more precisely, solutions) become more complex.