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Gawk

The document discusses the GNU version of awk and how it can be used to search files for patterns and perform actions on matching lines. It provides background on awk's origins and describes how to run awk programs from the command line or with script files.

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10 views

Gawk

The document discusses the GNU version of awk and how it can be used to search files for patterns and perform actions on matching lines. It provides background on awk's origins and describes how to run awk programs from the command line or with script files.

Uploaded by

ubichgab
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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. Getting started with gawk 6.1.1.

What is gawk?
Gawk is the GNU version of the commonly available UNIX awk program, another popular stream
editor. Since the awk program is often just a link to gawk, we will refer to it as awk. The basic
function of awk is to search files for lines or other text units containing one or more patterns. When a
line matches one of the patterns, special actions are performed on that line. Programs in awk are
different from programs in most other languages, because awk programs are "data-driven": you
describe the data you want to work with and then what to do when you find it. Most other languages
are "procedural." You have to describe, in great detail, every step the program is to take. When
working with procedural languages, it is usually much harder to clearly describe the data your program
will process. For this reason, awk programs are often refreshingly easy to read and write. What does it
really mean? Back in the 1970s, three programmers got together to create this language. Their names
were Aho, Kernighan and Weinberger. They took the first character of each of their names and put
them together. So the name of the language might just as well have been "wak". 6.1.2. Gawk
commands When you run awk, you specify an awk program that tells awk what to do. The program
consists of a series of rules. (It may also contain function definitions, loops, conditions and other
programming constructs, advanced features that we will ignore for now.) Each rule specifies one
pattern to search for and one action to perform upon finding the pattern. Chapter 6. The GNU awk
programming language 69 There are several ways to run awk. If the program is short, it is easiest to
run it on the command line: awk PROGRAM inputfile(s) If multiple changes have to be made,
possibly regularly and on multiple files, it is easier to put the awk commands in a script. This is read
like this: awk -f PROGRAM-FILE inputfile(s)

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