AWK is an interpreted programming language that is included in most versions of Unix. The name is derived from the initials of its creators--Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger, and Brian Kernighan--who developed the language in 1977. The language is particularly designed for filtering and manipulating textual data. In this respect, it is similar to Perl, though Perl is more powerful. There are many variants of AWK, including gawk, which is the GNU version.

Effective AWK Programming was published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and distributed in electronic form with the GNU AWK source code. It was also published by SSC to help make it more widely available in book form, and is now offered by O'Reilly & Associates.

Effective AWK Programming covers every aspect of the AWK 3.0.3 and 3.0.4 language. It offers the most up-to-date coverage of the POSIX standard for AWK available anywhere, and clearly distinguishes standard AWK features from GNU AWK-specific features. The author sheds light on many of the "dark corners" of the language (areas to watch out for when programming), devotes two full chapters to example programs, and includes a summary of how the AWK language evolved.

Review

For anyone who writes scripts in the awk family of languages, the third edition of Effective awk Programming provides an in-depth guide to processing text files with plenty of working sample code. Whether you are starting out with awk or are an experienced developer, this book will help you extend the reach of your awk scripts.

This tutorial covers the entire spectrum of awk script development from the basics of opening, searching and transforming text files to a comprehensive tutorial for regular expressions, and on to more advanced features like internetworking. The focus is on the practical side of creating and running awk scripts, and there's plenty of hands-on advice for installing and running today's awk (and gawk).

The book begins with the fundamentals of awk for opening and transforming text flatfiles. The coverage of regular expressions, from simple rules for matching text to more advanced options, is particularly solid. You learn how to add variables and expressions for more intelligent awk scripts, plus how to parse data into records and fields. You'll also find out how to redirect output from awk scripts to other programs, a useful technique that can cause awk to get a lot more done in real applications.

Later you learn several valuable sample awk scripts that mimic existing Unix utilities (like "grep", "id" and "split"), plus samples for counting words in documents, printing mailing labels and even a stream editor. This grab bag of sample code lets you try out the techniques presented earlier in the book. Other sections look at support for networking in today's gawk, for example, how gawk can read and write to URLs on the network almost just as easily as local files. Full sample code will teach the beginner or expert how to get productive with networks and awk. Final appendices trace the evolution of the awk language and show you how to download and install gawk.

Suitable for beginner and experienced awk developers, Effective awk Programming, 3rd Edition is an extremely worthwhile source of information on a wide range of programming techniques for today's awk. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

introduction to the awk programming language
running awk scripts
basic file processing
tutorial for regular expressions
strategies for matching text
dynamic regular expressions
parsing data into records and lines (including separating fields and handling multiple-line records)
using "print" and "printf" for printed output with awk (including format specifiers)
redirecting awk scripts output to other processes
basic and advanced awk expressions (constants, variables and function calls)
patterns
shell variables and actions
arrays (including multidimensional arrays and sorting)
built-in and custom awk functions
internationalising and localising awk scripts
advanced gawk (communicating with other processes and networking programming)
running awk and gawk
sample awk scripts
Internet-working with awk
history and evolution of awk
downloading and installing gawk

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