text manipulation using unix commands only - shell

Question

I have a task where I need to parse through files and extract information. I can do this easy using bash but I have to get it done through unix commands only.
For example, I have a file similar to the following:
Set<tab>one<tab>two<tab>three
Set<tab>four<tab>five<tab>six
ENDSET
Set<tab>four<tab>two<tab>nine
ENDSET
Set<tab>one<tab>one<tab>one
Set<tab>two<tab>two<tab>two
ENDSET
...
So on and so forth. I want to be able to extract a certain number of sets, say the first 10. Also, I want to be able to extract info from the columns.
Once again, this is a trivial thing to do using bash scripting, but I am unsure of how to do this with unix commands only. I can combine the commands together in a shell script but, once again, only unix commands.

Answer 1

Without an output example, it's hard to know your goal, but anyway, one UNIX command you can use is AWK.
Examples:
Extract 2 sets from your data sample (without include "ENDSET" nor blank lines):
$ awk '/ENDSET/{ if(++count==2) exit(0);next; }NF{print}' file.txt
Set one two three
Set four five six
Set four two nine
Extract 3 sets and print 2nd column only (Note 1st column is always "Set"):
$ awk '/ENDSET/{ if(++count==3) exit(0);next; }$2{print $2}' file.txt
two
five
two
one
two
And so on... (more info: $ man awk)