Category:AWK

AWK
This programming language may be used to instruct a computer to perform a task.

Execution method:	Interpreted
See Also:	AWK on the HOPL

Listed below are all of the tasks on Rosetta Code which have been solved using AWK.

AWK is a small but powerful programming language that can process and convert text files. AWK is part of every Unix-derived system.

Each AWK program consists of pattern-action statements. The program reads each input line, checks lines against patterns, and runs matching actions. For programs that never read input lines, the entire program can be one BEGIN { ... } block.

• List users who have /bin/ksh as a shell.

  $ awk -F: '$7 == "/bin/ksh" { print $1 }' /etc/passwd

AWK has only three types of variables: they are strings, floating-point numbers, and associative arrays (where every array index is a string). Conversion between strings and numbers is automatic. AWK also has regular expressions, which appear in many AWK programs. There are a few built-in functions, like cos() and sprintf().

• Find average line length.

  $ awk '{ cnt += length($0) } END { print cnt / NR }' /etc/rc

The name "AWK" comes from the initials of Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger and Brian Kernighan: they invented AWK during the 1970s. A few decades later, Kernighan continues to maintain the reference implementation of AWK.

[edit] Links

• awk(1) manual page, short and brief
• AWK in Wikipedia
• AWK Community Portal