# The GNU Awk User's Guide

Next: Foreword, Up: (dir)

## General Introduction

This file documents awk, a program that you can use to select particular records in a file and perform operations upon them.

Copyright © 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

This is Edition 3 of GAWK: Effective AWK Programming: A User's Guide for GNU Awk, for the 3.1.4 (or later) version of the GNU implementation of AWK.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the Invariant Sections being “GNU General Public License”, the Front-Cover texts being (a) (see below), and with the Back-Cover Texts being (b) (see below). A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License”.

1. “A GNU Manual”
2. “You have freedom to copy and modify this GNU Manual, like GNU software. Copies published by the Free Software Foundation raise funds for GNU development.”

## Short Contents

- General Introduction
- Foreword
- Preface
- 1 Getting Started with awk
- 2 Regular Expressions
- 3 Reading Input Files
- 4 Printing Output
- 5 Expressions
- 6 Patterns, Actions, and Variables
- 7 Arrays in awk
- 8 Functions
- 9 Internationalization with gawk
- 10 Advanced Features of gawk
- 11 Running awk and gawk
- 12 A Library of awk Functions
- 13 Practical awk Programs
- Appendix A The Evolution of the awk Language
- Appendix B Installing gawk
- Appendix C Implementation Notes
- Appendix D Basic Programming Concepts
- Glossary
- GNU General Public License
- GNU Free Documentation License
- Index

## Table of Contents

- General Introduction
- Foreword
- Preface
  - History of awk and gawk
  - A Rose by Any Other Name
  - Using This Book
  - Typographical Conventions
  - The GNU Project and This Book
  - How to Contribute
  - Acknowledgments
- 1 Getting Started with awk
  - 1.1 How to Run awk Programs
    - 1.1.1 One-Shot Throwaway awk Programs
    - 1.1.2 Running awk Without Input Files
    - 1.1.3 Running Long Programs
    - 1.1.4 Executable awk Programs
    - 1.1.5 Comments in awk Programs
    - 1.1.6 Shell-Quoting Issues
  - 1.2 Data Files for the Examples
  - 1.3 Some Simple Examples
  - 1.4 An Example with Two Rules
  - 1.5 A More Complex Example
  - 1.6 awk Statements Versus Lines
  - 1.7 Other Features of awk
  - 1.8 When to Use awk
- 2 Regular Expressions
  - 2.1 How to Use Regular Expressions
  - 2.2 Escape Sequences
  - 2.3 Regular Expression Operators
  - 2.4 Using Character Lists
  - 2.5 gawk-Specific Regexp Operators
  - 2.6 Case Sensitivity in Matching
  - 2.7 How Much Text Matches?
  - 2.8 Using Dynamic Regexps
  - 2.9 Where You Are Makes A Difference
- 3 Reading Input Files
  - 3.1 How Input Is Split into Records
  - 3.2 Examining Fields
  - 3.3 Nonconstant Field Numbers
  - 3.4 Changing the Contents of a Field
  - 3.5 Specifying How Fields Are Separated
    - 3.5.1 Using Regular Expressions to Separate Fields
    - 3.5.2 Making Each Character a Separate Field
    - 3.5.3 Setting `FS` from the Command Line
    - 3.5.4 Field-Splitting Summary
  - 3.6 Reading Fixed-Width Data
  - 3.7 Multiple-Line Records
  - 3.8 Explicit Input with `getline`
    - 3.8.1 Using `getline` with No Arguments
    - 3.8.2 Using `getline` into a Variable
    - 3.8.3 Using `getline` from a File
    - 3.8.4 Using `getline` into a Variable from a File
    - 3.8.5 Using `getline` from a Pipe
    - 3.8.6 Using `getline` into a Variable from a Pipe
    - 3.8.7 Using `getline` from a Coprocess
    - 3.8.8 Using `getline` into a Variable from a Coprocess
    - 3.8.9 Points to Remember About `getline`
    - 3.8.10 Summary of `getline` Variants
- 4 Printing Output
  - 4.1 The `print` Statement
  - 4.2 Examples of `print` Statements
  - 4.3 Output Separators
  - 4.4 Controlling Numeric Output with `print`
  - 4.5 Using `printf` Statements for Fancier Printing
    - 4.5.1 Introduction to the `printf` Statement
    - 4.5.2 Format-Control Letters
    - 4.5.3 Modifiers for `printf` Formats
    - 4.5.4 Examples Using `printf`
  - 4.6 Redirecting Output of `print` and `printf`
  - 4.7 Special File Names in gawk
    - 4.7.1 Special Files for Standard Descriptors
    - 4.7.2 Special Files for Process-Related Information
    - 4.7.3 Special Files for Network Communications
    - 4.7.4 Special File Name Caveats
  - 4.8 Closing Input and Output Redirections
- 5 Expressions
  - 5.1 Constant Expressions
    - 5.1.1 Numeric and String Constants
    - 5.1.2 Octal and Hexadecimal Numbers
    - 5.1.3 Regular Expression Constants
  - 5.2 Using Regular Expression Constants
  - 5.3 Variables
    - 5.3.1 Using Variables in a Program
    - 5.3.2 Assigning Variables on the Command Line
  - 5.4 Conversion of Strings and Numbers
  - 5.5 Arithmetic Operators
  - 5.6 String Concatenation
  - 5.7 Assignment Expressions
  - 5.8 Increment and Decrement Operators
  - 5.9 True and False in awk
  - 5.10 Variable Typing and Comparison Expressions
  - 5.11 Boolean Expressions
  - 5.12 Conditional Expressions
  - 5.13 Function Calls
  - 5.14 Operator Precedence (How Operators Nest)
- 6 Patterns, Actions, and Variables
  - 6.1 Pattern Elements
    - 6.1.1 Regular Expressions as Patterns
    - 6.1.2 Expressions as Patterns
    - 6.1.3 Specifying Record Ranges with Patterns
    - 6.1.4 The `BEGIN` and `END` Special Patterns
      - 6.1.4.1 Startup and Cleanup Actions
      - 6.1.4.2 Input/Output from `BEGIN` and `END` Rules
    - 6.1.5 The Empty Pattern
  - 6.2 Using Shell Variables in Programs
  - 6.3 Actions
  - 6.4 Control Statements in Actions
    - 6.4.1 The `if`-`else` Statement
    - 6.4.2 The `while` Statement
    - 6.4.3 The `do`-`while` Statement
    - 6.4.4 The `for` Statement
    - 6.4.5 The `switch` Statement
    - 6.4.6 The `break` Statement
    - 6.4.7 The `continue` Statement
    - 6.4.8 The `next` Statement
    - 6.4.9 Using gawk's `nextfile` Statement
    - 6.4.10 The `exit` Statement
  - 6.5 Built-in Variables
    - 6.5.1 Built-in Variables That Control awk
    - 6.5.2 Built-in Variables That Convey Information
    - 6.5.3 Using `ARGC` and `ARGV`
- 7 Arrays in awk
  - 7.1 Introduction to Arrays
  - 7.2 Referring to an Array Element
  - 7.3 Assigning Array Elements
  - 7.4 Basic Array Example
  - 7.5 Scanning All Elements of an Array
  - 7.6 The `delete` Statement
  - 7.7 Using Numbers to Subscript Arrays
  - 7.8 Using Uninitialized Variables as Subscripts
  - 7.9 Multidimensional Arrays
  - 7.10 Scanning Multidimensional Arrays
  - 7.11 Sorting Array Values and Indices with gawk
- 8 Functions
  - 8.1 Built-in Functions
    - 8.1.1 Calling Built-in Functions
    - 8.1.2 Numeric Functions
    - 8.1.3 String-Manipulation Functions
      - 8.1.3.1 More About \ and & with `sub`, `gsub`, and `gensub`
    - 8.1.4 Input/Output Functions
    - 8.1.5 Using gawk's Timestamp Functions
    - 8.1.6 Bit-Manipulation Functions of gawk
    - 8.1.7 Using gawk's String-Translation Functions
  - 8.2 User-Defined Functions
    - 8.2.1 Function Definition Syntax
    - 8.2.2 Function Definition Examples
    - 8.2.3 Calling User-Defined Functions
    - 8.2.4 The `return` Statement
    - 8.2.5 Functions and Their Effects on Variable Typing
- 9 Internationalization with gawk
  - 9.1 Internationalization and Localization
  - 9.2 GNU `gettext`
  - 9.3 Internationalizing awk Programs
  - 9.4 Translating awk Programs
    - 9.4.1 Extracting Marked Strings
    - 9.4.2 Rearranging `printf` Arguments
    - 9.4.3 awk Portability Issues
  - 9.5 A Simple Internationalization Example
  - 9.6 gawk Can Speak Your Language
- 10 Advanced Features of gawk
  - 10.1 Allowing Nondecimal Input Data
  - 10.2 Two-Way Communications with Another Process
  - 10.3 Using gawk for Network Programming
  - 10.4 Using gawk with BSD Portals
  - 10.5 Profiling Your awk Programs
- 11 Running awk and gawk
  - 11.1 Invoking awk
  - 11.2 Command-Line Options
  - 11.3 Other Command-Line Arguments
  - 11.4 The AWKPATH Environment Variable
  - 11.5 Obsolete Options and/or Features
  - 11.6 Undocumented Options and Features
  - 11.7 Known Bugs in gawk
- 12 A Library of awk Functions
  - 12.1 Naming Library Function Global Variables
  - 12.2 General Programming
    - 12.2.1 Implementing `nextfile` as a Function
    - 12.2.2 Converting Strings To Numbers
    - 12.2.3 Assertions
    - 12.2.4 Rounding Numbers
    - 12.2.5 The Cliff Random Number Generator
    - 12.2.6 Translating Between Characters and Numbers
    - 12.2.7 Merging an Array into a String
    - 12.2.8 Managing the Time of Day
  - 12.3 Data File Management
    - 12.3.1 Noting Data File Boundaries
    - 12.3.2 Rereading the Current File
    - 12.3.3 Checking for Readable Data Files
    - 12.3.4 Checking For Zero-length Files
    - 12.3.5 Treating Assignments as File Names
  - 12.4 Processing Command-Line Options
  - 12.5 Reading the User Database
  - 12.6 Reading the Group Database
- 13 Practical awk Programs
  - 13.1 Running the Example Programs
  - 13.2 Reinventing Wheels for Fun and Profit
    - 13.2.1 Cutting out Fields and Columns
    - 13.2.2 Searching for Regular Expressions in Files
    - 13.2.3 Printing out User Information
    - 13.2.4 Splitting a Large File into Pieces
    - 13.2.5 Duplicating Output into Multiple Files
    - 13.2.6 Printing Nonduplicated Lines of Text
    - 13.2.7 Counting Things
  - 13.3 A Grab Bag of awk Programs
    - 13.3.1 Finding Duplicated Words in a Document
    - 13.3.2 An Alarm Clock Program
    - 13.3.3 Transliterating Characters
    - 13.3.4 Printing Mailing Labels
    - 13.3.5 Generating Word-Usage Counts
    - 13.3.6 Removing Duplicates from Unsorted Text
    - 13.3.7 Extracting Programs from Texinfo Source Files
    - 13.3.8 A Simple Stream Editor
    - 13.3.9 An Easy Way to Use Library Functions
- Appendix A The Evolution of the awk Language
  - A.1 Major Changes Between V7 and SVR3.1
  - A.2 Changes Between SVR3.1 and SVR4
  - A.3 Changes Between SVR4 and POSIX awk
  - A.4 Extensions in the Bell Laboratories awk
  - A.5 Extensions in gawk Not in POSIX awk
  - A.6 Major Contributors to gawk
- Appendix B Installing gawk
  - B.1 The gawk Distribution
    - B.1.1 Getting the gawk Distribution
    - B.1.2 Extracting the Distribution
    - B.1.3 Contents of the gawk Distribution
  - B.2 Compiling and Installing gawk on Unix
    - B.2.1 Compiling gawk for Unix
    - B.2.2 Additional Configuration Options
    - B.2.3 The Configuration Process
  - B.3 Installation on Other Operating Systems
    - B.3.1 Installing gawk on an Amiga
    - B.3.2 Installing gawk on BeOS
    - B.3.3 Installation on PC Operating Systems
      - B.3.3.1 Installing a Prepared Distribution for PC Systems
      - B.3.3.2 Compiling gawk for PC Operating Systems
      - B.3.3.3 Compiling gawk For Dynamic Libraries
      - B.3.3.4 Using gawk on PC Operating Systems
      - B.3.3.5 Using gawk In The Cygwin Environment
    - B.3.4 How to Compile and Install gawk on VMS
      - B.3.4.1 Compiling gawk on VMS
      - B.3.4.2 Installing gawk on VMS
      - B.3.4.3 Running gawk on VMS
      - B.3.4.4 Building and Using gawk on VMS POSIX
  - B.4 Unsupported Operating System Ports
    - B.4.1 Installing gawk on the Atari ST
      - B.4.1.1 Compiling gawk on the Atari ST
      - B.4.1.2 Running gawk on the Atari ST
    - B.4.2 Installing gawk on a Tandem
  - B.5 Reporting Problems and Bugs
  - B.6 Other Freely Available awk Implementations
- Appendix C Implementation Notes
  - C.1 Downward Compatibility and Debugging
  - C.2 Making Additions to gawk
    - C.2.1 Adding New Features
    - C.2.2 Porting gawk to a New Operating System
  - C.3 Adding New Built-in Functions to gawk
    - C.3.1 A Minimal Introduction to gawk Internals
    - C.3.2 Directory and File Operation Built-ins
      - C.3.2.1 Using `chdir` and `stat`
      - C.3.2.2 C Code for `chdir` and `stat`
      - C.3.2.3 Integrating the Extensions
  - C.4 Probable Future Extensions
- Appendix D Basic Programming Concepts
  - D.1 What a Program Does
  - D.2 Data Values in a Computer
  - D.3 Floating-Point Number Caveats
- Glossary
- GNU General Public License
  - Preamble
  - Terms and Conditions for Copying, Distribution and Modification
  - How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
- GNU Free Documentation License
  - ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents
- Index

Next: Preface, Previous: Top, Up: Top

## Foreword

Arnold Robbins and I are good friends. We were introduced 11 years ago by circumstances—and our favorite programming language, AWK. The circumstances started a couple of years earlier. I was working at a new job and noticed an unplugged Unix computer sitting in the corner. No one knew how to use it, and neither did I. However, a couple of days later it was running, and I was `root` and the one-and-only user. That day, I began the transition from statistician to Unix programmer.

On one of many trips to the library or bookstore in search of books on Unix, I found the gray AWK book, a.k.a. Aho, Kernighan and Weinberger, The AWK Programming Language, Addison-Wesley, 1988. AWK's simple programming paradigm—find a pattern in the input and then perform an action—often reduced complex or tedious data manipulations to few lines of code. I was excited to try my hand at programming in AWK.

Alas, the awk on my computer was a limited version of the language described in the AWK book. I discovered that my computer had “old awk” and the AWK book described “new awk.” I learned that this was typical; the old version refused to step aside or relinquish its name. If a system had a new awk, it was invariably called nawk, and few systems had it. The best way to get a new awk was to ftp the source code for gawk from `prep.ai.mit.edu`. gawk was a version of new awk written by David Trueman and Arnold, and available under the GNU General Public License.

(Incidentally, it's no longer difficult to find a new awk. gawk ships with Linux, and you can download binaries or source code for almost any system; my wife uses gawk on her VMS box.)

My Unix system started out unplugged from the wall; it certainly was not plugged into a network. So, oblivious to the existence of gawk and the Unix community in general, and desiring a new awk, I wrote my own, called mawk. Before I was finished I knew about gawk, but it was too late to stop, so I eventually posted to a `comp.sources` newsgroup.

A few days after my posting, I got a friendly email from Arnold introducing himself. He suggested we share design and algorithms and attached a draft of the POSIX standard so that I could update mawk to support language extensions added after publication of the AWK book.

Frankly, if our roles had been reversed, I would not have been so open and we probably would have never met. I'm glad we did meet. He is an AWK expert's AWK expert and a genuinely nice person. Arnold contributes significant amounts of his expertise and time to the Free Software Foundation.

This book is the gawk reference manual, but at its core it is a book about AWK programming that will appeal to a wide audience. It is a definitive reference to the AWK language as defined by the 1987 Bell Labs release and codified in the 1992 POSIX Utilities standard.

On the other hand, the novice AWK programmer can study a wealth of practical programs that emphasize the power of AWK's basic idioms: data driven control-flow, pattern matching with regular expressions, and associative arrays. Those looking for something new can try out gawk's interface to network protocols via special /inet files.

The programs in this book make clear that an AWK program is typically much smaller and faster to develop than a counterpart written in C. Consequently, there is often a payoff to prototype an algorithm or design in AWK to get it running quickly and expose problems early. Often, the interpreted performance is adequate and the AWK prototype becomes the product.

The new pgawk (profiling gawk), produces program execution counts. I recently experimented with an algorithm that for n lines of input, exhibited ~ C n^2 performance, while theory predicted ~ C n log n behavior. A few minutes poring over the awkprof.out profile pinpointed the problem to a single line of code. pgawk is a welcome addition to my programmer's toolbox.

Arnold has distilled over a decade of experience writing and using AWK programs, and developing gawk, into this book. If you use AWK or want to learn how, then read this book.

         Michael Brennan
         Author of mawk

Next: Getting Started, Previous: Foreword, Up: Top

## Preface

Several kinds of tasks occur repeatedly when working with text files. You might want to extract certain lines and discard the rest. Or you may need to make changes wherever certain patterns appear, but leave the rest of the file alone. Writing single-use programs for these tasks in languages such as C, C++, or Pascal is time-consuming and inconvenient. Such jobs are often easier with awk. The awk utility interprets a special-purpose programming language that makes it easy to handle simple data-reformatting jobs.

The GNU implementation of awk is called gawk; it is fully compatible with the System V Release 4 version of awk. gawk is also compatible with the POSIX specification of the awk language. This means that all properly written awk programs should work with gawk. Thus, we usually don't distinguish between gawk and other awk implementations.

Using awk allows you to:

- Manage small, personal databases
- Generate reports
- Validate data
- Produce indexes and perform other document preparation tasks
- Experiment with algorithms that you can adapt later to other computer languages

In addition, gawk provides facilities that make it easy to:

- Extract bits and pieces of data for processing
- Sort data
- Perform simple network communications

This Web page teaches you about the awk language and how you can use it effectively. You should already be familiar with basic system commands, such as cat and ls,1 as well as basic shell facilities, such as input/output (I/O) redirection and pipes.

Implementations of the awk language are available for many different computing environments. This Web page, while describing the awk language in general, also describes the particular implementation of awk called gawk (which stands for “GNU awk”). gawk runs on a broad range of Unix systems, ranging from 80386 PC-based computers up through large-scale systems, such as Crays. gawk has also been ported to Mac OS X, MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows (all versions) and OS/2 PCs, Atari and Amiga microcomputers, BeOS, Tandem D20, and VMS.

Next: Names, Up: Preface

### History of awk and gawk

Recipe For A Programming Language

| 1 part `egrep` | 1 part `snobol`
| 2 parts `ed` | 3 parts C

> Blend all parts well using `lex` and `yacc`. Document minimally and release.

> After eight years, add another part `egrep` and two more parts C. Document very well and release.

The name awk comes from the initials of its designers: Alfred V. Aho, Peter J. Weinberger and Brian W. Kernighan. The original version of awk was written in 1977 at AT&T Bell Laboratories. In 1985, a new version made the programming language more powerful, introducing user-defined functions, multiple input streams, and computed regular expressions. This new version became widely available with Unix System V Release 3.1 (SVR3.1). The version in SVR4 added some new features and cleaned up the behavior in some of the “dark corners” of the language. The specification for awk in the POSIX Command Language and Utilities standard further clarified the language. Both the gawk designers and the original Bell Laboratories awk designers provided feedback for the POSIX specification.

Paul Rubin wrote the GNU implementation, gawk, in 1986. Jay Fenlason completed it, with advice from Richard Stallman. John Woods contributed parts of the code as well. In 1988 and 1989, David Trueman, with help from me, thoroughly reworked gawk for compatibility with the newer awk. Circa 1995, I became the primary maintainer. Current development focuses on bug fixes, performance improvements, standards compliance, and occasionally, new features.

In May of 1997, Jürgen Kahrs felt the need for network access from awk, and with a little help from me, set about adding features to do this for gawk. At that time, he also wrote the bulk of TCP/IP Internetworking with gawk (a separate document, available as part of the gawk distribution). His code finally became part of the main gawk distribution with gawk version 3.1.

See Contributors, for a complete list of those who made important contributions to gawk.

Next: This Manual, Previous: History, Up: Preface

### A Rose by Any Other Name

The awk language has evolved over the years. Full details are provided in Language History. The language described in this Web page is often referred to as “new awk” (nawk).

Because of this, many systems have multiple versions of awk. Some systems have an awk utility that implements the original version of the awk language and a nawk utility for the new version. Others have an oawk version for the “old awk” language and plain awk for the new one. Still others only have one version, which is usually the new one.2

All in all, this makes it difficult for you to know which version of awk you should run when writing your programs. The best advice I can give here is to check your local documentation. Look for awk, oawk, and nawk, as well as for gawk. It is likely that you already have some version of new awk on your system, which is what you should use when running your programs. (Of course, if you're reading this Web page, chances are good that you have gawk!)

Throughout this Web page, whenever we refer to a language feature that should be available in any complete implementation of POSIX awk, we simply use the term awk. When referring to a feature that is specific to the GNU implementation, we use the term gawk.

Next: Conventions, Previous: Names, Up: Preface

### Using This Book

The term awk refers to a particular program as well as to the language you use to tell this program what to do. When we need to be careful, we call the language “the awk language,” and the program “the awk utility.” This Web page explains both the awk language and how to run the awk utility. The term awk program refers to a program written by you in the awk programming language.

Primarily, this Web page explains the features of awk, as defined in the POSIX standard. It does so in the context of the gawk implementation. While doing so, it also attempts to describe important differences between gawk and other awk implementations.3 Finally, any gawk features that are not in the POSIX standard for awk are noted.

This Web page has the difficult task of being both a tutorial and a reference. If you are a novice, feel free to skip over details that seem too complex. You should also ignore the many cross-references; they are for the expert user and for the online Info version of the document.

There are subsections labelled as Advanced Notes scattered throughout the Web page. They add a more complete explanation of points that are relevant, but not likely to be of interest on first reading. All appear in the index, under the heading “advanced features.”

Most of the time, the examples use complete awk programs. In some of the more advanced sections, only the part of the awk program that illustrates the concept currently being described is shown.

While this Web page is aimed principally at people who have not been exposed to awk, there is a lot of information here that even the awk expert should find useful. In particular, the description of POSIX awk and the example programs in Library Functions, and in Sample Programs, should be of interest.

Getting Started, provides the essentials you need to know to begin using awk.

Regexp, introduces regular expressions in general, and in particular the flavors supported by POSIX awk and gawk.

Reading Files, describes how awk reads your data. It introduces the concepts of records and fields, as well as the `getline` command. I/O redirection is first described here.

Printing, describes how awk programs can produce output with `print` and `printf`.

Expressions, describes expressions, which are the basic building blocks for getting most things done in a program.

Patterns and Actions, describes how to write patterns for matching records, actions for doing something when a record is matched, and the built-in variables awk and gawk use.

Arrays, covers awk's one-and-only data structure: associative arrays. Deleting array elements and whole arrays is also described, as well as sorting arrays in gawk.

Functions, describes the built-in functions awk and gawk provide, as well as how to define your own functions.

Internationalization, describes special features in gawk for translating program messages into different languages at runtime.

Advanced Features, describes a number of gawk-specific advanced features. Of particular note are the abilities to have two-way communications with another process, perform TCP/IP networking, and profile your awk programs.

Invoking Gawk, describes how to run gawk, the meaning of its command-line options, and how it finds awk program source files.

Library Functions, and Sample Programs, provide many sample awk programs. Reading them allows you to see awk solving real problems.

Language History, describes how the awk language has evolved since first release to present. It also describes how gawk has acquired features over time.

Installation, describes how to get gawk, how to compile it under Unix, and how to compile and use it on different non-Unix systems. It also describes how to report bugs in gawk and where to get three other freely available implementations of awk.

Notes, describes how to disable gawk's extensions, as well as how to contribute new code to gawk, how to write extension libraries, and some possible future directions for gawk development.

Basic Concepts, provides some very cursory background material for those who are completely unfamiliar with computer programming. Also centralized there is a discussion of some of the issues surrounding floating-point numbers.

The Glossary, defines most, if not all, the significant terms used throughout the book. If you find terms that you aren't familiar with, try looking them up here.

Copying, and GNU Free Documentation License, present the licenses that cover the gawk source code and this Web page, respectively.

Next: Manual History, Previous: This Manual, Up: Preface

### Typographical Conventions

This Web page is written using Texinfo, the GNU documentation formatting language. A single Texinfo source file is used to produce both the printed and online versions of the documentation. Because of this, the typographical conventions are slightly different than in other books you may have read.

Examples you would type at the command-line are preceded by the common shell primary and secondary prompts, $ and >. Output from the command is preceded by the glyph “-|”. This typically represents the command's standard output. Error messages, and other output on the command's standard error, are preceded by the glyph “error-->”. For example:

         $ echo hi on stdout
         -| hi on stdout
         $ echo hello on stderr 1>&2
         error--> hello on stderr

In the text, command names appear in `this font`, while code segments appear in the same font and quoted, like this. Some things are emphasized like this, and if a point needs to be made strongly, it is done like this. The first occurrence of a new term is usually its definition and appears in the same font as the previous occurrence of “definition” in this sentence. file names are indicated like this: /path/to/ourfile.

Characters that you type at the keyboard look `like this`. In particular, there are special characters called “control characters.” These are characters that you type by holding down both the `CONTROL` key and another key, at the same time. For example, a `Ctrl-d` is typed by first pressing and holding the `CONTROL` key, next pressing the `d` key and finally releasing both keys.

##### Dark Corners

> Dark corners are basically fractal — no matter how much you illuminate, there's always a smaller but darker one.
> Brian Kernighan

Until the POSIX standard (and The Gawk Manual), many features of awk were either poorly documented or not documented at all. Descriptions of such features (often called “dark corners”) are noted in this Web page with “(d.c.)”. They also appear in the index under the heading “dark corner.”

As noted by the opening quote, though, any coverage of dark corners is, by definition, something that is incomplete.

Next: How To Contribute, Previous: Conventions, Up: Preface

### The GNU Project and This Book

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the production and distribution of freely distributable software. It was founded by Richard M. Stallman, the author of the original Emacs editor. GNU Emacs is the most widely used version of Emacs today.

The GNU4 Project is an ongoing effort on the part of the Free Software Foundation to create a complete, freely distributable, POSIX-compliant computing environment. The FSF uses the “GNU General Public License” (GPL) to ensure that their software's source code is always available to the end user. A copy of the GPL is included in this Web page for your reference (see Copying). The GPL applies to the C language source code for gawk. To find out more about the FSF and the GNU Project online, see the GNU Project's home page. This Web page may also be read from their web site.

A shell, an editor (Emacs), highly portable optimizing C, C++, and Objective-C compilers, a symbolic debugger and dozens of large and small utilities (such as gawk), have all been completed and are freely available. The GNU operating system kernel (the HURD), has been released but is still in an early stage of development.

Until the GNU operating system is more fully developed, you should consider using GNU/Linux, a freely distributable, Unix-like operating system for Intel 80386, DEC Alpha, Sun SPARC, IBM S/390, and other systems.5 There are many books on GNU/Linux. One that is freely available is Linux Installation and Getting Started, by Matt Welsh. Many GNU/Linux distributions are often available in computer stores or bundled on CD-ROMs with books about Linux. (There are three other freely available, Unix-like operating systems for 80386 and other systems: NetBSD, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. All are based on the 4.4-Lite Berkeley Software Distribution, and they use recent versions of gawk for their versions of awk.)

The Web page you are reading is actually free—at least, the information in it is free to anyone. The machine-readable source code for the Web page comes with gawk; anyone may take this Web page to a copying machine and make as many copies as they like. (Take a moment to check the Free Documentation License in GNU Free Documentation License.)

Although you could just print it out yourself, bound books are much easier to read and use. Furthermore, the proceeds from sales of this book go back to the FSF to help fund development of more free software.

The Web page itself has gone through a number of previous editions. Paul Rubin wrote the very first draft of The GAWK Manual; it was around 40 pages in size. Diane Close and Richard Stallman improved it, yielding a version that was around 90 pages long and barely described the original, “old” version of awk.

I started working with that version in the fall of 1988. As work on it progressed, the FSF published several preliminary versions (numbered 0.x). In 1996, Edition 1.0 was released with gawk 3.0.0. The FSF published the first two editions under the title The GNU Awk User's Guide.

This edition maintains the basic structure of Edition 1.0, but with significant additional material, reflecting the host of new features in gawk version 3.1. Of particular note is Array Sorting, as well as Bitwise Functions, Internationalization, and also Advanced Features, and Dynamic Extensions.

GAWK: Effective AWK Programming will undoubtedly continue to evolve. An electronic version comes with the gawk distribution from the FSF. If you find an error in this Web page, please report it! See Bugs, for information on submitting problem reports electronically, or write to me in care of the publisher.

Next: Acknowledgments, Previous: Manual History, Up: Preface

### How to Contribute

As the maintainer of GNU awk, I am starting a collection of publicly available awk programs. For more information, see ftp://ftp.freefriends.org/arnold/Awkstuff. If you have written an interesting awk program, or have written a gawk extension that you would like to share with the rest of the world, please contact me (arnold@skeeve.com). Making things available on the Internet helps keep the gawk distribution down to manageable size.

Previous: How To Contribute, Up: Preface

### Acknowledgments

The initial draft of The GAWK Manual had the following acknowledgments:

> Many people need to be thanked for their assistance in producing this manual. Jay Fenlason contributed many ideas and sample programs. Richard Mlynarik and Robert Chassell gave helpful comments on drafts of this manual. The paper A Supplemental Document for awk by John W. Pierce of the Chemistry Department at UC San Diego, pinpointed several issues relevant both to awk implementation and to this manual, that would otherwise have escaped us.

I would like to acknowledge Richard M. Stallman, for his vision of a better world and for his courage in founding the FSF and starting the GNU Project.

The following people (in alphabetical order) provided helpful comments on various versions of this book, up to and including this edition. Rick Adams, Nelson H.F. Beebe, Karl Berry, Dr. Michael Brennan, Rich Burridge, Claire Cloutier, Diane Close, Scott Deifik, Christopher (“Topher”) Eliot, Jeffrey Friedl, Dr. Darrel Hankerson, Michal Jaegermann, Dr. Richard J. LeBlanc, Michael Lijewski, Pat Rankin, Miriam Robbins, Mary Sheehan, and Chuck Toporek.

Robert J. Chassell provided much valuable advice on the use of Texinfo. He also deserves special thanks for convincing me not to title this Web page How To Gawk Politely. Karl Berry helped significantly with the TeX part of Texinfo.

I would like to thank Marshall and Elaine Hartholz of Seattle and Dr. Bert and Rita Schreiber of Detroit for large amounts of quiet vacation time in their homes, which allowed me to make significant progress on this Web page and on gawk itself.

Phil Hughes of SSC contributed in a very important way by loaning me his laptop GNU/Linux system, not once, but twice, which allowed me to do a lot of work while away from home.

David Trueman deserves special credit; he has done a yeoman job of evolving gawk so that it performs well and without bugs. Although he is no longer involved with gawk, working with him on this project was a significant pleasure.

The intrepid members of the GNITS mailing list, and most notably Ulrich Drepper, provided invaluable help and feedback for the design of the internationalization features.

Nelson Beebe, Martin Brown, Andreas Buening, Scott Deifik, Darrel Hankerson, Isamu Hasegawa, Michal Jaegermann, Jürgen Kahrs, Pat Rankin, Kai Uwe Rommel, and Eli Zaretskii (in alphabetical order) make up the gawk “crack portability team.” Without their hard work and help, gawk would not be nearly the fine program it is today. It has been and continues to be a pleasure working with this team of fine people.

David and I would like to thank Brian Kernighan of Bell Laboratories for invaluable assistance during the testing and debugging of gawk, and for help in clarifying numerous points about the language. We could not have done nearly as good a job on either gawk or its documentation without his help.

Chuck Toporek, Mary Sheehan, and Claire Coutier of O'Reilly & Associates contributed significant editorial help for this Web page for the 3.1 release of gawk.

I must thank my wonderful wife, Miriam, for her patience through the many versions of this project, for her proofreading, and for sharing me with the computer. I would like to thank my parents for their love, and for the grace with which they raised and educated me. Finally, I also must acknowledge my gratitude to G-d, for the many opportunities He has sent my way, as well as for the gifts He has given me with which to take advantage of those opportunities.

Arnold Robbins
Nof Ayalon
ISRAEL
March, 2001

Next: Regexp, Previous: Preface, Up: Top

## 1 Getting Started with awk

The basic function of awk is to search files for lines (or other units of text) that contain certain patterns. When a line matches one of the patterns, awk performs specified actions on that line. awk keeps processing input lines in this way until it reaches the end of the input files.

Programs in awk are different from programs in most other languages, because awk programs are data-driven; that is, 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.

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, an advanced feature that we will ignore for now. See User-defined.) Each rule specifies one pattern to search for and one action to perform upon finding the pattern.

Syntactically, a rule consists of a pattern followed by an action. The action is enclosed in curly braces to separate it from the pattern. Newlines usually separate rules. Therefore, an awk program looks like this:

         pattern { action }
         pattern { action }
         ...

Next: Sample Data Files, Up: Getting Started

### 1.1 How to Run awk Programs

There are several ways to run an awk program. If the program is short, it is easiest to include it in the command that runs awk, like this:

         awk 'program' input-file1 input-file2 ...

When the program is long, it is usually more convenient to put it in a file and run it with a command like this:

         awk -f program-file input-file1 input-file2 ...

This section discusses both mechanisms, along with several variations of each.

Next: Read Terminal, Up: Running gawk

#### 1.1.1 One-Shot Throwaway awk Programs

Once you are familiar with awk, you will often type in simple programs the moment you want to use them. Then you can write the program as the first argument of the awk command, like this:

         awk 'program' input-file1 input-file2 ...

where program consists of a series of patterns and actions, as described earlier.

This command format instructs the shell, or command interpreter, to start awk and use the program to process records in the input file(s). There are single quotes around program so the shell won't interpret any awk characters as special shell characters. The quotes also cause the shell to treat all of program as a single argument for awk, and allow program to be more than one line long.

This format is also useful for running short or medium-sized awk programs from shell scripts, because it avoids the need for a separate file for the awk program. A self-contained shell script is more reliable because there are no other files to misplace.

Very Simple, later in this chapter, presents several short, self-contained programs.

Next: Long, Previous: One-shot, Up: Running gawk

#### 1.1.2 Running awk Without Input Files

You can also run awk without any input files. If you type the following command line:

         awk 'program'

awk applies the program to the standard input, which usually means whatever you type on the terminal. This continues until you indicate end-of-file by typing `Ctrl-d`. (On other operating systems, the end-of-file character may be different. For example, on OS/2 and MS-DOS, it is `Ctrl-z`.)

As an example, the following program prints a friendly piece of advice (from Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), to keep you from worrying about the complexities of computer programming (`BEGIN` is a feature we haven't discussed yet):

         $ awk "BEGIN { print \"Don't Panic!\" }"
         -| Don't Panic!

This program does not read any input. The \ before each of the inner double quotes is necessary because of the shell's quoting rules—in particular because it mixes both single quotes and double quotes.6

This next simple awk program emulates the cat utility; it copies whatever you type on the keyboard to its standard output (why this works is explained shortly).

         $ awk '{ print }'
         Now is the time for all good men
         -| Now is the time for all good men
         to come to the aid of their country.
         -| to come to the aid of their country.
         Four score and seven years ago, ...
         -| Four score and seven years ago, ...
         What, me worry?
         -| What, me worry?
         Ctrl-d

Next: Executable Scripts, Previous: Read Terminal, Up: Running gawk

#### 1.1.3 Running Long Programs

Sometimes your awk programs can be very long. In this case, it is more convenient to put the program into a separate file. In order to tell awk to use that file for its program, you type:

         awk -f source-file input-file1 input-file2 ...

The -f instructs the awk utility to get the awk program from the file source-file. Any file name can be used for source-file. For example, you could put the program:

         BEGIN { print "Don't Panic!" }

into the file advice. Then this command:

         awk -f advice

does the same thing as this one:

         awk "BEGIN { print \"Don't Panic!\" }"

This was explained earlier (see Read Terminal). Note that you don't usually need single quotes around the file name that you specify with -f, because most file names don't contain any of the shell's special characters. Notice that in advice, the awk program did not have single quotes around it. The quotes are only needed for programs that are provided on the awk command line.

If you want to identify your awk program files clearly as such, you can add the extension .awk to the file name. This doesn't affect the execution of the awk program but it does make “housekeeping” easier.

Next: Comments, Previous: Long, Up: Running gawk

#### 1.1.4 Executable awk Programs

Once you have learned awk, you may want to write self-contained awk scripts, using the #! script mechanism. You can do this on many Unix systems7 as well as on the GNU system. For example, you could update the file advice to look like this:

         #! /bin/awk -f

         BEGIN { print "Don't Panic!" }

After making this file executable (with the chmod utility), simply type advice at the shell and the system arranges to run awk 8 as if you had typed awk -f advice:

         $ chmod +x advice
         $ advice
         -| Don't Panic!

(We assume you have the current directory in your shell's search path variable (typically `$PATH`). If not, you may need to type ./advice at the shell.)

Self-contained awk scripts are useful when you want to write a program that users can invoke without their having to know that the program is written in awk.

#### Advanced Notes: Portability Issues with #!

Some systems limit the length of the interpreter name to 32 characters. Often, this can be dealt with by using a symbolic link.

You should not put more than one argument on the #! line after the path to awk. It does not work. The operating system treats the rest of the line as a single argument and passes it to awk. Doing this leads to confusing behavior—most likely a usage diagnostic of some sort from awk.

Finally, the value of `ARGV[0]` (see Built-in Variables) varies depending upon your operating system. Some systems put awk there, some put the full pathname of awk (such as /bin/awk), and some put the name of your script (advice). Don't rely on the value of `ARGV[0]` to provide your script name.

Next: Quoting, Previous: Executable Scripts, Up: Running gawk

#### 1.1.5 Comments in awk Programs

A comment is some text that is included in a program for the sake of human readers; it is not really an executable part of the program. Comments can explain what the program does and how it works. Nearly all programming languages have provisions for comments, as programs are typically hard to understand without them.

In the awk language, a comment starts with the sharp sign character (#) and continues to the end of the line. The # does not have to be the first character on the line. The awk language ignores the rest of a line following a sharp sign. For example, we could have put the following into advice:

         # This program prints a nice friendly message.  It helps
         # keep novice users from being afraid of the computer.
         BEGIN    { print "Don't Panic!" }

You can put comment lines into keyboard-composed throwaway awk programs, but this usually isn't very useful; the purpose of a comment is to help you or another person understand the program when reading it at a later time.

Caution: As mentioned in One-shot, you can enclose small to medium programs in single quotes, in order to keep your shell scripts self-contained. When doing so, don't put an apostrophe (i.e., a single quote) into a comment (or anywhere else in your program). The shell interprets the quote as the closing quote for the entire program. As a result, usually the shell prints a message about mismatched quotes, and if awk actually runs, it will probably print strange messages about syntax errors. For example, look at the following:

         $ awk '{ print "hello" } # let's be cute'
         >

The shell sees that the first two quotes match, and that a new quoted object begins at the end of the command line. It therefore prompts with the secondary prompt, waiting for more input. With Unix awk, closing the quoted string produces this result:

         $ awk '{ print "hello" } # let's be cute'
         > '
         error--> awk: can't open file be
         error-->  source line number 1

Putting a backslash before the single quote in let's wouldn't help, since backslashes are not special inside single quotes. The next subsection describes the shell's quoting rules.

Previous: Comments, Up: Running gawk

#### 1.1.6 Shell-Quoting Issues

For short to medium length awk programs, it is most convenient to enter the program on the awk command line. This is best done by enclosing the entire program in single quotes. This is true whether you are entering the program interactively at the shell prompt, or writing it as part of a larger shell script:

         awk 'program text' input-file1 input-file2 ...

Once you are working with the shell, it is helpful to have a basic knowledge of shell quoting rules. The following rules apply only to POSIX-compliant, Bourne-style shells (such as bash, the GNU Bourne-Again Shell). If you use csh, you're on your own.

- Quoted items can be concatenated with nonquoted items as well as with other quoted items. The shell turns everything into one argument for the command.
- Preceding any single character with a backslash (\) quotes that character. The shell removes the backslash and passes the quoted character on to the command.
- Single quotes protect everything between the opening and closing quotes. The shell does no interpretation of the quoted text, passing it on verbatim to the command. It is impossible to embed a single quote inside single-quoted text. Refer back to Comments, for an example of what happens if you try.
- Double quotes protect most things between the opening and closing quotes. The shell does at least variable and command substitution on the quoted text. Different shells may do additional kinds of processing on double-quoted text.

  Since certain characters within double-quoted text are processed by the shell, they must be escaped within the text. Of note are the characters $, `, \, and ", all of which must be preceded by a backslash within double-quoted text if they are to be passed on literally to the program. (The leading backslash is stripped first.) Thus, the example seen previously in Read Terminal, is applicable:

                $ awk "BEGIN { print \"Don't Panic!\" }"
                -| Don't Panic!

  Note that the single quote is not special within double quotes.

- Null strings are removed when they occur as part of a non-null command-line argument, while explicit non-null objects are kept. For example, to specify that the field separator `FS` should be set to the null string, use:

                awk -F "" 'program' files # correct

  Don't use this:

                awk -F"" 'program' files  # wrong!

  In the second case, awk will attempt to use the text of the program as the value of `FS`, and the first file name as the text of the program! This results in syntax errors at best, and confusing behavior at worst.

Mixing single and double quotes is difficult. You have to resort to shell quoting tricks, like this:

         $ awk 'BEGIN { print "Here is a single quote <'"'"'>" }'
         -| Here is a single quote <'>

This program consists of three concatenated quoted strings. The first and the third are single-quoted, the second is double-quoted.

This can be “simplified” to:

         $ awk 'BEGIN { print "Here is a single quote <'\''>" }'
         -| Here is a single quote <'>

Judge for yourself which of these two is the more readable.

Another option is to use double quotes, escaping the embedded, awk-level double quotes:

         $ awk "BEGIN { print \"Here is a single quote <'>\" }"
         -| Here is a single quote <'>

This option is also painful, because double quotes, backslashes, and dollar signs are very common in awk programs.

A third option is to use the octal escape sequence equivalents for the single- and double-quote characters, like so:

         $ awk 'BEGIN { print "Here is a single quote <\47>" }'
         -| Here is a single quote <'>
         $ awk 'BEGIN { print "Here is a double quote <\42>" }'
         -| Here is a double quote <">

This works nicely, except that you should comment clearly what the escapes mean.

A fourth option is to use command-line variable assignment, like this:

         $ awk -v sq="'" 'BEGIN { print "Here is a single quote <" sq ">" }'
         -| Here is a single quote <'>

If you really need both single and double quotes in your awk program, it is probably best to move it into a separate file, where the shell won't be part of the picture, and you can say what you mean.

Next: Very Simple, Previous: Running gawk, Up: Getting Started

### 1.2 Data Files for the Examples

Many of the examples in this Web page take their input from two sample data files. The first, BBS-list, represents a list of computer bulletin board systems together with information about those systems. The second data file, called inventory-shipped, contains information about monthly shipments. In both files, each line is considered to be one record.

In the data file BBS-list, each record contains the name of a computer bulletin board, its phone number, the board's baud rate(s), and a code for the number of hours it is operational. An A in the last column means the board operates 24 hours a day. A B in the last column means the board only operates on evening and weekend hours. A C means the board operates only on weekends:

         aardvark     555-5553     1200/300          B
         alpo-net     555-3412     2400/1200/300     A
         barfly       555-7685     1200/300          A
         bites        555-1675     2400/1200/300     A
         camelot      555-0542     300               C
         core         555-2912     1200/300          C
         fooey        555-1234     2400/1200/300     B
         foot         555-6699     1200/300          B
         macfoo       555-6480     1200/300          A
         sdace        555-3430     2400/1200/300     A
         sabafoo      555-2127     1200/300          C

The data file inventory-shipped represents information about shipments during the year. Each record contains the month, the number of green crates shipped, the number of red boxes shipped, the number of orange bags shipped, and the number of blue packages shipped, respectively. There are 16 entries, covering the 12 months of last year and the first four months of the current year.

         Jan  13  25  15 115
         Feb  15  32  24 226
         Mar  15  24  34 228
         Apr  31  52  63 420
         May  16  34  29 208
         Jun  31  42  75 492
         Jul  24  34  67 436
         Aug  15  34  47 316
         Sep  13  55  37 277
         Oct  29  54  68 525
         Nov  20  87  82 577
         Dec  17  35  61 401

         Jan  21  36  64 620
         Feb  26  58  80 652
         Mar  24  75  70 495
         Apr  21  70  74 514

Next: Two Rules, Previous: Sample Data Files, Up: Getting Started

### 1.3 Some Simple Examples

The following command runs a simple awk program that searches the input file BBS-list for the character string foo (a grouping of characters is usually called a string; the term string is based on similar usage in English, such as “a string of pearls,” or “a string of cars in a train”):

         awk '/foo/ { print $0 }' BBS-list

When lines containing foo are found, they are printed because print $0 means print the current line. (Just print by itself means the same thing, so we could have written that instead.)

You will notice that slashes (/) surround the string foo in the awk program. The slashes indicate that foo is the pattern to search for. This type of pattern is called a regular expression, which is covered in more detail later (see Regexp). The pattern is allowed to match parts of words. There are single quotes around the awk program so that the shell won't interpret any of it as special shell characters.

Here is what this program prints:

         $ awk '/foo/ { print $0 }' BBS-list
         -| fooey        555-1234     2400/1200/300     B
         -| foot         555-6699     1200/300          B
         -| macfoo       555-6480     1200/300          A
         -| sabafoo      555-2127     1200/300          C

In an awk rule, either the pattern or the action can be omitted, but not both. If the pattern is omitted, then the action is performed for every input line. If the action is omitted, the default action is to print all lines that match the pattern.

Thus, we could leave out the action (the `print` statement and the curly braces) in the previous example and the result would be the same: all lines matching the pattern foo are printed. By comparison, omitting the `print` statement but retaining the curly braces makes an empty action that does nothing (i.e., no lines are printed).

Many practical awk programs are just a line or two. Following is a collection of useful, short programs to get you started. Some of these programs contain constructs that haven't been covered yet. (The description of the program will give you a good idea of what is going on, but please read the rest of the Web page to become an awk expert!) Most of the examples use a data file named data. This is just a placeholder; if you use these programs yourself, substitute your own file names for data. For future reference, note that there is often more than one way to do things in awk. At some point, you may want to look back at these examples and see if you can come up with different ways to do the same things shown here:

- Print the length of the longest input line:

                awk '{ if (length($0) > max) max = length($0) }
                     END { print max }' data

- Print every line that is longer than 80 characters:

                awk 'length($0) > 80' data

  The sole rule has a relational expression as its pattern and it has no action—so the default action, printing the record, is used.

- Print the length of the longest line in data:

                expand data | awk '{ if (x < length()) x = length() }
                              END { print "maximum line length is " x }'

  The input is processed by the expand utility to change tabs into spaces, so the widths compared are actually the right-margin columns.

- Print every line that has at least one field:

                awk 'NF > 0' data

  This is an easy way to delete blank lines from a file (or rather, to create a new file similar to the old file but from which the blank lines have been removed).

- Print seven random numbers from 0 to 100, inclusive:

                awk 'BEGIN { for (i = 1; i <= 7; i++)
                                 print int(101 * rand()) }'

- Print the total number of bytes used by files:

                ls -l files | awk '{ x += $5 }
                                  END { print "total bytes: " x }'

- Print the total number of kilobytes used by files:

                ls -l files | awk '{ x += $5 }
                   END { print "total K-bytes: " (x + 1023)/1024 }'

- Print a sorted list of the login names of all users:

                awk -F: '{ print $1 }' /etc/passwd | sort

- Count the lines in a file:

                awk 'END { print NR }' data

- Print the even-numbered lines in the data file:

                awk 'NR % 2 == 0' data

  If you use the expression NR % 2 == 1 instead, the program would print the odd-numbered lines.

Next: More Complex, Previous: Very Simple, Up: Getting Started

### 1.4 An Example with Two Rules

The awk utility reads the input files one line at a time. For each line, awk tries the patterns of each of the rules. If several patterns match, then several actions are run in the order in which they appear in the awk program. If no patterns match, then no actions are run.

After processing all the rules that match the line (and perhaps there are none), awk reads the next line. (However, see Next Statement, and also see Nextfile Statement). This continues until the program reaches the end of the file. For example, the following awk program contains two rules:

         /12/  { print $0 }
         /21/  { print $0 }

The first rule has the string 12 as the pattern and print $0 as the action. The second rule has the string 21 as the pattern and also has print $0 as the action. Each rule's action is enclosed in its own pair of braces.

This program prints every line that contains the string 12 or the string 21. If a line contains both strings, it is printed twice, once by each rule.

This is what happens if we run this program on our two sample data files, BBS-list and inventory-shipped:

         $ awk '/12/ { print $0 }
         >      /21/ { print $0 }' BBS-list inventory-shipped
         -| aardvark     555-5553     1200/300          B
         -| alpo-net     555-3412     2400/1200/300     A
         -| barfly       555-7685     1200/300          A
         -| bites        555-1675     2400/1200/300     A
         -| core         555-2912     1200/300          C
         -| fooey        555-1234     2400/1200/300     B
         -| foot         555-6699     1200/300          B
         -| macfoo       555-6480     1200/300          A
         -| sdace        555-3430     2400/1200/300     A
         -| sabafoo      555-2127     1200/300          C
         -| sabafoo      555-2127     1200/300          C
         -| Jan  21  36  64 620
         -| Apr  21  70  74 514

Note how the line beginning with sabafoo in BBS-list was printed twice, once for each rule.

Next: Statements/Lines, Previous: Two Rules, Up: Getting Started

### 1.5 A More Complex Example

Now that we've mastered some simple tasks, let's look at what typical awk programs do. This example shows how awk can be used to summarize, select, and rearrange the output of another utility. It uses features that haven't been covered yet, so don't worry if you don't understand all the details:

         ls -l | awk '$6 == "Nov" { sum += $5 }
                      END { print sum }'

This command prints the total number of bytes in all the files in the current directory that were last modified in November (of any year). 9 The ls -l part of this example is a system command that gives you a listing of the files in a directory, including each file's size and the date the file was last modified. Its output looks like this:

         -rw-r--r--  1 arnold   user   1933 Nov  7 13:05 Makefile
         -rw-r--r--  1 arnold   user  10809 Nov  7 13:03 awk.h
         -rw-r--r--  1 arnold   user    983 Apr 13 12:14 awk.tab.h
         -rw-r--r--  1 arnold   user  31869 Jun 15 12:20 awk.y
         -rw-r--r--  1 arnold   user  22414 Nov  7 13:03 awk1.c
         -rw-r--r--  1 arnold   user  37455 Nov  7 13:03 awk2.c
         -rw-r--r--  1 arnold   user  27511 Dec  9 13:07 awk3.c
         -rw-r--r--  1 arnold   user   7989 Nov  7 13:03 awk4.c

The first field contains read-write permissions, the second field contains the number of links to the file, and the third field identifies the owner of the file. The fourth field identifies the group of the file. The fifth field contains the size of the file in bytes. The sixth, seventh, and eighth fields contain the month, day, and time, respectively, that the file was last modified. Finally, the ninth field contains the name of the file.10

The $6 == "Nov" in our awk program is an expression that tests whether the sixth field of the output from ls -l matches the string Nov. Each time a line has the string Nov for its sixth field, the action sum += $5 is performed. This adds the fifth field (the file's size) to the variable `sum`. As a result, when awk has finished reading all the input lines, `sum` is the total of the sizes of the files whose lines matched the pattern. (This works because awk variables are automatically initialized to zero.)

After the last line of output from ls has been processed, the `END` rule executes and prints the value of `sum`. In this example, the value of `sum` is 80600.

These more advanced awk techniques are covered in later sections (see Action Overview). Before you can move on to more advanced awk programming, you have to know how awk interprets your input and displays your output. By manipulating fields and using `print` statements, you can produce some very useful and impressive-looking reports.

Next: Other Features, Previous: More Complex, Up: Getting Started

### 1.6 awk Statements Versus Lines

Most often, each line in an awk program is a separate statement or separate rule, like this:

         awk '/12/  { print $0 }
              /21/  { print $0 }' BBS-list inventory-shipped

However, gawk ignores newlines after any of the following symbols and keywords:

         ,    {    ?    :    ||    &&    do    else

A newline at any other point is considered the end of the statement.11

If you would like to split a single statement into two lines at a point where a newline would terminate it, you can continue it by ending the first line with a backslash character (\). The backslash must be the final character on the line in order to be recognized as a continuation character. A backslash is allowed anywhere in the statement, even in the middle of a string or regular expression. For example:

         awk '/This regular expression is too long, so continue it\
          on the next line/ { print $1 }'

We have generally not used backslash continuation in the sample programs in this Web page. In gawk, there is no limit on the length of a line, so backslash continuation is never strictly necessary; it just makes programs more readable. For this same reason, as well as for clarity, we have kept most statements short in the sample programs presented throughout the Web page. Backslash continuation is most useful when your awk program is in a separate source file instead of entered from the command line. You should also note that many awk implementations are more particular about where you may use backslash continuation. For example, they may not allow you to split a string constant using backslash continuation. Thus, for maximum portability of your awk programs, it is best not to split your lines in the middle of a regular expression or a string.

Caution: Backslash continuation does not work as described with the C shell. It works for awk programs in files and for one-shot programs, provided you are using a POSIX-compliant shell, such as the Unix Bourne shell or bash. But the C shell behaves differently! There, you must use two backslashes in a row, followed by a newline. Note also that when using the C shell, every newline in your awk program must be escaped with a backslash. To illustrate:

         % awk 'BEGIN { \
         ?   print \\
         ?       "hello, world" \
         ? }'
         -| hello, world

Here, the % and ? are the C shell's primary and secondary prompts, analogous to the standard shell's $ and >.

Compare the previous example to how it is done with a POSIX-compliant shell:

         $ awk 'BEGIN {
         >   print \
         >       "hello, world"
         > }'
         -| hello, world

awk is a line-oriented language. Each rule's action has to begin on the same line as the pattern. To have the pattern and action on separate lines, you must use backslash continuation; there is no other option.

Another thing to keep in mind is that backslash continuation and comments do not mix. As soon as awk sees the # that starts a comment, it ignores everything on the rest of the line. For example:

         $ gawk 'BEGIN { print "dont panic" # a friendly \
         >                                    BEGIN rule
         > }'
         error--> gawk: cmd. line:2:                BEGIN rule
         error--> gawk: cmd. line:2:                ^ parse error

In this case, it looks like the backslash would continue the comment onto the next line. However, the backslash-newline combination is never even noticed because it is “hidden” inside the comment. Thus, the `BEGIN` is noted as a syntax error.

When awk statements within one rule are short, you might want to put more than one of them on a line. This is accomplished by separating the statements with a semicolon (;). This also applies to the rules themselves. Thus, the program shown at the start of this section could also be written this way:

         /12/ { print $0 } ; /21/ { print $0 }

> NOTE: The requirement that states that rules on the same line must be separated with a semicolon was not in the original awk language; it was added for consistency with the treatment of statements within an action.

Next: When, Previous: Statements/Lines, Up: Getting Started

### 1.7 Other Features of awk

The awk language provides a number of predefined, or built-in, variables that your programs can use to get information from awk. There are other variables your program can set as well to control how awk processes your data.

In addition, awk provides a number of built-in functions for doing common computational and string-related operations. gawk provides built-in functions for working with timestamps, performing bit manipulation, and for runtime string translation.

As we develop our presentation of the awk language, we introduce most of the variables and many of the functions. They are defined systematically in Built-in Variables, and Built-in.

Previous: Other Features, Up: Getting Started

### 1.8 When to Use awk

Now that you've seen some of what awk can do, you might wonder how awk could be useful for you. By using utility programs, advanced patterns, field separators, arithmetic statements, and other selection criteria, you can produce much more complex output. The awk language is very useful for producing reports from large amounts of raw data, such as summarizing information from the output of other utility programs like ls. (See More Complex.)

Programs written with awk are usually much smaller than they would be in other languages. This makes awk programs easy to compose and use. Often, awk programs can be quickly composed at your terminal, used once, and thrown away. Because awk programs are interpreted, you can avoid the (usually lengthy) compilation part of the typical edit-compile-test-debug cycle of software development.

Complex programs have been written in awk, including a complete retargetable assembler for eight-bit microprocessors (see Glossary, for more information), and a microcode assembler for a special-purpose Prolog computer. More recently, gawk was used for writing a Wiki clone.12 While the original awk's capabilities were strained by tasks of such complexity, modern versions are more capable. Even the Bell Labs version of awk has fewer predefined limits, and those that it has are much larger than they used to be.

If you find yourself writing awk scripts of more than, say, a few hundred lines, you might consider using a different programming language. Emacs Lisp is a good choice if you need sophisticated string or pattern matching capabilities. The shell is also good at string and pattern matching; in addition, it allows powerful use of the system utilities. More conventional languages, such as C, C++, and Java, offer better facilities for system programming and for managing the complexity of large programs. Programs in these languages may require more lines of source code than the equivalent awk programs, but they are easier to maintain and usually run more efficiently.

Next: Reading Files, Previous: Getting Started, Up: Top

## 2 Regular Expressions

A regular expression, or regexp, is a way of describing a set of strings. Because regular expressions are such a fundamental part of awk programming, their format and use deserve a separate chapter.

A regular expression enclosed in slashes (/) is an awk pattern that matches every input record whose text belongs to that set. The simplest regular expression is a sequence of letters, numbers, or both. Such a regexp matches any string that contains that sequence. Thus, the regexp foo matches any string containing foo. Therefore, the pattern `/foo/` matches any input record containing the three characters foo anywhere in the record. Other kinds of regexps let you specify more complicated classes of strings.

Initially, the examples in this chapter are simple. As we explain more about how regular expressions work, we will present more complicated instances.

Next: Escape Sequences, Up: Regexp

### 2.1 How to Use Regular Expressions

A regular expression can be used as a pattern by enclosing it in slashes. Then the regular expression is tested against the entire text of each record. (Normally, it only needs to match some part of the text in order to succeed.) For example, the following prints the second field of each record that contains the string foo anywhere in it:

         $ awk '/foo/ { print $2 }' BBS-list
         -| 555-1234
         -| 555-6699
         -| 555-6480
         -| 555-2127

`~` (tilde), `~` operator Regular expressions can also be used in matching expressions. These expressions allow you to specify the string to match against; it need not be the entire current input record. The two operators ~ and !~ perform regular expression comparisons. Expressions using these operators can be used as patterns, or in `if`, `while`, `for`, and `do` statements. (See Statements.) For example:

         exp ~ /regexp/

is true if the expression exp (taken as a string) matches regexp. The following example matches, or selects, all input records with the uppercase letter J somewhere in the first field:

         $ awk '$1 ~ /J/' inventory-shipped
         -| Jan  13  25  15 115
         -| Jun  31  42  75 492
         -| Jul  24  34  67 436
         -| Jan  21  36  64 620

So does this:

         awk '{ if ($1 ~ /J/) print }' inventory-shipped

This next example is true if the expression exp (taken as a character string) does not match regexp:

         exp !~ /regexp/

The following example matches, or selects, all input records whose first field does not contain the uppercase letter J:

         $ awk '$1 !~ /J/' inventory-shipped
         -| Feb  15  32  24 226
         -| Mar  15  24  34 228
         -| Apr  31  52  63 420
         -| May  16  34  29 208
         ...

When a regexp is enclosed in slashes, such as `/foo/`, we call it a regexp constant, much like `5.27` is a numeric constant and `"foo"` is a string constant.

Next: Regexp Operators, Previous: Regexp Usage, Up: Regexp

### 2.2 Escape Sequences

Some characters cannot be included literally in string constants (`"foo"`) or regexp constants (`/foo/`). Instead, they should be represented with escape sequences, which are character sequences beginning with a backslash (\). One use of an escape sequence is to include a double-quote character in a string constant. Because a plain double quote ends the string, you must use \" to represent an actual double-quote character as a part of the string. For example:

         $ awk 'BEGIN { print "He said \"hi!\" to her." }'
         -| He said "hi!" to her.

The backslash character itself is another character that cannot be included normally; you must write \\ to put one backslash in the string or regexp. Thus, the string whose contents are the two characters " and \ must be written `"\"\\"`.

Backslash also represents unprintable characters such as TAB or newline. While there is nothing to stop you from entering most unprintable characters directly in a string constant or regexp constant, they may look ugly.

The following table lists all the escape sequences used in awk and what they represent. Unless noted otherwise, all these escape sequences apply to both string constants and regexp constants:

`\\`
  A literal backslash, \.

`\a`
  The “alert” character, `Ctrl-g`, ASCII code 7 (BEL). (This usually makes some sort of audible noise.)

`\b`
  Backspace, `Ctrl-h`, ASCII code 8 (BS).

`\f`
  Formfeed, `Ctrl-l`, ASCII code 12 (FF).

`\n`
  Newline, `Ctrl-j`, ASCII code 10 (LF).

`\r`
  Carriage return, `Ctrl-m`, ASCII code 13 (CR).

`\t`
  Horizontal TAB, `Ctrl-i`, ASCII code 9 (HT).

`\v`
  Vertical tab, `Ctrl-k`, ASCII code 11 (VT).

`\`nnn
  The octal value nnn, where nnn stands for 1 to 3 digits between 0 and 7. For example, the code for the ASCII ESC (escape) character is \033.

`\x` hh`...`
  The hexadecimal value hh, where hh stands for a sequence of hexadecimal digits (0–9, and either A–F or a–f). Like the same construct in ISO C, the escape sequence continues until the first nonhexadecimal digit is seen. However, using more than two hexadecimal digits produces undefined results. (The \x escape sequence is not allowed in POSIX awk.)

`\/`
  A literal slash (necessary for regexp constants only). This expression is used when you want to write a regexp constant that contains a slash. Because the regexp is delimited by slashes, you need to escape the slash that is part of the pattern, in order to tell awk to keep processing the rest of the regexp.

`\"`
  A literal double quote (necessary for string constants only). This expression is used when you want to write a string constant that contains a double quote. Because the string is delimited by double quotes, you need to escape the quote that is part of the string, in order to tell awk to keep processing the rest of the string.

In gawk, a number of additional two-character sequences that begin with a backslash have special meaning in regexps. See GNU Regexp Operators.

In a regexp, a backslash before any character that is not in the previous list and not listed in GNU Regexp Operators, means that the next character should be taken literally, even if it would normally be a regexp operator. For example, `/a\+b/` matches the three characters a+b.

For complete portability, do not use a backslash before any character not shown in the previous list.

To summarize:

- The escape sequences in the table above are always processed first, for both string constants and regexp constants. This happens very early, as soon as awk reads your program.
- gawk processes both regexp constants and dynamic regexps (see Computed Regexps), for the special operators listed in GNU Regexp Operators.
- A backslash before any other character means to treat that character literally.

#### Advanced Notes: Backslash Before Regular Characters

If you place a backslash in a string constant before something that is not one of the characters previously listed, POSIX awk purposely leaves what happens as undefined. There are two choices:

Strip the backslash out
  This is what Unix awk and gawk both do. For example, `"a\qc"` is the same as `"aqc"`. (Because this is such an easy bug both to introduce and to miss, gawk warns you about it.) Consider FS = "[ \t]+\|[ \t]+" to use vertical bars surrounded by whitespace as the field separator. There should be two backslashes in the string FS = "[ \t]+\\|[ \t]+".)

Leave the backslash alone
  Some other awk implementations do this. In such implementations, typing `"a\qc"` is the same as typing `"a\\qc"`.

#### Advanced Notes: Escape Sequences for Metacharacters

Suppose you use an octal or hexadecimal escape to represent a regexp metacharacter. (See Regexp Operators.) Does awk treat the character as a literal character or as a regexp operator?

Historically, such characters were taken literally. (d.c.) However, the POSIX standard indicates that they should be treated as real metacharacters, which is what gawk does. In compatibility mode (see Options), gawk treats the characters represented by octal and hexadecimal escape sequences literally when used in regexp constants. Thus, `/a\52b/` is equivalent to `/a\*b/`.

Next: Character Lists, Previous: Escape Sequences, Up: Regexp

### 2.3 Regular Expression Operators

You can combine regular expressions with special characters, called regular expression operators or metacharacters, to increase the power and versatility of regular expressions.

The escape sequences described earlier in Escape Sequences, are valid inside a regexp. They are introduced by a \ and are recognized and converted into corresponding real characters as the very first step in processing regexps.

Here is a list of metacharacters. All characters that are not escape sequences and that are not listed in the table stand for themselves:

`\`
  This is used to suppress the special meaning of a character when matching. For example, \$ matches the character $.

`^`
  This matches the beginning of a string. For example, ^@chapter matches @chapter at the beginning of a string and can be used to identify chapter beginnings in Texinfo source files. The ^ is known as an anchor, because it anchors the pattern to match only at the beginning of the string.

  It is important to realize that ^ does not match the beginning of a line embedded in a string. The condition is not true in the following example:

                if ("line1\nLINE 2" ~ /^L/) ...

`$`
  This is similar to ^, but it matches only at the end of a string. For example, p$ matches a record that ends with a p. The $ is an anchor and does not match the end of a line embedded in a string. The condition in the following example is not true:

                if ("line1\nLINE 2" ~ /1$/) ...

`.`
  This matches any single character, including the newline character. For example, .P matches any single character followed by a P in a string. Using concatenation, we can make a regular expression such as U.A, which matches any three-character sequence that begins with U and ends with A.

  In strict POSIX mode (see Options), . does not match the nul character, which is a character with all bits equal to zero. Otherwise, nul is just another character. Other versions of awk may not be able to match the nul character.

`[...]`
  This is called a character list.13 It matches any one of the characters that are enclosed in the square brackets. For example, [MVX] matches any one of the characters M, V, or X in a string. A full discussion of what can be inside the square brackets of a character list is given in Character Lists.

`[^ ...]`
  This is a complemented character list. The first character after the [ must be a ^. It matches any characters except those in the square brackets. For example, [^awk] matches any character that is not an a, w, or k.

`|`
  This is the alternation operator and it is used to specify alternatives. The | has the lowest precedence of all the regular expression operators. For example, ^P|[[:digit:]] matches any string that matches either ^P or [[:digit:]]. This means it matches any string that starts with P or contains a digit.

  The alternation applies to the largest possible regexps on either side.

`(...)`
  Parentheses are used for grouping in regular expressions, as in arithmetic. They can be used to concatenate regular expressions containing the alternation operator, |. For example, @(samp|code)\{[^}]+\} matches both @code{foo} and @samp{bar}. (These are Texinfo formatting control sequences. The + is explained further on in this list.)

`*`
  This symbol means that the preceding regular expression should be repeated as many times as necessary to find a match. For example, ph* applies the * symbol to the preceding h and looks for matches of one p followed by any number of hs. This also matches just p if no hs are present.

  The * repeats the smallest possible preceding expression. (Use parentheses if you want to repeat a larger expression.) It finds as many repetitions as possible. For example, awk '/\(c[ad][ad]*r x\)/ { print }' sample prints every record in sample containing a string of the form (car x), (cdr x), (cadr x), and so on. Notice the escaping of the parentheses by preceding them with backslashes.

`+`
  This symbol is similar to *, except that the preceding expression must be matched at least once. This means that wh+y would match why and whhy, but not wy, whereas wh*y would match all three of these strings. The following is a simpler way of writing the last * example:

                awk '/\(c[ad]+r x\)/ { print }' sample

`?`
  This symbol is similar to *, except that the preceding expression can be matched either once or not at all. For example, fe?d matches fed and fd, but nothing else.

`{`n`}`
`{`n`,}`
`{`n`,`m`}`
  One or two numbers inside braces denote an interval expression. If there is one number in the braces, the preceding regexp is repeated n times. If there are two numbers separated by a comma, the preceding regexp is repeated n to m times. If there is one number followed by a comma, then the preceding regexp is repeated at least n times:
  `wh{3}y`
    Matches whhhy, but not why or whhhhy.
  `wh{3,5}y`
    Matches whhhy, whhhhy, or whhhhhy, only.
  `wh{2,}y`
    Matches whhy or whhhy, and so on.

  Interval expressions were not traditionally available in awk. They were added as part of the POSIX standard to make awk and egrep consistent with each other.

  However, because old programs may use { and } in regexp constants, by default gawk does not match interval expressions in regexps. If either --posix or --re-interval are specified (see Options), then interval expressions are allowed in regexps.

  For new programs that use { and } in regexp constants, it is good practice to always escape them with a backslash. Then the regexp constants are valid and work the way you want them to, using any version of awk.14

In regular expressions, the *, +, and ? operators, as well as the braces { and }, have the highest precedence, followed by concatenation, and finally by |. As in arithmetic, parentheses can change how operators are grouped.

In POSIX awk and gawk, the *, +, and ? operators stand for themselves when there is nothing in the regexp that precedes them. For example, /+/ matches a literal plus sign. However, many other versions of awk treat such a usage as a syntax error.

If gawk is in compatibility mode (see Options), POSIX character classes and interval expressions are not available in regular expressions.

Next: GNU Regexp Operators, Previous: Regexp Operators, Up: Regexp

### 2.4 Using Character Lists

Within a character list, a range expression consists of two characters separated by a hyphen. It matches any single character that sorts between the two characters, using the locale's collating sequence and character set. For example, in the default C locale, [a-dx-z] is equivalent to [abcdxyz]. Many locales sort characters in dictionary order, and in these locales, [a-dx-z] is typically not equivalent to [abcdxyz]; instead it might be equivalent to [aBbCcDdxXyYz], for example. To obtain the traditional interpretation of bracket expressions, you can use the C locale by setting the LC_ALL environment variable to the value C.

To include one of the characters \, ], -, or ^ in a character list, put a \ in front of it. For example:

         [d\]]

matches either d or ].

This treatment of \ in character lists is compatible with other awk implementations and is also mandated by POSIX. The regular expressions in awk are a superset of the POSIX specification for Extended Regular Expressions (EREs). POSIX EREs are based on the regular expressions accepted by the traditional egrep utility.

Character classes are a new feature introduced in the POSIX standard. A character class is a special notation for describing lists of characters that have a specific attribute, but the actual characters can vary from country to country and/or from character set to character set. For example, the notion of what is an alphabetic character differs between the United States and France.

A character class is only valid in a regexp inside the brackets of a character list. Character classes consist of [:, a keyword denoting the class, and :]. table-char-classes lists the character classes defined by the POSIX standard.

Class | Meaning
--- | ---
`[:alnum:]` | Alphanumeric characters.
`[:alpha:]` | Alphabetic characters.
`[:blank:]` | Space and TAB characters.
`[:cntrl:]` | Control characters.
`[:digit:]` | Numeric characters.
`[:graph:]` | Characters that are both printable and visible. (A space is printable but not visible, whereas an a is both.)
`[:lower:]` | Lowercase alphabetic characters.
`[:print:]` | Printable characters (characters that are not control characters).
`[:punct:]` | Punctuation characters (characters that are not letters, digits, control characters, or space characters).
`[:space:]` | Space characters (such as space, TAB, and formfeed, to name a few).
`[:upper:]` | Uppercase alphabetic characters.
`[:xdigit:]` | Characters that are hexadecimal digits.

Table 2.1: POSIX Character Classes

For example, before the POSIX standard, you had to write `/[A-Za-z0-9]/` to match alphanumeric characters. If your character set had other alphabetic characters in it, this would not match them, and if your character set collated differently from ASCII, this might not even match the ASCII alphanumeric characters. With the POSIX character classes, you can write `/[[:alnum:]]/` to match the alphabetic and numeric characters in your character set.

Two additional special sequences can appear in character lists. These apply to non-ASCII character sets, which can have single symbols (called collating elements) that are represented with more than one character. They can also have several characters that are equivalent for collating, or sorting, purposes. (For example, in French, a plain “e” and a grave-accented “è” are equivalent.) These sequences are:

Collating symbols
  Multicharacter collating elements enclosed between [. and .]. For example, if ch is a collating element, then `[[.ch.]]` is a regexp that matches this collating element, whereas `[ch]` is a regexp that matches either c or h.

Equivalence classes
  Locale-specific names for a list of characters that are equal. The name is enclosed between [= and =]. For example, the name e might be used to represent all of “e,” “è,” and “é.” In this case, `[[=e=]]` is a regexp that matches any of e, é, or è.

These features are very valuable in non-English-speaking locales.

Caution: The library functions that gawk uses for regular expression matching currently recognize only POSIX character classes; they do not recognize collating symbols or equivalence classes.

Next: Case-sensitivity, Previous: Character Lists, Up: Regexp

### 2.5 gawk-Specific Regexp Operators

GNU software that deals with regular expressions provides a number of additional regexp operators. These operators are described in this section and are specific to gawk; they are not available in other awk implementations. Most of the additional operators deal with word matching. For our purposes, a word is a sequence of one or more letters, digits, or underscores (_):

`\w`
  Matches any word-constituent character—that is, it matches any letter, digit, or underscore. Think of it as shorthand for `[[:alnum:]_]`.

`\W`
  Matches any character that is not word-constituent. Think of it as shorthand for `[^[:alnum:]_]`.

`\<`
  Matches the empty string at the beginning of a word. For example, `/\<away/` matches away but not stowaway.

`\>`
  Matches the empty string at the end of a word. For example, `/stow\>/` matches stow but not stowaway.

`\y`
  Matches the empty string at either the beginning or the end of a word (i.e., the word boundary). For example, \yballs?\y matches either ball or balls, as a separate word.

`\B`
  Matches the empty string that occurs between two word-constituent characters. For example, `/\Brat\B/` matches crate but it does not match dirty rat. \B is essentially the opposite of \y.

There are two other operators that work on buffers. In Emacs, a buffer is, naturally, an Emacs buffer. For other programs, gawk's regexp library routines consider the entire string to match as the buffer. The operators are:

`\``
  Matches the empty string at the beginning of a buffer (string).

`\'`
  Matches the empty string at the end of a buffer (string).

Because ^ and $ always work in terms of the beginning and end of strings, these operators don't add any new capabilities for awk. They are provided for compatibility with other GNU software.

In other GNU software, the word-boundary operator is \b. However, that conflicts with the awk language's definition of \b as backspace, so gawk uses a different letter. An alternative method would have been to require two backslashes in the GNU operators, but this was deemed too confusing. The current method of using \y for the GNU \b appears to be the lesser of two evils.

The various command-line options (see Options) control how gawk interprets characters in regexps:

No options
  In the default case, gawk provides all the facilities of POSIX regexps and the previously described GNU regexp operators. GNU regexp operators described in Regexp Operators. However, interval expressions are not supported.
`--posix`
  Only POSIX regexps are supported; the GNU operators are not special (e.g., \w matches a literal w). Interval expressions are allowed.
`--traditional`
  Traditional Unix awk regexps are matched. The GNU operators are not special, interval expressions are not available, nor are the POSIX character classes (`[[:alnum:]]`, etc.). Characters described by octal and hexadecimal escape sequences are treated literally, even if they represent regexp metacharacters.
`--re-interval`
  Allow interval expressions in regexps, even if --traditional has been provided. (--posix automatically enables interval expressions, so --re-interval is redundant when --posix is is used.)

Next: Leftmost Longest, Previous: GNU Regexp Operators, Up: Regexp

### 2.6 Case Sensitivity in Matching

Case is normally significant in regular expressions, both when matching ordinary characters (i.e., not metacharacters) and inside character sets. Thus, a w in a regular expression matches only a lowercase w and not an uppercase W.

The simplest way to do a case-independent match is to use a character list—for example, [Ww]. However, this can be cumbersome if you need to use it often, and it can make the regular expressions harder to read. There are two alternatives that you might prefer.

One way to perform a case-insensitive match at a particular point in the program is to convert the data to a single case, using the `tolower` or `toupper` built-in string functions (which we haven't discussed yet; see String Functions). For example:

         tolower($1) ~ /foo/  { ... }

converts the first field to lowercase before matching against it. This works in any POSIX-compliant awk.

Another method, specific to gawk, is to set the variable `IGNORECASE` to a nonzero value (see Built-in Variables). When `IGNORECASE` is not zero, all regexp and string operations ignore case. Changing the value of `IGNORECASE` dynamically controls the case-sensitivity of the program as it runs. Case is significant by default because `IGNORECASE` (like most variables) is initialized to zero:

         x = "aB"
         if (x ~ /ab/) ...   # this test will fail

         IGNORECASE = 1
         if (x ~ /ab/) ...   # now it will succeed

In general, you cannot use `IGNORECASE` to make certain rules case-insensitive and other rules case-sensitive, because there is no straightforward way to set `IGNORECASE` just for the pattern of a particular rule.15 To do this, use either character lists or `tolower`. However, one thing you can do with `IGNORECASE` only is dynamically turn case-sensitivity on or off for all the rules at once.

`IGNORECASE` can be set on the command line or in a `BEGIN` rule (see Other Arguments; also see Using BEGIN/END). Setting `IGNORECASE` from the command line is a way to make a program case-insensitive without having to edit it.

Prior to gawk 3.0, the value of `IGNORECASE` affected regexp operations only. It did not affect string comparison with ==, !=, and so on. Beginning with version 3.0, both regexp and string comparison operations are also affected by `IGNORECASE`.

Beginning with gawk 3.0, the equivalences between upper- and lowercase characters are based on the ISO-8859-1 (ISO Latin-1) character set. This character set is a superset of the traditional 128 ASCII characters, which also provides a number of characters suitable for use with European languages.

As of gawk 3.1.4, the case equivalencies are fully locale-aware. They are based on the C `<ctype.h>` facilities, such as `isalpha()` and `toupper()`.

The value of `IGNORECASE` has no effect if gawk is in compatibility mode (see Options). Case is always significant in compatibility mode.

Next: Computed Regexps, Previous: Case-sensitivity, Up: Regexp

### 2.7 How Much Text Matches?

Consider the following:

         echo aaaabcd | awk '{ sub(/a+/, "<A>"); print }'

This example uses the `sub` function (which we haven't discussed yet; see String Functions) to make a change to the input record. Here, the regexp `/a+/` indicates “one or more a characters,” and the replacement text is <A>.

The input contains four a characters. awk (and POSIX) regular expressions always match the leftmost, longest sequence of input characters that can match. Thus, all four a characters are replaced with <A> in this example:

         $ echo aaaabcd | awk '{ sub(/a+/, "<A>"); print }'
         -| <A>bcd

For simple match/no-match tests, this is not so important. But when doing text matching and substitutions with the `match`, `sub`, `gsub`, and `gensub` functions, it is very important. Understanding this principle is also important for regexp-based record and field splitting (see Records, and also see Field Separators).

Next: Locales, Previous: Leftmost Longest, Up: Regexp

### 2.8 Using Dynamic Regexps

The righthand side of a ~ or !~ operator need not be a regexp constant (i.e., a string of characters between slashes). It may be any expression. The expression is evaluated and converted to a string if necessary; the contents of the string are used as the regexp. A regexp that is computed in this way is called a dynamic regexp:

         BEGIN { digits_regexp = "[[:digit:]]+" }
         $0 ~ digits_regexp    { print }

This sets `digits_regexp` to a regexp that describes one or more digits, and tests whether the input record matches this regexp.

Caution: When using the ~ and !~ operators, there is a difference between a regexp constant enclosed in slashes and a string constant enclosed in double quotes. If you are going to use a string constant, you have to understand that the string is, in essence, scanned twice: the first time when awk reads your program, and the second time when it goes to match the string on the lefthand side of the operator with the pattern on the right. This is true of any string-valued expression (such as `digits_regexp`, shown previously), not just string constants.

What difference does it make if the string is scanned twice? The answer has to do with escape sequences, and particularly with backslashes. To get a backslash into a regular expression inside a string, you have to type two backslashes.

For example, `/\*/` is a regexp constant for a literal *. Only one backslash is needed. To do the same thing with a string, you have to type `"\\*"`. The first backslash escapes the second one so that the string actually contains the two characters \ and *.

Given that you can use both regexp and string constants to describe regular expressions, which should you use? The answer is “regexp constants,” for several reasons:

- String constants are more complicated to write and more difficult to read. Using regexp constants makes your programs less error-prone. Not understanding the difference between the two kinds of constants is a common source of errors.
- It is more efficient to use regexp constants. awk can note that you have supplied a regexp and store it internally in a form that makes pattern matching more efficient. When using a string constant, awk must first convert the string into this internal form and then perform the pattern matching.
- Using regexp constants is better form; it shows clearly that you intend a regexp match.

#### Advanced Notes: Using `\n` in Character Lists of Dynamic Regexps

Some commercial versions of awk do not allow the newline character to be used inside a character list for a dynamic regexp:

         $ awk '$0 ~ "[ \t\n]"'
         error--> awk: newline in character class [
         error--> ]...
         error-->  source line number 1
         error-->  context is
         error-->          >>>  <<<

But a newline in a regexp constant works with no problem:

         $ awk '$0 ~ /[ \t\n]/'
         here is a sample line
         -| here is a sample line
         Ctrl-d

gawk does not have this problem, and it isn't likely to occur often in practice, but it's worth noting for future reference.

Previous: Computed Regexps, Up: Regexp

### 2.9 Where You Are Makes A Difference

Modern systems support the notion of locales: a way to tell the system about the local character set and language. The current locale setting can affect the way regexp matching works, often in surprising ways. In particular, many locales do case-insensitive matching, even when you may have specified characters of only one particular case.

The following example uses the `sub` function, which does text replacement (see String Functions). Here, the intent is to remove trailing uppercase characters:

         $ echo something1234abc | gawk '{ sub("[A-Z]*$", ""); print }'
         -| something1234

This output is unexpected, since the abc at the end of something1234abc should not normally match [A-Z]*. This result is due to the locale setting (and thus you may not see it on your system). There are two fixes. The first is to use the POSIX character class [[:upper:]], instead of [A-Z]. The second is to change the locale setting in the environment, before running gawk, by using the shell statements:

         LANG=C LC_ALL=C
         export LANG LC_ALL

The setting C forces gawk to behave in the traditional Unix manner, where case distinctions do matter. You may wish to put these statements into your shell startup file, e.g., $HOME/.profile.

Similar considerations apply to other ranges. For example, ["-/] is perfectly valid in ASCII, but is not valid in many Unicode locales, such as en_US.UTF-8. (In general, such ranges should be avoided; either list the characters individually, or use a POSIX character class such as [[:punct:]].)

For the normal case of RS = "\n", the locale is largely irrelevant. For other single byte record separators, using LC_ALL=C will give you much better performance when reading records. Otherwise, gawk has to make several function calls, per input character to find the record terminator.

Next: Printing, Previous: Regexp, Up: Top

## 3 Reading Input Files

In the typical awk program, all input is read either from the standard input (by default, this is the keyboard, but often it is a pipe from another command) or from files whose names you specify on the awk command line. If you specify input files, awk reads them in order, processing all the data from one before going on to the next. The name of the current input file can be found in the built-in variable `FILENAME` (see Built-in Variables).

The input is read in units called records, and is processed by the rules of your program one record at a time. By default, each record is one line. Each record is automatically split into chunks called fields. This makes it more convenient for programs to work on the parts of a record.

On rare occasions, you may need to use the `getline` command. The `getline` command is valuable, both because it can do explicit input from any number of files, and because the files used with it do not have to be named on the awk command line (see Getline).

Next: Fields, Up: Reading Files

### 3.1 How Input Is Split into Records

The awk utility divides the input for your awk program into records and fields. awk keeps track of the number of records that have been read so far from the current input file. This value is stored in a built-in variable called `FNR`. It is reset to zero when a new file is started. Another built-in variable, `NR`, is the total number of input records read so far from all data files. It starts at zero, but is never automatically reset to zero.

Records are separated by a character called the record separator. By default, the record separator is the newline character. This is why records are, by default, single lines. A different character can be used for the record separator by assigning the character to the built-in variable `RS`.

Like any other variable, the value of `RS` can be changed in the awk program with the assignment operator, = (see Assignment Ops). The new record-separator character should be enclosed in quotation marks, which indicate a string constant. Often the right time to do this is at the beginning of execution, before any input is processed, so that the very first record is read with the proper separator. To do this, use the special `BEGIN` pattern (see BEGIN/END). For example:

         awk 'BEGIN { RS = "/" }
              { print $0 }' BBS-list

changes the value of `RS` to `"/"`, before reading any input. This is a string whose first character is a slash; as a result, records are separated by slashes. Then the input file is read, and the second rule in the awk program (the action with no pattern) prints each record. Because each `print` statement adds a newline at the end of its output, this awk program copies the input with each slash changed to a newline. Here are the results of running the program on BBS-list:

         $ awk 'BEGIN { RS = "/" }
         >      { print $0 }' BBS-list
         -| aardvark     555-5553     1200
         -| 300          B
         -| alpo-net     555-3412     2400
         -| 1200
         -| 300     A
         -| barfly       555-7685     1200
         -| 300          A
         -| bites        555-1675     2400
         -| 1200
         -| 300     A
         -| camelot      555-0542     300               C
         -| core         555-2912     1200
         -| 300          C
         -| fooey        555-1234     2400
         -| 1200
         -| 300     B
         -| foot         555-6699     1200
         -| 300          B
         -| macfoo       555-6480     1200
         -| 300          A
         -| sdace        555-3430     2400
         -| 1200
         -| 300     A
         -| sabafoo      555-2127     1200
         -| 300          C
         -|

Note that the entry for the camelot BBS is not split. In the original data file (see Sample Data Files), the line looks like this:

         camelot      555-0542     300               C

It has one baud rate only, so there are no slashes in the record, unlike the others which have two or more baud rates. In fact, this record is treated as part of the record for the core BBS; the newline separating them in the output is the original newline in the data file, not the one added by awk when it printed the record!

Another way to change the record separator is on the command line, using the variable-assignment feature (see Other Arguments):

         awk '{ print $0 }' RS="/" BBS-list

This sets `RS` to / before processing BBS-list.

Using an unusual character such as / for the record separator produces correct behavior in the vast majority of cases. However, the following (extreme) pipeline prints a surprising 1:

         $ echo | awk 'BEGIN { RS = "a" } ; { print NF }'
         -| 1

There is one field, consisting of a newline. The value of the built-in variable `NF` is the number of fields in the current record.

Reaching the end of an input file terminates the current input record, even if the last character in the file is not the character in `RS`. (d.c.)

The empty string `""` (a string without any characters) has a special meaning as the value of `RS`. It means that records are separated by one or more blank lines and nothing else. See Multiple Line, for more details.

If you change the value of `RS` in the middle of an awk run, the new value is used to delimit subsequent records, but the record currently being processed, as well as records already processed, are not affected.

After the end of the record has been determined, gawk sets the variable `RT` to the text in the input that matched `RS`. When using gawk, the value of `RS` is not limited to a one-character string. It can be any regular expression (see Regexp). In general, each record ends at the next string that matches the regular expression; the next record starts at the end of the matching string. This general rule is actually at work in the usual case, where `RS` contains just a newline: a record ends at the beginning of the next matching string (the next newline in the input), and the following record starts just after the end of this string (at the first character of the following line). The newline, because it matches `RS`, is not part of either record.

When `RS` is a single character, `RT` contains the same single character. However, when `RS` is a regular expression, `RT` contains the actual input text that matched the regular expression.

The following example illustrates both of these features. It sets `RS` equal to a regular expression that matches either a newline or a series of one or more uppercase letters with optional leading and/or trailing whitespace:

         $ echo record 1 AAAA record 2 BBBB record 3 |
         > gawk 'BEGIN { RS = "\n|( *[[:upper:]]+ *)" }
         >             { print "Record =", $0, "and RT =", RT }'
         -| Record = record 1 and RT =  AAAA
         -| Record = record 2 and RT =  BBBB
         -| Record = record 3 and RT =
         -|

The final line of output has an extra blank line. This is because the value of `RT` is a newline, and the `print` statement supplies its own terminating newline. See Simple Sed, for a more useful example of `RS` as a regexp and `RT`.

If you set `RS` to a regular expression that allows optional trailing text, such as RS = "abc(XYZ)?" it is possible, due to implementation constraints, that gawk may match the leading part of the regular expression, but not the trailing part, particularly if the input text that could match the trailing part is fairly long. gawk attempts to avoid this problem, but currently, there's no guarantee that this will never happen.

The use of `RS` as a regular expression and the `RT` variable are gawk extensions; they are not available in compatibility mode (see Options). In compatibility mode, only the first character of the value of `RS` is used to determine the end of the record.

#### Advanced Notes: `RS = "\0"` Is Not Portable

There are times when you might want to treat an entire data file as a single record. The only way to make this happen is to give `RS` a value that you know doesn't occur in the input file. This is hard to do in a general way, such that a program always works for arbitrary input files.

You might think that for text files, the nul character, which consists of a character with all bits equal to zero, is a good value to use for `RS` in this case:

         BEGIN { RS = "\0" }  # whole file becomes one record?

gawk in fact accepts this, and uses the nul character for the record separator. However, this usage is not portable to other awk implementations.

All other awk implementations16 store strings internally as C-style strings. C strings use the nul character as the string terminator. In effect, this means that RS = "\0" is the same as RS = "". (d.c.)

The best way to treat a whole file as a single record is to simply read the file in, one record at a time, concatenating each record onto the end of the previous ones.

Next: Nonconstant Fields, Previous: Records, Up: Reading Files

### 3.2 Examining Fields

When awk reads an input record, the record is automatically parsed or separated by the interpreter into chunks called fields. By default, fields are separated by whitespace, like words in a line. Whitespace in awk means any string of one or more spaces, tabs, or newlines;17 other characters, such as formfeed, vertical tab, etc. that are considered whitespace by other languages, are not considered whitespace by awk.

The purpose of fields is to make it more convenient for you to refer to these pieces of the record. You don't have to use them—you can operate on the whole record if you want—but fields are what make simple awk programs so powerful.

A dollar-sign ($) is used to refer to a field in an awk program, followed by the number of the field you want. Thus, `$1` refers to the first field, `$2` to the second, and so on. (Unlike the Unix shells, the field numbers are not limited to single digits. `$127` is the one hundred twenty-seventh field in the record.) For example, suppose the following is a line of input:

         This seems like a pretty nice example.

Here the first field, or `$1`, is This, the second field, or `$2`, is seems, and so on. Note that the last field, `$7`, is example.. Because there is no space between the e and the ., the period is considered part of the seventh field.

`NF` is a built-in variable whose value is the number of fields in the current record. awk automatically updates the value of `NF` each time it reads a record. No matter how many fields there are, the last field in a record can be represented by `$NF`. So, `$NF` is the same as `$7`, which is example.. If you try to reference a field beyond the last one (such as `$8` when the record has only seven fields), you get the empty string. (If used in a numeric operation, you get zero.)

The use of `$0`, which looks like a reference to the “zero-th” field, is a special case: it represents the whole input record when you are not interested in specific fields. Here are some more examples:

         $ awk '$1 ~ /foo/ { print $0 }' BBS-list
         -| fooey        555-1234     2400/1200/300     B
         -| foot         555-6699     1200/300          B
         -| macfoo       555-6480     1200/300          A
         -| sabafoo      555-2127     1200/300          C

This example prints each record in the file BBS-list whose first field contains the string foo. The operator ~ is called a matching operator (see Regexp Usage); it tests whether a string (here, the field `$1`) matches a given regular expression.

By contrast, the following example looks for foo in the entire record and prints the first field and the last field for each matching input record:

         $ awk '/foo/ { print $1, $NF }' BBS-list
         -| fooey B
         -| foot B
         -| macfoo A
         -| sabafoo C

Next: Changing Fields, Previous: Fields, Up: Reading Files

### 3.3 Nonconstant Field Numbers

The number of a field does not need to be a constant. Any expression in the awk language can be used after a $ to refer to a field. The value of the expression specifies the field number. If the value is a string, rather than a number, it is converted to a number. Consider this example:

         awk '{ print $NR }'

Recall that `NR` is the number of records read so far: one in the first record, two in the second, etc. So this example prints the first field of the first record, the second field of the second record, and so on. For the twentieth record, field number 20 is printed; most likely, the record has fewer than 20 fields, so this prints a blank line. Here is another example of using expressions as field numbers:

         awk '{ print $(2*2) }' BBS-list

awk evaluates the expression (2*2) and uses its value as the number of the field to print. The * sign represents multiplication, so the expression 2*2 evaluates to four. The parentheses are used so that the multiplication is done before the $ operation; they are necessary whenever there is a binary operator in the field-number expression. This example, then, prints the hours of operation (the fourth field) for every line of the file BBS-list. (All of the awk operators are listed, in order of decreasing precedence, in Precedence.)

If the field number you compute is zero, you get the entire record. Thus, $(2-2) has the same value as `$0`. Negative field numbers are not allowed; trying to reference one usually terminates the program. (The POSIX standard does not define what happens when you reference a negative field number. gawk notices this and terminates your program. Other awk implementations may behave differently.)

As mentioned in Fields, awk stores the current record's number of fields in the built-in variable `NF` (also see Built-in Variables). The expression `$NF` is not a special feature—it is the direct consequence of evaluating `NF` and using its value as a field number.

Next: Field Separators, Previous: Nonconstant Fields, Up: Reading Files

### 3.4 Changing the Contents of a Field

The contents of a field, as seen by awk, can be changed within an awk program; this changes what awk perceives as the current input record. (The actual input is untouched; awk never modifies the input file.) Consider the following example and its output:

         $ awk '{ nboxes = $3 ; $3 = $3 - 10
         >        print nboxes, $3 }' inventory-shipped
         -| 25 15
         -| 32 22
         -| 24 14
         ...

The program first saves the original value of field three in the variable `nboxes`. The - sign represents subtraction, so this program reassigns field three, `$3`, as the original value of field three minus ten: $3 - 10. (See Arithmetic Ops.) Then it prints the original and new values for field three. (Someone in the warehouse made a consistent mistake while inventorying the red boxes.)

For this to work, the text in field `$3` must make sense as a number; the string of characters must be converted to a number for the computer to do arithmetic on it. The number resulting from the subtraction is converted back to a string of characters that then becomes field three. See Conversion.

When the value of a field is changed (as perceived by awk), the text of the input record is recalculated to contain the new field where the old one was. In other words, `$0` changes to reflect the altered field. Thus, this program prints a copy of the input file, with 10 subtracted from the second field of each line:

         $ awk '{ $2 = $2 - 10; print $0 }' inventory-shipped
         -| Jan 3 25 15 115
         -| Feb 5 32 24 226
         -| Mar 5 24 34 228
         ...

It is also possible to also assign contents to fields that are out of range. For example:

         $ awk '{ $6 = ($5 + $4 + $3 + $2)
         >        print $6 }' inventory-shipped
         -| 168
         -| 297
         -| 301
         ...

We've just created `$6`, whose value is the sum of fields `$2`, `$3`, `$4`, and `$5`. The + sign represents addition. For the file inventory-shipped, `$6` represents the total number of parcels shipped for a particular month.

Creating a new field changes awk's internal copy of the current input record, which is the value of `$0`. Thus, if you do print $0 after adding a field, the record printed includes the new field, with the appropriate number of field separators between it and the previously existing fields.

This recomputation affects and is affected by `NF` (the number of fields; see Fields). For example, the value of `NF` is set to the number of the highest field you create. The exact format of `$0` is also affected by a feature that has not been discussed yet: the output field separator, `OFS`, used to separate the fields (see Output Separators).

Note, however, that merely referencing an out-of-range field does not change the value of either `$0` or `NF`. Referencing an out-of-range field only produces an empty string. For example:

         if ($(NF+1) != "")
             print "can't happen"
         else
             print "everything is normal"

should print everything is normal, because `NF+1` is certain to be out of range. (See If Statement, for more information about awk's `if-else` statements. See Typing and Comparison, for more information about the != operator.)

It is important to note that making an assignment to an existing field changes the value of `$0` but does not change the value of `NF`, even when you assign the empty string to a field. For example:

         $ echo a b c d | awk '{ OFS = ":"; $2 = ""
         >                       print $0; print NF }'
         -| a::c:d
         -| 4

The field is still there; it just has an empty value, denoted by the two colons between a and c. This example shows what happens if you create a new field:

         $ echo a b c d | awk '{ OFS = ":"; $2 = ""; $6 = "new"
         >                       print $0; print NF }'
         -| a::c:d::new
         -| 6

The intervening field, `$5`, is created with an empty value (indicated by the second pair of adjacent colons), and `NF` is updated with the value six.

Decrementing `NF` throws away the values of the fields after the new value of `NF` and recomputes `$0`. (d.c.) Here is an example:

         $ echo a b c d e f | awk '{ print "NF =", NF;
         >                            NF = 3; print $0 }'
         -| NF = 6
         -| a b c

Caution: Some versions of awk don't rebuild `$0` when `NF` is decremented. Caveat emptor.

Finally, there are times when it is convenient to force awk to rebuild the entire record, using the current value of the fields and `OFS`. To do this, use the seemingly innocuous assignment:

         $1 = $1   # force record to be reconstituted
         print $0  # or whatever else with $0

This forces awk rebuild the record. It does help to add a comment, as we've shown here.

There is a flip side to the relationship between `$0` and the fields. Any assignment to `$0` causes the record to be reparsed into fields using the current value of `FS`. This also applies to any built-in function that updates `$0`, such as `sub` and `gsub` (see String Functions).

Next: Constant Size, Previous: Changing Fields, Up: Reading Files

### 3.5 Specifying How Fields Are Separated

The field separator, which is either a single character or a regular expression, controls the way awk splits an input record into fields. awk scans the input record for character sequences that match the separator; the fields themselves are the text between the matches.

In the examples that follow, we use the bullet symbol (•) to represent spaces in the output. If the field separator is oo, then the following line:

         moo goo gai pan

is split into three fields: m, •g, and •gai•pan. Note the leading spaces in the values of the second and third fields.

The field separator is represented by the built-in variable `FS`. Shell programmers take note: awk does not use the name `IFS` that is used by the POSIX-compliant shells (such as the Unix Bourne shell, sh, or bash).

The value of `FS` can be changed in the awk program with the assignment operator, = (see Assignment Ops). Often the right time to do this is at the beginning of execution before any input has been processed, so that the very first record is read with the proper separator. To do this, use the special `BEGIN` pattern (see BEGIN/END). For example, here we set the value of `FS` to the string `","`:

         awk 'BEGIN { FS = "," } ; { print $2 }'

Given the input line:

         John Q. Smith, 29 Oak St., Walamazoo, MI 42139

this awk program extracts and prints the string •29•Oak•St..

Sometimes the input data contains separator characters that don't separate fields the way you thought they would. For instance, the person's name in the example we just used might have a title or suffix attached, such as:

         John Q. Smith, LXIX, 29 Oak St., Walamazoo, MI 42139

The same program would extract •LXIX, instead of •29•Oak•St.. If you were expecting the program to print the address, you would be surprised. The moral is to choose your data layout and separator characters carefully to prevent such problems. (If the data is not in a form that is easy to process, perhaps you can massage it first with a separate awk program.)

Fields are normally separated by whitespace sequences (spaces, tabs, and newlines), not by single spaces. Two spaces in a row do not delimit an empty field. The default value of the field separator `FS` is a string containing a single space, `" "`. If awk interpreted this value in the usual way, each space character would separate fields, so two spaces in a row would make an empty field between them. The reason this does not happen is that a single space as the value of `FS` is a special case—it is taken to specify the default manner of delimiting fields.

If `FS` is any other single character, such as `","`, then each occurrence of that character separates two fields. Two consecutive occurrences delimit an empty field. If the character occurs at the beginning or the end of the line, that too delimits an empty field. The space character is the only single character that does not follow these rules.

Next: Single Character Fields, Up: Field Separators

#### 3.5.1 Using Regular Expressions to Separate Fields

The previous subsection discussed the use of single characters or simple strings as the value of `FS`. More generally, the value of `FS` may be a string containing any regular expression. In this case, each match in the record for the regular expression separates fields. For example, the assignment:

         FS = ", \t"

makes every area of an input line that consists of a comma followed by a space and a TAB into a field separator.

For a less trivial example of a regular expression, try using single spaces to separate fields the way single commas are used. `FS` can be set to `"[ ]"` (left bracket, space, right bracket). This regular expression matches a single space and nothing else (see Regexp).

There is an important difference between the two cases of FS = " " (a single space) and FS = "[ \t\n]+" (a regular expression matching one or more spaces, tabs, or newlines). For both values of `FS`, fields are separated by runs (multiple adjacent occurrences) of spaces, tabs, and/or newlines. However, when the value of `FS` is `" "`, awk first strips leading and trailing whitespace from the record and then decides where the fields are. For example, the following pipeline prints b:

         $ echo ' a b c d ' | awk '{ print $2 }'
         -| b

However, this pipeline prints a (note the extra spaces around each letter):

         $ echo ' a  b  c  d ' | awk 'BEGIN { FS = "[ \t\n]+" }
         >                                  { print $2 }'
         -| a

In this case, the first field is null or empty.

The stripping of leading and trailing whitespace also comes into play whenever `$0` is recomputed. For instance, study this pipeline:

         $ echo '   a b c d' | awk '{ print; $2 = $2; print }'
         -|    a b c d
         -| a b c d

The first `print` statement prints the record as it was read, with leading whitespace intact. The assignment to `$2` rebuilds `$0` by concatenating `$1` through `$NF` together, separated by the value of `OFS`. Because the leading whitespace was ignored when finding `$1`, it is not part of the new `$0`. Finally, the last `print` statement prints the new `$0`.

Next: Command Line Field Separator, Previous: Regexp Field Splitting, Up: Field Separators

#### 3.5.2 Making Each Character a Separate Field

There are times when you may want to examine each character of a record separately. This can be done in gawk by simply assigning the null string (`""`) to `FS`. In this case, each individual character in the record becomes a separate field. For example:

         $ echo a b | gawk 'BEGIN { FS = "" }
         >                  {
         >                      for (i = 1; i <= NF; i = i + 1)
         >                          print "Field", i, "is", $i
         >                  }'
         -| Field 1 is a
         -| Field 2 is
         -| Field 3 is b

Traditionally, the behavior of `FS` equal to `""` was not defined. In this case, most versions of Unix awk simply treat the entire record as only having one field. (d.c.) In compatibility mode (see Options), if `FS` is the null string, then gawk also behaves this way.

Next: Field Splitting Summary, Previous: Single Character Fields, Up: Field Separators

#### 3.5.3 Setting `FS` from the Command Line

`FS` can be set on the command line. Use the -F option to do so. For example:

         awk -F, 'program' input-files

sets `FS` to the , character. Notice that the option uses an uppercase F instead of a lowercase f. The latter option (-f) specifies a file containing an awk program. Case is significant in command-line options: the -F and -f options have nothing to do with each other. You can use both options at the same time to set the `FS` variable and get an awk program from a file.

The value used for the argument to -F is processed in exactly the same way as assignments to the built-in variable `FS`. Any special characters in the field separator must be escaped appropriately. For example, to use a \ as the field separator on the command line, you would have to type:

         # same as FS = "\\"
         awk -F\\\\ '...' files ...

Because \ is used for quoting in the shell, awk sees -F\\. Then awk processes the \\ for escape characters (see Escape Sequences), finally yielding a single \ to use for the field separator.

As a special case, in compatibility mode (see Options), if the argument to -F is t, then `FS` is set to the TAB character. If you type -F\t at the shell, without any quotes, the \ gets deleted, so awk figures that you really want your fields to be separated with tabs and not ts. Use -v FS="t" or -F"[t]" on the command line if you really do want to separate your fields with ts.

For example, let's use an awk program file called baud.awk that contains the pattern `/300/` and the action print $1:

         /300/   { print $1 }

Let's also set `FS` to be the - character and run the program on the file BBS-list. The following command prints a list of the names of the bulletin boards that operate at 300 baud and the first three digits of their phone numbers:

         $ awk -F- -f baud.awk BBS-list
         -| aardvark     555
         -| alpo
         -| barfly       555
         -| bites        555
         -| camelot      555
         -| core         555
         -| fooey        555
         -| foot         555
         -| macfoo       555
         -| sdace        555
         -| sabafoo      555

Note the second line of output. The second line in the original file looked like this:

         alpo-net     555-3412     2400/1200/300     A

The - as part of the system's name was used as the field separator, instead of the - in the phone number that was originally intended. This demonstrates why you have to be careful in choosing your field and record separators.

Perhaps the most common use of a single character as the field separator occurs when processing the Unix system password file. On many Unix systems, each user has a separate entry in the system password file, one line per user. The information in these lines is separated by colons. The first field is the user's logon name and the second is the user's (encrypted or shadow) password. A password file entry might look like this:

         arnold:xyzzy:2076:10:Arnold Robbins:/home/arnold:/bin/bash

The following program searches the system password file and prints the entries for users who have no password:

         awk -F: '$2 == ""' /etc/passwd

Previous: Command Line Field Separator, Up: Field Separators

#### 3.5.4 Field-Splitting Summary

It is important to remember that when you assign a string constant as the value of `FS`, it undergoes normal awk string processing. For example, with Unix awk and gawk, the assignment FS = "\.." assigns the character string `".."` to `FS` (the backslash is stripped). This creates a regexp meaning “fields are separated by occurrences of any two characters.” If instead you want fields to be separated by a literal period followed by any single character, use FS = "\\..".

The following table summarizes how fields are split, based on the value of `FS` (== means “is equal to”):

`FS == " "`
  Fields are separated by runs of whitespace. Leading and trailing whitespace are ignored. This is the default.
`FS ==` any other single character
  Fields are separated by each occurrence of the character. Multiple successive occurrences delimit empty fields, as do leading and trailing occurrences. The character can even be a regexp metacharacter; it does not need to be escaped.
`FS ==` regexp
  Fields are separated by occurrences of characters that match regexp. Leading and trailing matches of regexp delimit empty fields.
`FS == ""`
  Each individual character in the record becomes a separate field. (This is a gawk extension; it is not specified by the POSIX standard.)

#### Advanced Notes: Changing `FS` Does Not Affect the Fields

According to the POSIX standard, awk is supposed to behave as if each record is split into fields at the time it is read. In particular, this means that if you change the value of `FS` after a record is read, the value of the fields (i.e., how they were split) should reflect the old value of `FS`, not the new one.

However, many implementations of awk do not work this way. Instead, they defer splitting the fields until a field is actually referenced. The fields are split using the current value of `FS`! (d.c.) This behavior can be difficult to diagnose. The following example illustrates the difference between the two methods. (The sed 18 command prints just the first line of /etc/passwd.)

         sed 1q /etc/passwd | awk '{ FS = ":" ; print $1 }'

which usually prints:

         root

on an incorrect implementation of awk, while gawk prints something like:

         root:nSijPlPhZZwgE:0:0:Root:/:

#### Advanced Notes: `FS` and `IGNORECASE`

The `IGNORECASE` variable (see User-modified) affects field splitting only when the value of `FS` is a regexp. It has no effect when `FS` is a single character, even if that character is a letter. Thus, in the following code:

         FS = "c"
         IGNORECASE = 1
         $0 = "aCa"
         print $1

The output is aCa. If you really want to split fields on an alphabetic character while ignoring case, use a regexp that will do it for you. E.g., FS = "[c]". In this case, `IGNORECASE` will take effect.

Next: Multiple Line, Previous: Field Separators, Up: Reading Files

### 3.6 Reading Fixed-Width Data

> NOTE: This section discusses an advanced feature of gawk. If you are a novice awk user, you might want to skip it on the first reading.

gawk version 2.13 introduced a facility for dealing with fixed-width fields with no distinctive field separator. For example, data of this nature arises in the input for old Fortran programs where numbers are run together, or in the output of programs that did not anticipate the use of their output as input for other programs.

An example of the latter is a table where all the columns are lined up by the use of a variable number of spaces and empty fields are just spaces. Clearly, awk's normal field splitting based on `FS` does not work well in this case. Although a portable awk program can use a series of `substr` calls on `$0` (see String Functions), this is awkward and inefficient for a large number of fields.

The splitting of an input record into fixed-width fields is specified by assigning a string containing space-separated numbers to the built-in variable `FIELDWIDTHS`. Each number specifies the width of the field, including columns between fields. If you want to ignore the columns between fields, you can specify the width as a separate field that is subsequently ignored. It is a fatal error to supply a field width that is not a positive number. The following data is the output of the Unix w utility. It is useful to illustrate the use of `FIELDWIDTHS`:

          10:06pm  up 21 days, 14:04,  23 users
         User     tty       login  idle   JCPU   PCPU  what
         hzuo     ttyV0     8:58pm            9      5  vi p24.tex
         hzang    ttyV3     6:37pm    50                -csh
         eklye    ttyV5     9:53pm            7      1  em thes.tex
         dportein ttyV6     8:17pm  1:47                -csh
         gierd    ttyD3    10:00pm     1                elm
         dave     ttyD4     9:47pm            4      4  w
         brent    ttyp0    26Jun91  4:46  26:46   4:41  bash
         dave     ttyq4    26Jun9115days     46     46  wnewmail

The following program takes the above input, converts the idle time to number of seconds, and prints out the first two fields and the calculated idle time:

> NOTE: This program uses a number of awk features that haven't been introduced yet.

         BEGIN  { FIELDWIDTHS = "9 6 10 6 7 7 35" }
         NR > 2 {
             idle = $4
             sub(/^  */, "", idle)   # strip leading spaces
             if (idle == "")
                 idle = 0
             if (idle ~ /:/) {
                 split(idle, t, ":")
                 idle = t[1] * 60 + t[2]
             }
             if (idle ~ /days/)
                 idle *= 24 * 60 * 60

             print $1, $2, idle
         }

Running the program on the data produces the following results:

         hzuo      ttyV0  0
         hzang     ttyV3  50
         eklye     ttyV5  0
         dportein  ttyV6  107
         gierd     ttyD3  1
         dave      ttyD4  0
         brent     ttyp0  286
         dave      ttyq4  1296000

Another (possibly more practical) example of fixed-width input data is the input from a deck of balloting cards. In some parts of the United States, voters mark their choices by punching holes in computer cards. These cards are then processed to count the votes for any particular candidate or on any particular issue. Because a voter may choose not to vote on some issue, any column on the card may be empty. An awk program for processing such data could use the `FIELDWIDTHS` feature to simplify reading the data. (Of course, getting gawk to run on a system with card readers is another story!)

Assigning a value to `FS` causes gawk to use `FS` for field splitting again. Use FS = FS to make this happen, without having to know the current value of `FS`. In order to tell which kind of field splitting is in effect, use `PROCINFO["FS"]` (see Auto-set). The value is `"FS"` if regular field splitting is being used, or it is `"FIELDWIDTHS"` if fixed-width field splitting is being used:

         if (PROCINFO["FS"] == "FS")
             regular field splitting ...
         else
             fixed-width field splitting ...

This information is useful when writing a function that needs to temporarily change `FS` or `FIELDWIDTHS`, read some records, and then restore the original settings (see Passwd Functions, for an example of such a function).

Next: Getline, Previous: Constant Size, Up: Reading Files

### 3.7 Multiple-Line Records

In some databases, a single line cannot conveniently hold all the information in one entry. In such cases, you can use multiline records. The first step in doing this is to choose your data format.

One technique is to use an unusual character or string to separate records. For example, you could use the formfeed character (written \f in awk, as in C) to separate them, making each record a page of the file. To do this, just set the variable `RS` to `"\f"` (a string containing the formfeed character). Any other character could equally well be used, as long as it won't be part of the data in a record.

Another technique is to have blank lines separate records. By a special dispensation, an empty string as the value of `RS` indicates that records are separated by one or more blank lines. When `RS` is set to the empty string, each record always ends at the first blank line encountered. The next record doesn't start until the first nonblank line that follows. No matter how many blank lines appear in a row, they all act as one record separator. (Blank lines must be completely empty; lines that contain only whitespace do not count.)

You can achieve the same effect as RS = "" by assigning the string `"\n\n+"` to `RS`. This regexp matches the newline at the end of the record and one or more blank lines after the record. In addition, a regular expression always matches the longest possible sequence when there is a choice (see Leftmost Longest). So the next record doesn't start until the first nonblank line that follows—no matter how many blank lines appear in a row, they are considered one record separator.

There is an important difference between RS = "" and RS = "\n\n+". In the first case, leading newlines in the input data file are ignored, and if a file ends without extra blank lines after the last record, the final newline is removed from the record. In the second case, this special processing is not done. (d.c.)

Now that the input is separated into records, the second step is to separate the fields in the record. One way to do this is to divide each of the lines into fields in the normal manner. This happens by default as the result of a special feature. When `RS` is set to the empty string, and `FS` is a set to a single character, the newline character always acts as a field separator. This is in addition to whatever field separations result from `FS`.19

The original motivation for this special exception was probably to provide useful behavior in the default case (i.e., `FS` is equal to `" "`). This feature can be a problem if you really don't want the newline character to separate fields, because there is no way to prevent it. However, you can work around this by using the `split` function to break up the record manually (see String Functions). If you have a single character field separator, you can work around the special feature in a different way, by making `FS` into a regexp for that single character. For example, if the field separator is a percent character, instead of FS = "%", use FS = "[%]".

Another way to separate fields is to put each field on a separate line: to do this, just set the variable `FS` to the string `"\n"`. (This single character seperator matches a single newline.) A practical example of a data file organized this way might be a mailing list, where each entry is separated by blank lines. Consider a mailing list in a file named addresses, which looks like this:

         Jane Doe
         123 Main Street
         Anywhere, SE 12345-6789

         John Smith
         456 Tree-lined Avenue
         Smallville, MW 98765-4321
         ...

A simple program to process this file is as follows:

         # addrs.awk --- simple mailing list program

         # Records are separated by blank lines.
         # Each line is one field.
         BEGIN { RS = "" ; FS = "\n" }

         {
               print "Name is:", $1
               print "Address is:", $2
               print "City and State are:", $3
               print ""
         }

Running the program produces the following output:

         $ awk -f addrs.awk addresses
         -| Name is: Jane Doe
         -| Address is: 123 Main Street
         -| City and State are: Anywhere, SE 12345-6789
         -|
         -| Name is: John Smith
         -| Address is: 456 Tree-lined Avenue
         -| City and State are: Smallville, MW 98765-4321
         -|
         ...

See Labels Program, for a more realistic program that deals with address lists. The following table summarizes how records are split, based on the value of `RS`:

`RS == "\n"`
  Records are separated by the newline character (\n). In effect, every line in the data file is a separate record, including blank lines. This is the default.
`RS ==` any single character
  Records are separated by each occurrence of the character. Multiple successive occurrences delimit empty records.
`RS == ""`
  Records are separated by runs of blank lines. The newline character always serves as a field separator, in addition to whatever value `FS` may have. Leading and trailing newlines in a file are ignored.
`RS ==` regexp
  Records are separated by occurrences of characters that match regexp. Leading and trailing matches of regexp delimit empty records. (This is a gawk extension; it is not specified by the POSIX standard.)

In all cases, gawk sets `RT` to the input text that matched the value specified by `RS`.

Previous: Multiple Line, Up: Reading Files

### 3.8 Explicit Input with `getline`

So far we have been getting our input data from awk's main input stream—either the standard input (usually your terminal, sometimes the output from another program) or from the files specified on the command line. The awk language has a special built-in command called `getline` that can be used to read input under your explicit control.

The `getline` command is used in several different ways and should not be used by beginners. The examples that follow the explanation of the `getline` command include material that has not been covered yet. Therefore, come back and study the `getline` command after you have reviewed the rest of this Web page and have a good knowledge of how awk works.

The `getline` command returns one if it finds a record and zero if it encounters the end of the file. If there is some error in getting a record, such as a file that cannot be opened, then `getline` returns −1. In this case, gawk sets the variable `ERRNO` to a string describing the error that occurred.

In the following examples, command stands for a string value that represents a shell command.

Next: Getline/Variable, Up: Getline

#### 3.8.1 Using `getline` with No Arguments

The `getline` command can be used without arguments to read input from the current input file. All it does in this case is read the next input record and split it up into fields. This is useful if you've finished processing the current record, but want to do some special processing on the next record right now. For example:

         {
              if ((t = index($0, "/*")) != 0) {
                   # value of `tmp' will be "" if t is 1
                   tmp = substr($0, 1, t - 1)
                   u = index(substr($0, t + 2), "*/")
                   while (u == 0) {
                        if (getline <= 0) {
                             m = "unexpected EOF or error"
                             m = (m ": " ERRNO)
                             print m > "/dev/stderr"
                             exit
                        }
                        t = -1
                        u = index($0, "*/")
                   }
                   # substr expression will be "" if */
                   # occurred at end of line
                   $0 = tmp substr($0, u + 2)
              }
              print $0
         }

This awk program deletes all C-style comments (/* ... */) from the input. By replacing the print $0 with other statements, you could perform more complicated processing on the decommented input, such as searching for matches of a regular expression. (This program has a subtle problem—it does not work if one comment ends and another begins on the same line.)

This form of the `getline` command sets `NF`, `NR`, `FNR`, and the value of `$0`.

> NOTE: The new value of `$0` is used to test the patterns of any subsequent rules. The original value of `$0` that triggered the rule that executed `getline` is lost. By contrast, the `next` statement reads a new record but immediately begins processing it normally, starting with the first rule in the program. See Next Statement.

Next: Getline/File, Previous: Plain Getline, Up: Getline

#### 3.8.2 Using `getline` into a Variable

You can use getline var to read the next record from awk's input into the variable var. No other processing is done. For example, suppose the next line is a comment or a special string, and you want to read it without triggering any rules. This form of `getline` allows you to read that line and store it in a variable so that the main read-a-line-and-check-each-rule loop of awk never sees it. The following example swaps every two lines of input:

         {
              if ((getline tmp) > 0) {
                   print tmp
                   print $0
              } else
                   print $0
         }

It takes the following list:

         wan
         tew
         free
         phore

and produces these results:

         tew
         wan
         phore
         free

The `getline` command used in this way sets only the variables `NR` and `FNR` (and of course, var). The record is not split into fields, so the values of the fields (including `$0`) and the value of `NF` do not change.

Next: Getline/Variable/File, Previous: Getline/Variable, Up: Getline

#### 3.8.3 Using `getline` from a File

Use getline < file to read the next record from file. Here file is a string-valued expression that specifies the file name. < file is called a redirection because it directs input to come from a different place. For example, the following program reads its input record from the file secondary.input when it encounters a first field with a value equal to 10 in the current input file:

         {
             if ($1 == 10) {
                  getline < "secondary.input"
                  print
             } else
                  print
         }

Because the main input stream is not used, the values of `NR` and `FNR` are not changed. However, the record it reads is split into fields in the normal manner, so the values of `$0` and the other fields are changed, resulting in a new value of `NF`.

According to POSIX, getline < expression is ambiguous if expression contains unparenthesized operators other than $; for example, getline < dir "/" file is ambiguous because the concatenation operator is not parenthesized. You should write it as getline < (dir "/" file) if you want your program to be portable to other awk implementations.

Next: Getline/Pipe, Previous: Getline/File, Up: Getline

#### 3.8.4 Using `getline` into a Variable from a File

Use getline var < file to read input from the file file, and put it in the variable var. As above, file is a string-valued expression that specifies the file from which to read.

In this version of `getline`, none of the built-in variables are changed and the record is not split into fields. The only variable changed is var. For example, the following program copies all the input files to the output, except for records that say @include filename. Such a record is replaced by the contents of the file filename:

         {
              if (NF == 2 && $1 == "@include") {
                   while ((getline line < $2) > 0)
                        print line
                   close($2)
              } else
                   print
         }

Note here how the name of the extra input file is not built into the program; it is taken directly from the data, specifically from the second field on the @include line.

The `close` function is called to ensure that if two identical @include lines appear in the input, the entire specified file is included twice. See Close Files And Pipes.

One deficiency of this program is that it does not process nested @include statements (i.e., @include statements in included files) the way a true macro preprocessor would. See Igawk Program, for a program that does handle nested @include statements.

Next: Getline/Variable/Pipe, Previous: Getline/Variable/File, Up: Getline

#### 3.8.5 Using `getline` from a Pipe

The output of a command can also be piped into `getline`, using command | getline. In this case, the string command is run as a shell command and its output is piped into awk to be used as input. This form of `getline` reads one record at a time from the pipe. For example, the following program copies its input to its output, except for lines that begin with @execute, which are replaced by the output produced by running the rest of the line as a shell command:

         {
              if ($1 == "@execute") {
                   tmp = substr($0, 10)
                   while ((tmp | getline) > 0)
                        print
                   close(tmp)
              } else
                   print
         }

The `close` function is called to ensure that if two identical @execute lines appear in the input, the command is run for each one. See Close Files And Pipes. Given the input:

         foo
         bar
         baz
         @execute who
         bletch

the program might produce:

         foo
         bar
         baz
         arnold     ttyv0   Jul 13 14:22
         miriam     ttyp0   Jul 13 14:23     (murphy:0)
         bill       ttyp1   Jul 13 14:23     (murphy:0)
         bletch

Notice that this program ran the command who and printed the previous result. (If you try this program yourself, you will of course get different results, depending upon who is logged in on your system.)

This variation of `getline` splits the record into fields, sets the value of `NF`, and recomputes the value of `$0`. The values of `NR` and `FNR` are not changed.

According to POSIX, expression | getline is ambiguous if expression contains unparenthesized operators other than $—for example, "echo " "date" | getline is ambiguous because the concatenation operator is not parenthesized. You should write it as ("echo " "date") | getline if you want your program to be portable to other awk implementations.

Next: Getline/Coprocess, Previous: Getline/Pipe, Up: Getline

#### 3.8.6 Using `getline` into a Variable from a Pipe

When you use command | getline var, the output of command is sent through a pipe to `getline` and into the variable var. For example, the following program reads the current date and time into the variable `current_time`, using the date utility, and then prints it:

         BEGIN {
              "date" | getline current_time
              close("date")
              print "Report printed on " current_time
         }

In this version of `getline`, none of the built-in variables are changed and the record is not split into fields.

Next: Getline/Variable/Coprocess, Previous: Getline/Variable/Pipe, Up: Getline

#### 3.8.7 Using `getline` from a Coprocess

Input into `getline` from a pipe is a one-way operation. The command that is started with command | getline only sends data to your awk program.

On occasion, you might want to send data to another program for processing and then read the results back. gawk allows you start a coprocess, with which two-way communications are possible. This is done with the |& operator. Typically, you write data to the coprocess first and then read results back, as shown in the following:

         print "some query" |& "db_server"
         "db_server" |& getline

which sends a query to db_server and then reads the results.

The values of `NR` and `FNR` are not changed, because the main input stream is not used. However, the record is split into fields in the normal manner, thus changing the values of `$0`, of the other fields, and of `NF`.

Coprocesses are an advanced feature. They are discussed here only because this is the section on `getline`. See Two-way I/O, where coprocesses are discussed in more detail.

Next: Getline Notes, Previous: Getline/Coprocess, Up: Getline

#### 3.8.8 Using `getline` into a Variable from a Coprocess

When you use command |& getline var, the output from the coprocess command is sent through a two-way pipe to `getline` and into the variable var.

In this version of `getline`, none of the built-in variables are changed and the record is not split into fields. The only variable changed is var.

Next: Getline Summary, Previous: Getline/Variable/Coprocess, Up: Getline

#### 3.8.9 Points to Remember About `getline`

Here are some miscellaneous points about `getline` that you should bear in mind:

- When `getline` changes the value of `$0` and `NF`, awk does not automatically jump to the start of the program and start testing the new record against every pattern. However, the new record is tested against any subsequent rules.

- Many awk implementations limit the number of pipelines that an awk program may have open to just one. In gawk, there is no such limit. You can open as many pipelines (and coprocesses) as the underlying operating system permits.

- An interesting side effect occurs if you use `getline` without a redirection inside a `BEGIN` rule. Because an unredirected `getline` reads from the command-line data files, the first `getline` command causes awk to set the value of `FILENAME`. Normally, `FILENAME` does not have a value inside `BEGIN` rules, because you have not yet started to process the command-line data files. (d.c.) (See BEGIN/END, also see Auto-set.)
- Using `FILENAME` with `getline` (getline < FILENAME) is likely to be a source for confusion. awk opens a separate input stream from the current input file. However, by not using a variable, `$0` and `NR` are still updated. If you're doing this, it's probably by accident, and you should reconsider what it is you're trying to accomplish.

Previous: Getline Notes, Up: Getline

#### 3.8.10 Summary of `getline` Variants

table-getline-variants summarizes the eight variants of `getline`, listing which built-in variables are set by each one.

Variant | Effect
--- | ---
`getline` | Sets `$0`, `NF`, `FNR`, and `NR`
`getline` var | Sets var, `FNR`, and `NR`
`getline <` file | Sets `$0` and `NF`
`getline` var`<` file | Sets var
command `| getline` | Sets `$0` and `NF`
command `| getline` var | Sets var
command `|& getline` | Sets `$0` and `NF`. This is a gawk extension
command `|& getline` var | Sets var. This is a gawk extension

Table 3.1: getline Variants and What They Set

Next: Expressions, Previous: Reading Files, Up: Top

## 4 Printing Output

One of the most common programming actions is to print, or output, some or all of the input. Use the `print` statement for simple output, and the `printf` statement for fancier formatting. The `print` statement is not limited when computing which values to print. However, with two exceptions, you cannot specify how to print them—how many columns, whether to use exponential notation or not, and so on. (For the exceptions, see Output Separators, and OFMT.) For printing with specifications, you need the `printf` statement (see Printf).

Besides basic and formatted printing, this chapter also covers I/O redirections to files and pipes, introduces the special file names that gawk processes internally, and discusses the `close` built-in function.

Next: Print Examples, Up: Printing

### 4.1 The `print` Statement

The `print` statement is used to produce output with simple, standardized formatting. Specify only the strings or numbers to print, in a list separated by commas. They are output, separated by single spaces, followed by a newline. The statement looks like this:

         print item1, item2, ...

The entire list of items may be optionally enclosed in parentheses. The parentheses are necessary if any of the item expressions uses the > relational operator; otherwise it could be confused with a redirection (see Redirection).

The items to print can be constant strings or numbers, fields of the current record (such as `$1`), variables, or any awk expression. Numeric values are converted to strings and then printed.

The simple statement print with no items is equivalent to print $0: it prints the entire current record. To print a blank line, use print "", where `""` is the empty string. To print a fixed piece of text, use a string constant, such as `"Don't Panic"`, as one item. If you forget to use the double-quote characters, your text is taken as an awk expression, and you will probably get an error. Keep in mind that a space is printed between any two items.

Next: Output Separators, Previous: Print, Up: Printing

### 4.2 Examples of `print` Statements

Each `print` statement makes at least one line of output. However, it isn't limited to only one line. If an item value is a string that contains a newline, the newline is output along with the rest of the string. A single `print` statement can make any number of lines this way.

The following is an example of printing a string that contains embedded newlines (the \n is an escape sequence, used to represent the newline character; see Escape Sequences):

         $ awk 'BEGIN { print "line one\nline two\nline three" }'
         -| line one
         -| line two
         -| line three

The next example, which is run on the inventory-shipped file, prints the first two fields of each input record, with a space between them:

         $ awk '{ print $1, $2 }' inventory-shipped
         -| Jan 13
         -| Feb 15
         -| Mar 15
         ...

A common mistake in using the `print` statement is to omit the comma between two items. This often has the effect of making the items run together in the output, with no space. The reason for this is that juxtaposing two string expressions in awk means to concatenate them. Here is the same program, without the comma:

         $ awk '{ print $1 $2 }' inventory-shipped
         -| Jan13
         -| Feb15
         -| Mar15
         ...

To someone unfamiliar with the inventory-shipped file, neither example's output makes much sense. A heading line at the beginning would make it clearer. Let's add some headings to our table of months (`$1`) and green crates shipped (`$2`). We do this using the `BEGIN` pattern (see BEGIN/END) so that the headings are only printed once:

         awk 'BEGIN {  print "Month Crates"
                       print "----- ------" }
                    {  print $1, $2 }' inventory-shipped

When run, the program prints the following:

         Month Crates
         ----- ------
         Jan 13
         Feb 15
         Mar 15
         ...

The only problem, however, is that the headings and the table data don't line up! We can fix this by printing some spaces between the two fields:

         awk 'BEGIN { print "Month Crates"
                      print "----- ------" }
                    { print $1, "     ", $2 }' inventory-shipped

Lining up columns this way can get pretty complicated when there are many columns to fix. Counting spaces for two or three columns is simple, but any more than this can take up a lot of time. This is why the `printf` statement was created (see Printf); one of its specialties is lining up columns of data.

> NOTE: You can continue either a `print` or `printf` statement simply by putting a newline after any comma (see Statements/Lines).

Next: OFMT, Previous: Print Examples, Up: Printing

### 4.3 Output Separators

As mentioned previously, a `print` statement contains a list of items separated by commas. In the output, the items are normally separated by single spaces. However, this doesn't need to be the case; a single space is only the default. Any string of characters may be used as the output field separator by setting the built-in variable `OFS`. The initial value of this variable is the string `" "`—that is, a single space.

The output from an entire `print` statement is called an output record. Each `print` statement outputs one output record, and then outputs a string called the output record separator (or `ORS`). The initial value of `ORS` is the string `"\n"`; i.e., a newline character. Thus, each `print` statement normally makes a separate line.

In order to change how output fields and records are separated, assign new values to the variables `OFS` and `ORS`. The usual place to do this is in the `BEGIN` rule (see BEGIN/END), so that it happens before any input is processed. It can also be done with assignments on the command line, before the names of the input files, or using the -v command-line option (see Options). The following example prints the first and second fields of each input record, separated by a semicolon, with a blank line added after each newline:

         $ awk 'BEGIN { OFS = ";"; ORS = "\n\n" }
         >            { print $1, $2 }' BBS-list
         -| aardvark;555-5553
         -|
         -| alpo-net;555-3412
         -|
         -| barfly;555-7685
         ...

If the value of `ORS` does not contain a newline, the program's output is run together on a single line.

Next: Printf, Previous: Output Separators, Up: Printing

### 4.4 Controlling Numeric Output with `print`

When the `print` statement is used to print numeric values, awk internally converts the number to a string of characters and prints that string. awk uses the `sprintf` function to do this conversion (see String Functions). For now, it suffices to say that the `sprintf` function accepts a format specification that tells it how to format numbers (or strings), and that there are a number of different ways in which numbers can be formatted. The different format specifications are discussed more fully in Control Letters.

The built-in variable `OFMT` contains the default format specification that `print` uses with `sprintf` when it wants to convert a number to a string for printing. The default value of `OFMT` is `"%.6g"`. The way `print` prints numbers can be changed by supplying different format specifications as the value of `OFMT`, as shown in the following example:

         $ awk 'BEGIN {
         >   OFMT = "%.0f"  # print numbers as integers (rounds)
         >   print 17.23, 17.54 }'
         -| 17 18

According to the POSIX standard, awk's behavior is undefined if `OFMT` contains anything but a floating-point conversion specification. (d.c.)

Next: Redirection, Previous: OFMT, Up: Printing

### 4.5 Using `printf` Statements for Fancier Printing

For more precise control over the output format than what is normally provided by `print`, use `printf`. `printf` can be used to specify the width to use for each item, as well as various formatting choices for numbers (such as what output base to use, whether to print an exponent, whether to print a sign, and how many digits to print after the decimal point). This is done by supplying a string, called the format string, that controls how and where to print the other arguments.

Next: Control Letters, Up: Printf

#### 4.5.1 Introduction to the `printf` Statement

A simple `printf` statement looks like this:

         printf format, item1, item2, ...

The entire list of arguments may optionally be enclosed in parentheses. The parentheses are necessary if any of the item expressions use the > relational operator; otherwise, it can be confused with a redirection (see Redirection).

The difference between `printf` and `print` is the format argument. This is an expression whose value is taken as a string; it specifies how to output each of the other arguments. It is called the format string.

The format string is very similar to that in the ISO C library function `printf`. Most of format is text to output verbatim. Scattered among this text are format specifiers—one per item. Each format specifier says to output the next item in the argument list at that place in the format.

The `printf` statement does not automatically append a newline to its output. It outputs only what the format string specifies. So if a newline is needed, you must include one in the format string. The output separator variables `OFS` and `ORS` have no effect on `printf` statements. For example:

         $ awk 'BEGIN {
         >    ORS = "\nOUCH!\n"; OFS = "+"
         >    msg = "Dont Panic!"
         >    printf "%s\n", msg
         > }'
         -| Dont Panic!

Here, neither the + nor the OUCH appear when the message is printed.

Next: Format Modifiers, Previous: Basic Printf, Up: Printf

#### 4.5.2 Format-Control Letters

A format specifier starts with the character % and ends with a format-control letter—it tells the `printf` statement how to output one item. The format-control letter specifies what kind of value to print. The rest of the format specifier is made up of optional modifiers that control how to print the value, such as the field width. Here is a list of the format-control letters:

`%c`
  This prints a number as an ASCII character; thus, printf "%c", 65 outputs the letter A. (The output for a string value is the first character of the string.)
`%d`,`%i`
  These are equivalent; they both print a decimal integer. (The %i specification is for compatibility with ISO C.)
`%e`,`%E`
  These print a number in scientific (exponential) notation; for example:

                printf "%4.3e\n", 1950

  prints 1.950e+03, with a total of four significant figures, three of which follow the decimal point. (The 4.3 represents two modifiers, discussed in the next subsection.) %E uses E instead of e in the output.

`%f`
  This prints a number in floating-point notation. For example:

                printf "%4.3f", 1950

  prints 1950.000, with a total of four significant figures, three of which follow the decimal point. (The 4.3 represents two modifiers, discussed in the next subsection.)

  On systems supporting IEEE 754 floating point format, values representing negative infinity are formatted as -inf or -infinity, and positive infinity as inf and -infinity. The special “not a number” value formats as -nan or nan.

`%F`
  Like `%f` but the infinity and “not a number” values are spelled using uppercase letters.

  The `%F` format is a POSIX extension to ISO C; not all systems support. On those that don't, gawk uses `%f` instead.

`%g`,`%G`
  These print a number in either scientific notation or in floating-point notation, whichever uses fewer characters; if the result is printed in scientific notation, %G uses E instead of e.
`%o`
  This prints an unsigned octal integer.
`%s`
  This prints a string.
`%u`
  This prints an unsigned decimal integer. (This format is of marginal use, because all numbers in awk are floating-point; it is provided primarily for compatibility with C.)
`%x`,`%X`
  These print an unsigned hexadecimal integer; %X uses the letters A through F instead of a through f.
`%%`
  This isn't a format-control letter, but it does have meaning—the sequence %% outputs one %; it does not consume an argument and it ignores any modifiers.

> NOTE: When using the integer format-control letters for values that are outside the range of the widest C integer type, gawk switches to the the %g format specifier. If --lint is provided on the command line (see Options), gawk warns about this. Other versions of awk may print invalid values or do something else entirely. (d.c.)

Next: Printf Examples, Previous: Control Letters, Up: Printf

#### 4.5.3 Modifiers for `printf` Formats

A format specification can also include modifiers that can control how much of the item's value is printed, as well as how much space it gets. The modifiers come between the % and the format-control letter. We will use the bullet symbol “•” in the following examples to represent spaces in the output. Here are the possible modifiers, in the order in which they may appear:

N`$`
  An integer constant followed by a $ is a positional specifier. Normally, format specifications are applied to arguments in the order given in the format string. With a positional specifier, the format specification is applied to a specific argument, instead of what would be the next argument in the list. Positional specifiers begin counting with one. Thus:

                printf "%s %s\n", "don't", "panic"
                printf "%2$s %1$s\n", "panic", "don't"

  prints the famous friendly message twice.

  At first glance, this feature doesn't seem to be of much use. It is in fact a gawk extension, intended for use in translating messages at runtime. See Printf Ordering, which describes how and why to use positional specifiers. For now, we will not use them.

`-`
  The minus sign, used before the width modifier (see later on in this table), says to left-justify the argument within its specified width. Normally, the argument is printed right-justified in the specified width. Thus:

                printf "%-4s", "foo"

  prints foo•.

space
  For numeric conversions, prefix positive values with a space and negative values with a minus sign.
`+`
  The plus sign, used before the width modifier (see later on in this table), says to always supply a sign for numeric conversions, even if the data to format is positive. The + overrides the space modifier.
`#`
  Use an “alternate form” for certain control letters. For %o, supply a leading zero. For %x and %X, supply a leading 0x or 0X for a nonzero result. For %e, %E, and %f, the result always contains a decimal point. For %g and %G, trailing zeros are not removed from the result.

`0`
  A leading 0 (zero) acts as a flag that indicates that output should be padded with zeros instead of spaces. This applies even to non-numeric output formats. (d.c.) This flag only has an effect when the field width is wider than the value to print.
`'`
  A single quote or apostrohe character is a POSIX extension to ISO C. It indicates that the integer part of a floating point value, or the entire part of an integer decimal value, should have a thousands-separator character in it. This only works in locales that support such characters. For example:

                $ cat thousands.awk                                     Show source program
                -| BEGIN { printf "%'d\n", 1234567 }
                $ LC_ALL=C gawk -f thousands.awk                        Run it in "C" locale
                -| 1234567
                $ LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 gawk -f thousands.awk              Run in US English UTF locale
                -| 1,234,567

  For more information about locales and internationalization issues, FIXME: see xxxx.

  > NOTE: The ' flag is a nice feature, but its use complicates things: it now becomes difficult to use it in command-line programs. For information on appropriate quoting tricks, FIXME: see XXXX.

width
  This is a number specifying the desired minimum width of a field. Inserting any number between the % sign and the format-control character forces the field to expand to this width. The default way to do this is to pad with spaces on the left. For example:

                printf "%4s", "foo"

  prints •foo.

  The value of width is a minimum width, not a maximum. If the item value requires more than width characters, it can be as wide as necessary. Thus, the following:

                printf "%4s", "foobar"

  prints foobar.

  Preceding the width with a minus sign causes the output to be padded with spaces on the right, instead of on the left.

`.`prec
  A period followed by an integer constant specifies the precision to use when printing. The meaning of the precision varies by control letter:
  `%e`, `%E`, `%f`
    Number of digits to the right of the decimal point.
  `%g`, `%G`
    Maximum number of significant digits.
  `%d`, `%i`, `%o`, `%u`, `%x`, `%X`
    Minimum number of digits to print.
  `%s`
    Maximum number of characters from the string that should print.

  Thus, the following:

                printf "%.4s", "foobar"

  prints foob.

The C library `printf`'s dynamic width and prec capability (for example, `"%*.*s"`) is supported. Instead of supplying explicit width and/or prec values in the format string, they are passed in the argument list. For example:

         w = 5
         p = 3
         s = "abcdefg"
         printf "%*.*s\n", w, p, s

is exactly equivalent to:

         s = "abcdefg"
         printf "%5.3s\n", s

Both programs output ••abc. Earlier versions of awk did not support this capability. If you must use such a version, you may simulate this feature by using concatenation to build up the format string, like so:

         w = 5
         p = 3
         s = "abcdefg"
         printf "%" w "." p "s\n", s

This is not particularly easy to read but it does work.

C programmers may be used to supplying additional l, L, and h modifiers in `printf` format strings. These are not valid in awk. Most awk implementations silently ignore these modifiers. If --lint is provided on the command line (see Options), gawk warns about their use. If --posix is supplied, their use is a fatal error.

Previous: Format Modifiers, Up: Printf

#### 4.5.4 Examples Using `printf`

The following is a simple example of how to use `printf` to make an aligned table:

         awk '{ printf "%-10s %s\n", $1, $2 }' BBS-list

This command prints the names of the bulletin boards (`$1`) in the file BBS-list as a string of 10 characters that are left-justified. It also prints the phone numbers (`$2`) next on the line. This produces an aligned two-column table of names and phone numbers, as shown here:

         $ awk '{ printf "%-10s %s\n", $1, $2 }' BBS-list
         -| aardvark   555-5553
         -| alpo-net   555-3412
         -| barfly     555-7685
         -| bites      555-1675
         -| camelot    555-0542
         -| core       555-2912
         -| fooey      555-1234
         -| foot       555-6699
         -| macfoo     555-6480
         -| sdace      555-3430
         -| sabafoo    555-2127

In this case, the phone numbers had to be printed as strings because the numbers are separated by a dash. Printing the phone numbers as numbers would have produced just the first three digits: 555. This would have been pretty confusing.

It wasn't necessary to specify a width for the phone numbers because they are last on their lines. They don't need to have spaces after them.

The table could be made to look even nicer by adding headings to the tops of the columns. This is done using the `BEGIN` pattern (see BEGIN/END) so that the headers are only printed once, at the beginning of the awk program:

         awk 'BEGIN { print "Name      Number"
                      print "----      ------" }
              { printf "%-10s %s\n", $1, $2 }' BBS-list

The above example mixed `print` and `printf` statements in the same program. Using just `printf` statements can produce the same results:

         awk 'BEGIN { printf "%-10s %s\n", "Name", "Number"
                      printf "%-10s %s\n", "----", "------" }
              { printf "%-10s %s\n", $1, $2 }' BBS-list

Printing each column heading with the same format specification used for the column elements ensures that the headings are aligned just like the columns.

The fact that the same format specification is used three times can be emphasized by storing it in a variable, like this:

         awk 'BEGIN { format = "%-10s %s\n"
                      printf format, "Name", "Number"
                      printf format, "----", "------" }
              { printf format, $1, $2 }' BBS-list

At this point, it would be a worthwhile exercise to use the `printf` statement to line up the headings and table data for the inventory-shipped example that was covered earlier in the section on the `print` statement (see Print).

Next: Special Files, Previous: Printf, Up: Printing

### 4.6 Redirecting Output of `print` and `printf`

So far, the output from `print` and `printf` has gone to the standard output, usually the terminal. Both `print` and `printf` can also send their output to other places. This is called redirection.

A redirection appears after the `print` or `printf` statement. Redirections in awk are written just like redirections in shell commands, except that they are written inside the awk program.

There are four forms of output redirection: output to a file, output appended to a file, output through a pipe to another command, and output to a coprocess. They are all shown for the `print` statement, but they work identically for `printf`:

`print` items`>` output-file
  This type of redirection prints the items into the output file named output-file. The file name output-file can be any expression. Its value is changed to a string and then used as a file name (see Expressions).

  When this type of redirection is used, the output-file is erased before the first output is written to it. Subsequent writes to the same output-file do not erase output-file, but append to it. (This is different from how you use redirections in shell scripts.) If output-file does not exist, it is created. For example, here is how an awk program can write a list of BBS names to one file named name-list, and a list of phone numbers to another file named phone-list:

                $ awk '{ print $2 > "phone-list"
                >        print $1 > "name-list" }' BBS-list
                $ cat phone-list
                -| 555-5553
                -| 555-3412
                ...
                $ cat name-list
                -| aardvark
                -| alpo-net
                ...

  Each output file contains one name or number per line.

`print` items`>>` output-file
  This type of redirection prints the items into the pre-existing output file named output-file. The difference between this and the single-> redirection is that the old contents (if any) of output-file are not erased. Instead, the awk output is appended to the file. If output-file does not exist, then it is created.

`print` items`|` command
  It is also possible to send output to another program through a pipe instead of into a file. This type of redirection opens a pipe to command, and writes the values of items through this pipe to another process created to execute command.

  The redirection argument command is actually an awk expression. Its value is converted to a string whose contents give the shell command to be run. For example, the following produces two files, one unsorted list of BBS names, and one list sorted in reverse alphabetical order:

                awk '{ print $1 > "names.unsorted"
                       command = "sort -r > names.sorted"
                       print $1 | command }' BBS-list

  The unsorted list is written with an ordinary redirection, while the sorted list is written by piping through the sort utility.

  The next example uses redirection to mail a message to the mailing list bug-system. This might be useful when trouble is encountered in an awk script run periodically for system maintenance:

                report = "mail bug-system"
                print "Awk script failed:", $0 | report
                m = ("at record number " FNR " of " FILENAME)
                print m | report
                close(report)

  The message is built using string concatenation and saved in the variable `m`. It's then sent down the pipeline to the mail program. (The parentheses group the items to concatenate—see Concatenation.)

  The `close` function is called here because it's a good idea to close the pipe as soon as all the intended output has been sent to it. See Close Files And Pipes, for more information.

  This example also illustrates the use of a variable to represent a file or command—it is not necessary to always use a string constant. Using a variable is generally a good idea, because awk requires that the string value be spelled identically every time.

`print` items`|&` command
  This type of redirection prints the items to the input of command. The difference between this and the single-| redirection is that the output from command can be read with `getline`. Thus command is a coprocess, which works together with, but subsidiary to, the awk program.

  This feature is a gawk extension, and is not available in POSIX awk. See Two-way I/O, for a more complete discussion.

Redirecting output using >, >>, |, or |& asks the system to open a file, pipe, or coprocess only if the particular file or command you specify has not already been written to by your program or if it has been closed since it was last written to.

It is a common error to use > redirection for the first `print` to a file, and then to use >> for subsequent output:

         # clear the file
         print "Don't panic" > "guide.txt"
         ...
         # append
         print "Avoid improbability generators" >> "guide.txt"

This is indeed how redirections must be used from the shell. But in awk, it isn't necessary. In this kind of case, a program should use > for all the `print` statements, since the output file is only opened once.

As mentioned earlier (see Getline Notes), many Many awk implementations limit the number of pipelines that an awk program may have open to just one! In gawk, there is no such limit. gawk allows a program to open as many pipelines as the underlying operating system permits.

#### Advanced Notes: Piping into sh

A particularly powerful way to use redirection is to build command lines and pipe them into the shell, sh. For example, suppose you have a list of files brought over from a system where all the file names are stored in uppercase, and you wish to rename them to have names in all lowercase. The following program is both simple and efficient:

         { printf("mv %s %s\n", $0, tolower($0)) | "sh" }

         END { close("sh") }

The `tolower` function returns its argument string with all uppercase characters converted to lowercase (see String Functions). The program builds up a list of command lines, using the mv utility to rename the files. It then sends the list to the shell for execution.

Next: Close Files And Pipes, Previous: Redirection, Up: Printing

### 4.7 Special File Names in gawk

gawk provides a number of special file names that it interprets internally. These file names provide access to standard file descriptors, process-related information, and TCP/IP networking.

Next: Special Process, Up: Special Files

#### 4.7.1 Special Files for Standard Descriptors

Running programs conventionally have three input and output streams already available to them for reading and writing. These are known as the standard input, standard output, and standard error output. These streams are, by default, connected to your terminal, but they are often redirected with the shell, via the <, <<, >, >>, >&, and | operators. Standard error is typically used for writing error messages; the reason there are two separate streams, standard output and standard error, is so that they can be redirected separately.

In other implementations of awk, the only way to write an error message to standard error in an awk program is as follows:

         print "Serious error detected!" | "cat 1>&2"

This works by opening a pipeline to a shell command that can access the standard error stream that it inherits from the awk process. This is far from elegant, and it is also inefficient, because it requires a separate process. So people writing awk programs often don't do this. Instead, they send the error messages to the terminal, like this:

         print "Serious error detected!" > "/dev/tty"

This usually has the same effect but not always: although the standard error stream is usually the terminal, it can be redirected; when that happens, writing to the terminal is not correct. In fact, if awk is run from a background job, it may not have a terminal at all. Then opening /dev/tty fails.

gawk provides special file names for accessing the three standard streams, as well as any other inherited open files. If the file name matches one of these special names when gawk redirects input or output, then it directly uses the stream that the file name stands for. These special file names work for all operating systems that gawk has been ported to, not just those that are POSIX-compliant:

/dev/stdin
  The standard input (file descriptor 0).
/dev/stdout
  The standard output (file descriptor 1).
/dev/stderr
  The standard error output (file descriptor 2).
/dev/fd/N
  The file associated with file descriptor N. Such a file must be opened by the program initiating the awk execution (typically the shell). Unless special pains are taken in the shell from which gawk is invoked, only descriptors 0, 1, and 2 are available.

The file names /dev/stdin, /dev/stdout, and /dev/stderr are aliases for /dev/fd/0, /dev/fd/1, and /dev/fd/2, respectively. However, they are more self-explanatory. The proper way to write an error message in a gawk program is to use /dev/stderr, like this:

         print "Serious error detected!" > "/dev/stderr"

Note the use of quotes around the file name. Like any other redirection, the value must be a string. It is a common error to omit the quotes, which leads to confusing results.

Next: Special Network, Previous: Special FD, Up: Special Files

#### 4.7.2 Special Files for Process-Related Information

gawk also provides special file names that give access to information about the running gawk process. Each of these “files” provides a single record of information. To read them more than once, they must first be closed with the `close` function (see Close Files And Pipes). The file names are:

/dev/pid
  Reading this file returns the process ID of the current process, in decimal form, terminated with a newline.
/dev/ppid
  Reading this file returns the parent process ID of the current process, in decimal form, terminated with a newline.
/dev/pgrpid
  Reading this file returns the process group ID of the current process, in decimal form, terminated with a newline.
/dev/user
  Reading this file returns a single record terminated with a newline. The fields are separated with spaces. The fields represent the following information:
  `$1`
    The return value of the `getuid` system call (the real user ID number).
  `$2`
    The return value of the `geteuid` system call (the effective user ID number).
  `$3`
    The return value of the `getgid` system call (the real group ID number).
  `$4`
    The return value of the `getegid` system call (the effective group ID number).

  If there are any additional fields, they are the group IDs returned by the `getgroups` system call. (Multiple groups may not be supported on all systems.)

These special file names may be used on the command line as data files, as well as for I/O redirections within an awk program. They may not be used as source files with the -f option.

> NOTE: The special files that provide process-related information are now considered obsolete and will disappear entirely in the next release of gawk. gawk prints a warning message every time you use one of these files. To obtain process-related information, use the `PROCINFO` array. See Auto-set.

Next: Special Caveats, Previous: Special Process, Up: Special Files

#### 4.7.3 Special Files for Network Communications

Starting with version 3.1 of gawk, awk programs can open a two-way TCP/IP connection, acting as either a client or a server. This is done using a special file name of the form:

         /inet/protocol/local-port/remote-host/remote-port

The protocol is one of tcp, udp, or raw, and the other fields represent the other essential pieces of information for making a networking connection. These file names are used with the |& operator for communicating with a coprocess (see Two-way I/O). This is an advanced feature, mentioned here only for completeness. Full discussion is delayed until TCP/IP Networking.

Previous: Special Network, Up: Special Files

#### 4.7.4 Special File Name Caveats

Here is a list of things to bear in mind when using the special file names that gawk provides:

- Recognition of these special file names is disabled if gawk is in compatibility mode (see Options).

- The As mentioned earlier, the special files that provide process-related information are now considered obsolete and will disappear entirely in the next release of gawk. gawk prints a warning message every time you use one of these files. To obtain process-related information, use the `PROCINFO` array. See Built-in Variables.
- Starting with version 3.1, gawk always interprets these special file names.20 For example, using /dev/fd/4 for output actually writes on file descriptor 4, and not on a new file descriptor that is `dup`'ed from file descriptor 4. Most of the time this does not matter; however, it is important to not close any of the files related to file descriptors 0, 1, and 2. Doing so results in unpredictable behavior.

Previous: Special Files, Up: Printing

### 4.8 Closing Input and Output Redirections

If the same file name or the same shell command is used with `getline` more than once during the execution of an awk program (see Getline), the file is opened (or the command is executed) the first time only. At that time, the first record of input is read from that file or command. The next time the same file or command is used with `getline`, another record is read from it, and so on.

Similarly, when a file or pipe is opened for output, the file name or command associated with it is remembered by awk, and subsequent writes to the same file or command are appended to the previous writes. The file or pipe stays open until awk exits.

This implies that special steps are necessary in order to read the same file again from the beginning, or to rerun a shell command (rather than reading more output from the same command). The `close` function makes these things possible:

         close(filename)

or:

         close(command)

The argument filename or command can be any expression. Its value must exactly match the string that was used to open the file or start the command (spaces and other “irrelevant” characters included). For example, if you open a pipe with this:

         "sort -r names" | getline foo

then you must close it with this:

         close("sort -r names")

Once this function call is executed, the next `getline` from that file or command, or the next `print` or `printf` to that file or command, reopens the file or reruns the command. Because the expression that you use to close a file or pipeline must exactly match the expression used to open the file or run the command, it is good practice to use a variable to store the file name or command. The previous example becomes the following:

         sortcom = "sort -r names"
         sortcom | getline foo
         ...
         close(sortcom)

This helps avoid hard-to-find typographical errors in your awk programs. Here are some of the reasons for closing an output file:

- To write a file and read it back later on in the same awk program. Close the file after writing it, then begin reading it with `getline`.
- To write numerous files, successively, in the same awk program. If the files aren't closed, eventually awk may exceed a system limit on the number of open files in one process. It is best to close each one when the program has finished writing it.
- To make a command finish. When output is redirected through a pipe, the command reading the pipe normally continues to try to read input as long as the pipe is open. Often this means the command cannot really do its work until the pipe is closed. For example, if output is redirected to the mail program, the message is not actually sent until the pipe is closed.
- To run the same program a second time, with the same arguments. This is not the same thing as giving more input to the first run!

  For example, suppose a program pipes output to the mail program. If it outputs several lines redirected to this pipe without closing it, they make a single message of several lines. By contrast, if the program closes the pipe after each line of output, then each line makes a separate message.

If you use more files than the system allows you to have open, gawk attempts to multiplex the available open files among your data files. gawk's ability to do this depends upon the facilities of your operating system, so it may not always work. It is therefore both good practice and good portability advice to always use `close` on your files when you are done with them. In fact, if you are using a lot of pipes, it is essential that you close commands when done. For example, consider something like this:

         {
             ...
             command = ("grep " $1 " /some/file | my_prog -q " $3)
             while ((command | getline) > 0) {
                 process output of command
             }
             # need close(command) here
         }

This example creates a new pipeline based on data in each record. Without the call to `close` indicated in the comment, awk creates child processes to run the commands, until it eventually runs out of file descriptors for more pipelines.

Even though each command has finished (as indicated by the end-of-file return status from `getline`), the child process is not terminated;21 more importantly, the file descriptor for the pipe is not closed and released until `close` is called or awk exits.

`close` will silently do nothing if given an argument that does not represent a file, pipe or coprocess that was opened with a redirection.

Note also that close(FILENAME) has no “magic” effects on the implicit loop that reads through the files named on the command line. It is, more likely, a close of a file that was never opened, so awk silently does nothing.

When using the |& operator to communicate with a coprocess, it is occasionally useful to be able to close one end of the two-way pipe without closing the other. This is done by supplying a second argument to `close`. As in any other call to `close`, the first argument is the name of the command or special file used to start the coprocess. The second argument should be a string, with either of the values `"to"` or `"from"`. Case does not matter. As this is an advanced feature, a more complete discussion is delayed until Two-way I/O, which discusses it in more detail and gives an example.

#### Advanced Notes: Using `close`'s Return Value

In many versions of Unix awk, the `close` function is actually a statement. It is a syntax error to try and use the return value from `close`: (d.c.)

         command = "..."
         command | getline info
         retval = close(command)  # syntax error in most Unix awks

gawk treats `close` as a function. The return value is −1 if the argument names something that was never opened with a redirection, or if there is a system problem closing the file or process. In these cases, gawk sets the built-in variable `ERRNO` to a string describing the problem.

In gawk, when closing a pipe or coprocess, the return value is the exit status of the command.22 Otherwise, it is the return value from the system's `close` or `fclose` C functions when closing input or output files, respectively. This value is zero if the close succeeds, or −1 if it fails.

The POSIX standard is very vague; it says that `close` returns zero on success and non-zero otherwise. In general, different implementations vary in what they report when closing pipes; thus the return value cannot be used portably. (d.c.)

Next: Patterns and Actions, Previous: Printing, Up: Top

## 5 Expressions

Expressions are the basic building blocks of awk patterns and actions. An expression evaluates to a value that you can print, test, or pass to a function. Additionally, an expression can assign a new value to a variable or a field by using an assignment operator.

An expression can serve as a pattern or action statement on its own. Most other kinds of statements contain one or more expressions that specify the data on which to operate. As in other languages, expressions in awk include variables, array references, constants, and function calls, as well as combinations of these with various operators.

Next: Using Constant Regexps, Up: Expressions

### 5.1 Constant Expressions

The simplest type of expression is the constant, which always has the same value. There are three types of constants: numeric, string, and regular expression.

Each is used in the appropriate context when you need a data value that isn't going to change. Numeric constants can have different forms, but are stored identically internally.

Next: Nondecimal-numbers, Up: Constants

#### 5.1.1 Numeric and String Constants

A numeric constant stands for a number. This number can be an integer, a decimal fraction, or a number in scientific (exponential) notation.23 Here are some examples of numeric constants that all have the same value:

         105
         1.05e+2
         1050e-1

A string constant consists of a sequence of characters enclosed in double-quotation marks. For example:

         "parrot"

represents the string whose contents are parrot. Strings in gawk can be of any length, and they can contain any of the possible eight-bit ASCII characters including ASCII nul (character code zero). Other awk implementations may have difficulty with some character codes.

Next: Regexp Constants, Previous: Scalar Constants, Up: Constants

#### 5.1.2 Octal and Hexadecimal Numbers

In awk, all numbers are in decimal; i.e., base 10. Many other programming languages allow you to specify numbers in other bases, often octal (base 8) and hexadecimal (base 16). In octal, the numbers go 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, etc. Just as 11, in decimal, is 1 times 10 plus 1, so 11, in octal, is 1 times 8, plus 1. This equals 9 in decimal. In hexadecimal, there are 16 digits. Since the everyday decimal number system only has ten digits (0–9), the letters a through f are used to represent the rest. (Case in the letters is usually irrelevant; hexadecimal a and A have the same value.) Thus, 11, in hexadecimal, is 1 times 16 plus 1, which equals 17 in decimal.

Just by looking at plain 11, you can't tell what base it's in. So, in C, C++, and other languages derived from C, there is a special notation to help signify the base. Octal numbers start with a leading 0, and hexadecimal numbers start with a leading 0x or 0X:

`11`
  Decimal value 11.
`011`
  Octal 11, decimal value 9.
`0x11`
  Hexadecimal 11, decimal value 17.

This example shows the difference:

         $ gawk 'BEGIN { printf "%d, %d, %d\n", 011, 11, 0x11 }'
         -| 9, 11, 17

Being able to use octal and hexadecimal constants in your programs is most useful when working with data that cannot be represented conveniently as characters or as regular numbers, such as binary data of various sorts.

gawk allows the use of octal and hexadecimal constants in your program text. However, such numbers in the input data are not treated differently; doing so by default would break old programs. (If you really need to do this, use the --non-decimal-data command-line option; see Nondecimal Data.) If you have octal or hexadecimal data, you can use the `strtonum` function (see String Functions) to convert the data into a number. Most of the time, you will want to use octal or hexadecimal constants when working with the built-in bit manipulation functions; see Bitwise Functions, for more information.

Unlike some early C implementations, 8 and 9 are not valid in octal constants; e.g., gawk treats 018 as decimal 18:

         $ gawk 'BEGIN { print "021 is", 021 ; print 018 }'
         -| 021 is 17
         -| 18

Octal and hexadecimal source code constants are a gawk extension. If gawk is in compatibility mode (see Options), they are not available.

#### Advanced Notes: A Constant's Base Does Not Affect Its Value

Once a numeric constant has been converted internally into a number, gawk no longer remembers what the original form of the constant was; the internal value is always used. This has particular consequences for conversion of numbers to strings:

         $ gawk 'BEGIN { printf "0x11 is <%s>\n", 0x11 }'
         -| 0x11 is <17>

Previous: Nondecimal-numbers, Up: Constants

#### 5.1.3 Regular Expression Constants

A regexp constant is a regular expression description enclosed in slashes, such as `/^beginning and end$/`. Most regexps used in awk programs are constant, but the ~ and !~ matching operators can also match computed or “dynamic” regexps (which are just ordinary strings or variables that contain a regexp).

Next: Variables, Previous: Constants, Up: Expressions

### 5.2 Using Regular Expression Constants

When used on the righthand side of the ~ or !~ operators, a regexp constant merely stands for the regexp that is to be matched. However, regexp constants (such as `/foo/`) may be used like simple expressions. When a regexp constant appears by itself, it has the same meaning as if it appeared in a pattern, i.e., ($0 ~ /foo/) (d.c.) See Expression Patterns. This means that the following two code segments:

         if ($0 ~ /barfly/ || $0 ~ /camelot/)
             print "found"

and:

         if (/barfly/ || /camelot/)
             print "found"

are exactly equivalent. One rather bizarre consequence of this rule is that the following Boolean expression is valid, but does not do what the user probably intended:

         # note that /foo/ is on the left of the ~
         if (/foo/ ~ $1) print "found foo"

This code is “obviously” testing `$1` for a match against the regexp `/foo/`. But in fact, the expression /foo/ ~ $1 actually means ($0 ~ /foo/) ~ $1. In other words, first match the input record against the regexp `/foo/`. The result is either zero or one, depending upon the success or failure of the match. That result is then matched against the first field in the record. Because it is unlikely that you would ever really want to make this kind of test, gawk issues a warning when it sees this construct in a program. Another consequence of this rule is that the assignment statement:

         matches = /foo/

assigns either zero or one to the variable `matches`, depending upon the contents of the current input record. This feature of the language has never been well documented until the POSIX specification.

Constant regular expressions are also used as the first argument for the `gensub`, `sub`, and `gsub` functions, and as the second argument of the `match` function (see String Functions). Modern implementations of awk, including gawk, allow the third argument of `split` to be a regexp constant, but some older implementations do not. (d.c.) This can lead to confusion when attempting to use regexp constants as arguments to user-defined functions (see User-defined). For example:

         function mysub(pat, repl, str, global)
         {
             if (global)
                 gsub(pat, repl, str)
             else
                 sub(pat, repl, str)
             return str
         }

         {
             ...
             text = "hi! hi yourself!"
             mysub(/hi/, "howdy", text, 1)
             ...
         }

In this example, the programmer wants to pass a regexp constant to the user-defined function `mysub`, which in turn passes it on to either `sub` or `gsub`. However, what really happens is that the `pat` parameter is either one or zero, depending upon whether or not `$0` matches `/hi/`. gawk issues a warning when it sees a regexp constant used as a parameter to a user-defined function, since passing a truth value in this way is probably not what was intended.

Next: Conversion, Previous: Using Constant Regexps, Up: Expressions

### 5.3 Variables

Variables are ways of storing values at one point in your program for use later in another part of your program. They can be manipulated entirely within the program text, and they can also be assigned values on the awk command line.

Next: Assignment Options, Up: Variables

#### 5.3.1 Using Variables in a Program

Variables let you give names to values and refer to them later. Variables have already been used in many of the examples. The name of a variable must be a sequence of letters, digits, or underscores, and it may not begin with a digit. Case is significant in variable names; `a` and `A` are distinct variables.

A variable name is a valid expression by itself; it represents the variable's current value. Variables are given new values with assignment operators, increment operators, and decrement operators. See Assignment Ops.

A few variables have special built-in meanings, such as `FS` (the field separator), and `NF` (the number of fields in the current input record). See Built-in Variables, for a list of the built-in variables. These built-in variables can be used and assigned just like all other variables, but their values are also used or changed automatically by awk. All built-in variables' names are entirely uppercase.

Variables in awk can be assigned either numeric or string values. The kind of value a variable holds can change over the life of a program. By default, variables are initialized to the empty string, which is zero if converted to a number. There is no need to “initialize” each variable explicitly in awk, which is what you would do in C and in most other traditional languages.

Previous: Using Variables, Up: Variables

#### 5.3.2 Assigning Variables on the Command Line

Any awk variable can be set by including a variable assignment among the arguments on the command line when awk is invoked (see Other Arguments). Such an assignment has the following form:

         variable=text

With it, a variable is set either at the beginning of the awk run or in between input files. When the assignment is preceded with the -v option, as in the following:

         -v variable=text

the variable is set at the very beginning, even before the `BEGIN` rules are run. The -v option and its assignment must precede all the file name arguments, as well as the program text. (See Options, for more information about the -v option.) Otherwise, the variable assignment is performed at a time determined by its position among the input file arguments—after the processing of the preceding input file argument. For example:

         awk '{ print $n }' n=4 inventory-shipped n=2 BBS-list

prints the value of field number `n` for all input records. Before the first file is read, the command line sets the variable `n` equal to four. This causes the fourth field to be printed in lines from the file inventory-shipped. After the first file has finished, but before the second file is started, `n` is set to two, so that the second field is printed in lines from BBS-list:

         $ awk '{ print $n }' n=4 inventory-shipped n=2 BBS-list
         -| 15
         -| 24
         ...
         -| 555-5553
         -| 555-3412
         ...

Command-line arguments are made available for explicit examination by the awk program in the `ARGV` array (see ARGC and ARGV). awk processes the values of command-line assignments for escape sequences (see Escape Sequences). (d.c.)

Next: Arithmetic Ops, Previous: Variables, Up: Expressions

### 5.4 Conversion of Strings and Numbers

Strings are converted to numbers and numbers are converted to strings, if the context of the awk program demands it. For example, if the value of either `foo` or `bar` in the expression foo + bar happens to be a string, it is converted to a number before the addition is performed. If numeric values appear in string concatenation, they are converted to strings. Consider the following:

         two = 2; three = 3
         print (two three) + 4

This prints the (numeric) value 27. The numeric values of the variables `two` and `three` are converted to strings and concatenated together. The resulting string is converted back to the number 23, to which 4 is then added.

If, for some reason, you need to force a number to be converted to a string, concatenate the empty string, `""`, with that number. To force a string to be converted to a number, add zero to that string. A string is converted to a number by interpreting any numeric prefix of the string as numerals: `"2.5"` converts to 2.5, `"1e3"` converts to 1000, and `"25fix"` has a numeric value of 25. Strings that can't be interpreted as valid numbers convert to zero.

The exact manner in which numbers are converted into strings is controlled by the awk built-in variable `CONVFMT` (see Built-in Variables). Numbers are converted using the `sprintf` function with `CONVFMT` as the format specifier (see String Functions).

`CONVFMT`'s default value is `"%.6g"`, which prints a value with at least six significant digits. For some applications, you might want to change it to specify more precision. On most modern machines, 17 digits is enough to capture a floating-point number's value exactly, most of the time.24

Strange results can occur if you set `CONVFMT` to a string that doesn't tell `sprintf` how to format floating-point numbers in a useful way. For example, if you forget the % in the format, awk converts all numbers to the same constant string. As a special case, if a number is an integer, then the result of converting it to a string is always an integer, no matter what the value of `CONVFMT` may be. Given the following code fragment:

         CONVFMT = "%2.2f"
         a = 12
         b = a ""

`b` has the value `"12"`, not `"12.00"`. (d.c.)

Prior to the POSIX standard, awk used the value of `OFMT` for converting numbers to strings. `OFMT` specifies the output format to use when printing numbers with `print`. `CONVFMT` was introduced in order to separate the semantics of conversion from the semantics of printing. Both `CONVFMT` and `OFMT` have the same default value: `"%.6g"`. In the vast majority of cases, old awk programs do not change their behavior. However, these semantics for `OFMT` are something to keep in mind if you must port your new style program to older implementations of awk. We recommend that instead of changing your programs, just port gawk itself. See Print, for more information on the `print` statement.

Finally, once again, where you are can matter when it comes to converting between numbers and strings. In Locales, we mentioned that the local character set and language (the locale) can affect how gawk matches characters. The locale also affects numeric formats. In particular, for awk programs, it affects the decimal point character. The `"C"` locale, and most English-language locales, use the period character (.) as the decimal point. However, many (if not most) European and non-English locales use the comma (,) as the decimal point character.

The POSIX standard says that awk always uses the period as the decimal point when reading the awk program source code, and for command-line variable assignments (see Other Arguments). However, when interpreting input data, for `print` and `printf` output, and for number to string conversion, the local decimal point character is used. As of version 3.1.3, gawk fully complies with this aspect of the standard. Here are some examples indicating the difference in behavior, on a GNU/Linux system:

         $ gawk 'BEGIN { printf "%g\n", 3.1415927 }'
         -| 3.14159
         $  LC_ALL=en_DK gawk 'BEGIN { printf "%g\n", 3.1415927 }'
         -| 3,14159
         $ echo 4,321 | gawk '{ print $1 + 1 }'
         -| 5
         $ echo 4,321 | LC_ALL=en_DK gawk '{ print $1 + 1 }'
         -| 5,321

The en_DK locale is for English in Denmark, where the comma acts as the decimal point separator. In the normal `"C"` locale, gawk treats 4,321 as 4, while in the Danish locale, it's treated as the full number, 4.321.

Next: Concatenation, Previous: Conversion, Up: Expressions

### 5.5 Arithmetic Operators

The awk language uses the common arithmetic operators when evaluating expressions. All of these arithmetic operators follow normal precedence rules and work as you would expect them to.

The following example uses a file named grades, which contains a list of student names as well as three test scores per student (it's a small class):

         Pat   100 97 58
         Sandy  84 72 93
         Chris  72 92 89

This programs takes the file grades and prints the average of the scores:

         $ awk '{ sum = $2 + $3 + $4 ; avg = sum / 3
         >        print $1, avg }' grades
         -| Pat 85
         -| Sandy 83
         -| Chris 84.3333

The following list provides the arithmetic operators in awk, in order from the highest precedence to the lowest:

`-` x
  Negation.
`+` x
  Unary plus; the expression is converted to a number.

x`^` y
x`**` y
  Exponentiation; x raised to the y power. 2 ^ 3 has the value eight; the character sequence ** is equivalent to ^.
x`*` y
  Multiplication.

x`/` y
  Division; because all numbers in awk are floating-point numbers, the result is not rounded to an integer—3 / 4 has the value 0.75. (It is a common mistake, especially for C programmers, to forget that all numbers in awk are floating-point, and that division of integer-looking constants produces a real number, not an integer.)
x`%` y
  Remainder; further discussion is provided in the text, just after this list.
x`+` y
  Addition.
x`-` y
  Subtraction.

Unary plus and minus have the same precedence, the multiplication operators all have the same precedence, and addition and subtraction have the same precedence.

When computing the remainder of x`%` y, the quotient is rounded toward zero to an integer and multiplied by y. This result is subtracted from x; this operation is sometimes known as “trunc-mod.” The following relation always holds:

         b * int(a / b) + (a % b) == a

One possibly undesirable effect of this definition of remainder is that x`%` y is negative if x is negative. Thus:

         -17 % 8 = -1

In other awk implementations, the signedness of the remainder may be machine-dependent.

> NOTE: The POSIX standard only specifies the use of ^ for exponentiation. For maximum portability, do not use the ** operator.

Next: Assignment Ops, Previous: Arithmetic Ops, Up: Expressions

### 5.6 String Concatenation

> It seemed like a good idea at the time.
> Brian Kernighan

There is only one string operation: concatenation. It does not have a specific operator to represent it. Instead, concatenation is performed by writing expressions next to one another, with no operator. For example:

         $ awk '{ print "Field number one: " $1 }' BBS-list
         -| Field number one: aardvark
         -| Field number one: alpo-net
         ...

Without the space in the string constant after the :, the line runs together. For example:

         $ awk '{ print "Field number one:" $1 }' BBS-list
         -| Field number one:aardvark
         -| Field number one:alpo-net
         ...

Because string concatenation does not have an explicit operator, it is often necessary to insure that it happens at the right time by using parentheses to enclose the items to concatenate. For example, the following code fragment does not concatenate `file` and `name` as you might expect:

         file = "file"
         name = "name"
         print "something meaningful" > file name

It is necessary to use the following:

         print "something meaningful" > (file name)

Parentheses should be used around concatenation in all but the most common contexts, such as on the righthand side of =. Be careful about the kinds of expressions used in string concatenation. In particular, the order of evaluation of expressions used for concatenation is undefined in the awk language. Consider this example:

         BEGIN {
             a = "don't"
             print (a " " (a = "panic"))
         }

It is not defined whether the assignment to `a` happens before or after the value of `a` is retrieved for producing the concatenated value. The result could be either don't panic, or panic panic. The precedence of concatenation, when mixed with other operators, is often counter-intuitive. Consider this example:

         $ awk 'BEGIN { print -12 " " -24 }'
         -| -12-24

This “obviously” is concatenating −12, a space, and −24. But where did the space disappear to? The answer lies in the combination of operator precedences and awk's automatic conversion rules. To get the desired result, write the program in the following manner:

         $ awk 'BEGIN { print -12 " " (-24) }'
         -| -12 -24

This forces awk to treat the - on the -24 as unary. Otherwise, it's parsed as follows:

             −12 (" " − 24)
         => −12 (0 − 24)
         => −12 (−24)
         => −12−24

As mentioned earlier, when doing concatenation, parenthesize. Otherwise, you're never quite sure what you'll get.

Next: Increment Ops, Previous: Concatenation, Up: Expressions

### 5.7 Assignment Expressions

An assignment is an expression that stores a (usually different) value into a variable. For example, let's assign the value one to the variable `z`:

         z = 1

After this expression is executed, the variable `z` has the value one. Whatever old value `z` had before the assignment is forgotten.

Assignments can also store string values. For example, the following stores the value `"this food is good"` in the variable `message`:

         thing = "food"
         predicate = "good"
         message = "this " thing " is " predicate

This also illustrates string concatenation. The = sign is called an assignment operator. It is the simplest assignment operator because the value of the righthand operand is stored unchanged. Most operators (addition, concatenation, and so on) have no effect except to compute a value. If the value isn't used, there's no reason to use the operator. An assignment operator is different; it does produce a value, but even if you ignore it, the assignment still makes itself felt through the alteration of the variable. We call this a side effect.

The lefthand operand of an assignment need not be a variable (see Variables); it can also be a field (see Changing Fields) or an array element (see Arrays). These are all called lvalues, which means they can appear on the lefthand side of an assignment operator. The righthand operand may be any expression; it produces the new value that the assignment stores in the specified variable, field, or array element. (Such values are called rvalues.)

It is important to note that variables do not have permanent types. A variable's type is simply the type of whatever value it happens to hold at the moment. In the following program fragment, the variable `foo` has a numeric value at first, and a string value later on:

         foo = 1
         print foo
         foo = "bar"
         print foo

When the second assignment gives `foo` a string value, the fact that it previously had a numeric value is forgotten.

String values that do not begin with a digit have a numeric value of zero. After executing the following code, the value of `foo` is five:

         foo = "a string"
         foo = foo + 5

> NOTE: Using a variable as a number and then later as a string can be confusing and is poor programming style. The previous two examples illustrate how awk works, not how you should write your programs!

An assignment is an expression, so it has a value—the same value that is assigned. Thus, z = 1 is an expression with the value one. One consequence of this is that you can write multiple assignments together, such as:

         x = y = z = 5

This example stores the value five in all three variables (`x`, `y`, and `z`). It does so because the value of z = 5, which is five, is stored into `y` and then the value of y = z = 5, which is five, is stored into `x`.

Assignments may be used anywhere an expression is called for. For example, it is valid to write x != (y = 1) to set `y` to one, and then test whether `x` equals one. But this style tends to make programs hard to read; such nesting of assignments should be avoided, except perhaps in a one-shot program.

Aside from =, there are several other assignment operators that do arithmetic with the old value of the variable. For example, the operator += computes a new value by adding the righthand value to the old value of the variable. Thus, the following assignment adds five to the value of `foo`:

         foo += 5

This is equivalent to the following:

         foo = foo + 5

Use whichever makes the meaning of your program clearer.

There are situations where using += (or any assignment operator) is not the same as simply repeating the lefthand operand in the righthand expression. For example:

         # Thanks to Pat Rankin for this example
         BEGIN  {
             foo[rand()] += 5
             for (x in foo)
                print x, foo[x]

             bar[rand()] = bar[rand()] + 5
             for (x in bar)
                print x, bar[x]
         }

The indices of `bar` are practically guaranteed to be different, because `rand` returns different values each time it is called. (Arrays and the `rand` function haven't been covered yet. See Arrays, and see Numeric Functions, for more information). This example illustrates an important fact about assignment operators: the lefthand expression is only evaluated once. It is up to the implementation as to which expression is evaluated first, the lefthand or the righthand. Consider this example:

         i = 1
         a[i += 2] = i + 1

The value of `a[3]` could be either two or four.

table-assign-ops lists the arithmetic assignment operators. In each case, the righthand operand is an expression whose value is converted to a number.

Operator | Effect
--- | ---
lvalue `+=` increment | Adds increment to the value of lvalue.
lvalue `-=` decrement | Subtracts decrement from the value of lvalue.
lvalue `*=` coefficient | Multiplies the value of lvalue by coefficient.
lvalue `/=` divisor | Divides the value of lvalue by divisor.
lvalue `%=` modulus | Sets lvalue to its remainder by modulus.
lvalue `^=` power |
lvalue `**=` power | Raises lvalue to the power power.

Table 5.1: Arithmetic Assignment Operators

> NOTE: Only the ^= operator is specified by POSIX. For maximum portability, do not use the **= operator.

#### Advanced Notes: Syntactic Ambiguities Between /= and Regular Expressions

There is a syntactic ambiguity between the /= assignment operator and regexp constants whose first character is an =. (d.c.) This is most notable in commercial awk versions. For example:

         $ awk /==/ /dev/null
         error--> awk: syntax error at source line 1
         error-->  context is
         error-->         >>> /= <<<
         error--> awk: bailing out at source line 1

A workaround is:

         awk '/[=]=/' /dev/null

gawk does not have this problem, nor do the other freely available versions described in Other Versions.

Next: Truth Values, Previous: Assignment Ops, Up: Expressions

### 5.8 Increment and Decrement Operators

Increment and decrement operators increase or decrease the value of a variable by one. An assignment operator can do the same thing, so the increment operators add no power to the awk language; however, they are convenient abbreviations for very common operations.

The operator used for adding one is written ++. It can be used to increment a variable either before or after taking its value. To pre-increment a variable `v`, write ++v. This adds one to the value of `v`—that new value is also the value of the expression. (The assignment expression v += 1 is completely equivalent.) Writing the ++ after the variable specifies post-increment. This increments the variable value just the same; the difference is that the value of the increment expression itself is the variable's old value. Thus, if `foo` has the value four, then the expression foo++ has the value four, but it changes the value of `foo` to five. In other words, the operator returns the old value of the variable, but with the side effect of incrementing it.

The post-increment foo++ is nearly the same as writing (foo += 1) - 1. It is not perfectly equivalent because all numbers in awk are floating-point—in floating-point, foo + 1 - 1 does not necessarily equal `foo`. But the difference is minute as long as you stick to numbers that are fairly small (less than 10e12).

Fields and array elements are incremented just like variables. (Use $(i++) when you want to do a field reference and a variable increment at the same time. The parentheses are necessary because of the precedence of the field reference operator $.)

The decrement operator -- works just like ++, except that it subtracts one instead of adding it. As with ++, it can be used before the lvalue to pre-decrement or after it to post-decrement. Following is a summary of increment and decrement expressions:

`++`lvalue
  This expression increments lvalue, and the new value becomes the value of the expression.
lvalue`++`
  This expression increments lvalue, but the value of the expression is the old value of lvalue.

`--`lvalue
  This expression is like ++lvalue, but instead of adding, it subtracts. It decrements lvalue and delivers the value that is the result.
lvalue`--`
  This expression is like lvalue++, but instead of adding, it subtracts. It decrements lvalue. The value of the expression is the old value of lvalue.

#### Advanced Notes: Operator Evaluation Order

> Doctor, doctor! It hurts when I do this!
> So don't do that!
> Groucho Marx

What happens for something like the following?

         b = 6
         print b += b++

Or something even stranger?

         b = 6
         b += ++b + b++
         print b

In other words, when do the various side effects prescribed by the postfix operators (b++) take effect? When side effects happen is implementation defined. In other words, it is up to the particular version of awk. The result for the first example may be 12 or 13, and for the second, it may be 22 or 23.

In short, doing things like this is not recommended and definitely not anything that you can rely upon for portability. You should avoid such things in your own programs.

Next: Typing and Comparison, Previous: Increment Ops, Up: Expressions

### 5.9 True and False in awk

Many programming languages have a special representation for the concepts of “true” and “false.” Such languages usually use the special constants `true` and `false`, or perhaps their uppercase equivalents. However, awk is different. It borrows a very simple concept of true and false from C. In awk, any nonzero numeric value or any nonempty string value is true. Any other value (zero or the null string `""`) is false. The following program prints A strange truth value three times:

         BEGIN {
            if (3.1415927)
                print "A strange truth value"
            if ("Four Score And Seven Years Ago")
                print "A strange truth value"
            if (j = 57)
                print "A strange truth value"
         }

There is a surprising consequence of the “nonzero or non-null” rule: the string constant `"0"` is actually true, because it is non-null. (d.c.)

Next: Boolean Ops, Previous: Truth Values, Up: Expressions

### 5.10 Variable Typing and Comparison Expressions

> The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
> The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Unlike other programming languages, awk variables do not have a fixed type. Instead, they can be either a number or a string, depending upon the value that is assigned to them.

The 1992 POSIX standard introduced the concept of a numeric string, which is simply a string that looks like a number—for example, `" +2"`. This concept is used for determining the type of a variable. The type of the variable is important because the types of two variables determine how they are compared. In gawk, variable typing follows these rules:

- A numeric constant or the result of a numeric operation has the numeric attribute.
- A string constant or the result of a string operation has the string attribute.
- Fields, `getline` input, `FILENAME`, `ARGV` elements, `ENVIRON` elements, and the elements of an array created by `split` that are numeric strings have the strnum attribute. Otherwise, they have the string attribute. Uninitialized variables also have the strnum attribute.
- Attributes propagate across assignments but are not changed by any use.

The last rule is particularly important. In the following program, `a` has numeric type, even though it is later used in a string operation:

         BEGIN {
                  a = 12.345
                  b = a " is a cute number"
                  print b
         }

When two operands are compared, either string comparison or numeric comparison may be used. This depends upon the attributes of the operands, according to the following symmetric matrix:

                 +——————————————————————–
                 |       STRING          NUMERIC         STRNUM
         ———–+——————————————————————–
                 |
         STRING  |       string          string          string
                 |
         NUMERIC |       string          numeric         numeric
                 |
         STRNUM  |       string          numeric         numeric
         ———–+——————————————————————–

The basic idea is that user input that looks numeric—and only user input—should be treated as numeric, even though it is actually made of characters and is therefore also a string. Thus, for example, the string constant `" +3.14"` is a string, even though it looks numeric, and is never treated as number for comparison purposes.

In short, when one operand is a “pure” string, such as a string constant, then a string comparison is performed. Otherwise, a numeric comparison is performed.25

Comparison expressions compare strings or numbers for relationships such as equality. They are written using relational operators, which are a superset of those in C. table-relational-ops describes them.

Expression | Result
--- | ---
x `<` y | True if x is less than y.
x `<=` y | True if x is less than or equal to y.
x `>` y | True if x is greater than y.
x `>=` y | True if x is greater than or equal to y.
x `==` y | True if x is equal to y.
x `!=` y | True if x is not equal to y.
x `~` y | True if the string x matches the regexp denoted by y.
x `!~` y | True if the string x does not match the regexp denoted by y.
subscript `in` array | True if the array array has an element with the subscript subscript.

Table 5.2: Relational Operators

Comparison expressions have the value one if true and zero if false. When comparing operands of mixed types, numeric operands are converted to strings using the value of `CONVFMT` (see Conversion).

Strings are compared by comparing the first character of each, then the second character of each, and so on. Thus, `"10"` is less than `"9"`. If there are two strings where one is a prefix of the other, the shorter string is less than the longer one. Thus, `"abc"` is less than `"abcd"`.

It is very easy to accidentally mistype the == operator and leave off one of the = characters. The result is still valid awk code, but the program does not do what is intended:

         if (a = b)   # oops! should be a == b
            ...
         else
            ...

Unless `b` happens to be zero or the null string, the `if` part of the test always succeeds. Because the operators are so similar, this kind of error is very difficult to spot when scanning the source code.

The following table of expressions illustrates the kind of comparison gawk performs, as well as what the result of the comparison is:

`1.5 <= 2.0`
  numeric comparison (true)
`"abc" >= "xyz"`
  string comparison (false)
`1.5 != " +2"`
  string comparison (true)
`"1e2" < "3"`
  string comparison (true)
`a = 2; b = "2"`
`a == b`
  string comparison (true)
`a = 2; b = " +2"`
`a == b`
  string comparison (false)

In the next example:

         $ echo 1e2 3 | awk '{ print ($1 < $2) ? "true" : "false" }'
         -| false

the result is false because both `$1` and `$2` are user input. They are numeric strings—therefore both have the strnum attribute, dictating a numeric comparison. The purpose of the comparison rules and the use of numeric strings is to attempt to produce the behavior that is “least surprising,” while still “doing the right thing.” String comparisons and regular expression comparisons are very different. For example:

         x == "foo"

has the value one, or is true if the variable `x` is precisely foo. By contrast:

         x ~ /foo/

has the value one if `x` contains foo, such as `"Oh, what a fool am I!"`.

The righthand operand of the ~ and !~ operators may be either a regexp constant (`/.../`) or an ordinary expression. In the latter case, the value of the expression as a string is used as a dynamic regexp (see Regexp Usage; also see Computed Regexps).

In modern implementations of awk, a constant regular expression in slashes by itself is also an expression. The regexp `/`regexp`/` is an abbreviation for the following comparison expression:

         $0 ~ /regexp/

One special place where `/foo/` is not an abbreviation for $0 ~ /foo/ is when it is the righthand operand of ~ or !~. See Using Constant Regexps, where this is discussed in more detail.

Next: Conditional Exp, Previous: Typing and Comparison, Up: Expressions

### 5.11 Boolean Expressions

A Boolean expression is a combination of comparison expressions or matching expressions, using the Boolean operators “or” (||), “and” (&&), and “not” (!), along with parentheses to control nesting. The truth value of the Boolean expression is computed by combining the truth values of the component expressions. Boolean expressions are also referred to as logical expressions. The terms are equivalent.

Boolean expressions can be used wherever comparison and matching expressions can be used. They can be used in `if`, `while`, `do`, and `for` statements (see Statements). They have numeric values (one if true, zero if false) that come into play if the result of the Boolean expression is stored in a variable or used in arithmetic.

In addition, every Boolean expression is also a valid pattern, so you can use one as a pattern to control the execution of rules. The Boolean operators are:

boolean1`&&` boolean2
  True if both boolean1 and boolean2 are true. For example, the following statement prints the current input record if it contains both 2400 and foo:

                if ($0 ~ /2400/ && $0 ~ /foo/) print

  The subexpression boolean2 is evaluated only if boolean1 is true. This can make a difference when boolean2 contains expressions that have side effects. In the case of $0 ~ /foo/ && ($2 == bar++), the variable `bar` is not incremented if there is no substring foo in the record.

boolean1`||` boolean2
  True if at least one of boolean1 or boolean2 is true. For example, the following statement prints all records in the input that contain either 2400 or foo or both:

                if ($0 ~ /2400/ || $0 ~ /foo/) print

  The subexpression boolean2 is evaluated only if boolean1 is false. This can make a difference when boolean2 contains expressions that have side effects.

`!` boolean
  True if boolean is false. For example, the following program prints no home! in the unusual event that the HOME environment variable is not defined:

                BEGIN { if (! ("HOME" in ENVIRON))
                               print "no home!" }

  (The `in` operator is described in Reference to Elements.)

The && and || operators are called short-circuit operators because of the way they work. Evaluation of the full expression is “short-circuited” if the result can be determined part way through its evaluation.

Statements that use && or || can be continued simply by putting a newline after them. But you cannot put a newline in front of either of these operators without using backslash continuation (see Statements/Lines).

The actual value of an expression using the ! operator is either one or zero, depending upon the truth value of the expression it is applied to. The ! operator is often useful for changing the sense of a flag variable from false to true and back again. For example, the following program is one way to print lines in between special bracketing lines:

         $1 == "START"   { interested = ! interested; next }
         interested == 1 { print }
         $1 == "END"     { interested = ! interested; next }

The variable `interested`, as with all awk variables, starts out initialized to zero, which is also false. When a line is seen whose first field is START, the value of `interested` is toggled to true, using !. The next rule prints lines as long as `interested` is true. When a line is seen whose first field is END, `interested` is toggled back to false.

> NOTE: The `next` statement is discussed in Next Statement. `next` tells awk to skip the rest of the rules, get the next record, and start processing the rules over again at the top. The reason it's there is to avoid printing the bracketing START and END lines.

Next: Function Calls, Previous: Boolean Ops, Up: Expressions

### 5.12 Conditional Expressions

A conditional expression is a special kind of expression that has three operands. It allows you to use one expression's value to select one of two other expressions. The conditional expression is the same as in the C language, as shown here:

         selector ? if-true-exp : if-false-exp

There are three subexpressions. The first, selector, is always computed first. If it is “true” (not zero or not null), then if-true-exp is computed next and its value becomes the value of the whole expression. Otherwise, if-false-exp is computed next and its value becomes the value of the whole expression. For example, the following expression produces the absolute value of `x`:

         x >= 0 ? x : -x

Each time the conditional expression is computed, only one of if-true-exp and if-false-exp is used; the other is ignored. This is important when the expressions have side effects. For example, this conditional expression examines element `i` of either array `a` or array `b`, and increments `i`:

         x == y ? a[i++] : b[i++]

This is guaranteed to increment `i` exactly once, because each time only one of the two increment expressions is executed and the other is not. See Arrays, for more information about arrays.

As a minor gawk extension, a statement that uses ?: can be continued simply by putting a newline after either character. However, putting a newline in front of either character does not work without using backslash continuation (see Statements/Lines). If --posix is specified (see Options), then this extension is disabled.

Next: Precedence, Previous: Conditional Exp, Up: Expressions

### 5.13 Function Calls

A function is a name for a particular calculation. This enables you to ask for it by name at any point in the program. For example, the function `sqrt` computes the square root of a number.

A fixed set of functions are built-in, which means they are available in every awk program. The `sqrt` function is one of these. See Built-in, for a list of built-in functions and their descriptions. In addition, you can define functions for use in your program. See User-defined, for instructions on how to do this.

The way to use a function is with a function call expression, which consists of the function name followed immediately by a list of arguments in parentheses. The arguments are expressions that provide the raw materials for the function's calculations. When there is more than one argument, they are separated by commas. If there are no arguments, just write () after the function name. The following examples show function calls with and without arguments:

         sqrt(x^2 + y^2)        one argument
         atan2(y, x)            two arguments
         rand()                 no arguments

Caution: Do not put any space between the function name and the open-parenthesis! A user-defined function name looks just like the name of a variable—a space would make the expression look like concatenation of a variable with an expression inside parentheses.

With built-in functions, space before the parenthesis is harmless, but it is best not to get into the habit of using space to avoid mistakes with user-defined functions. Each function expects a particular number of arguments. For example, the `sqrt` function must be called with a single argument, the number of which to take the square root:

         sqrt(argument)

Some of the built-in functions have one or more optional arguments. If those arguments are not supplied, the functions use a reasonable default value. See Built-in, for full details. If arguments are omitted in calls to user-defined functions, then those arguments are treated as local variables and initialized to the empty string (see User-defined).

Like every other expression, the function call has a value, which is computed by the function based on the arguments you give it. In this example, the value of sqrt(argument) is the square root of argument. A function can also have side effects, such as assigning values to certain variables or doing I/O. The following program reads numbers, one number per line, and prints the square root of each one:

         $ awk '{ print "The square root of", $1, "is", sqrt($1) }'
         1
         -| The square root of 1 is 1
         3
         -| The square root of 3 is 1.73205
         5
         -| The square root of 5 is 2.23607
         Ctrl-d

Previous: Function Calls, Up: Expressions

### 5.14 Operator Precedence (How Operators Nest)

Operator precedence determines how operators are grouped when different operators appear close by in one expression. For example, * has higher precedence than +; thus, a + b * c means to multiply `b` and `c`, and then add `a` to the product (i.e., a + (b * c)).

The normal precedence of the operators can be overruled by using parentheses. Think of the precedence rules as saying where the parentheses are assumed to be. In fact, it is wise to always use parentheses whenever there is an unusual combination of operators, because other people who read the program may not remember what the precedence is in this case. Even experienced programmers occasionally forget the exact rules, which leads to mistakes. Explicit parentheses help prevent any such mistakes.

When operators of equal precedence are used together, the leftmost operator groups first, except for the assignment, conditional, and exponentiation operators, which group in the opposite order. Thus, a - b + c groups as (a - b) + c and a = b = c groups as a = (b = c).

The precedence of prefix unary operators does not matter as long as only unary operators are involved, because there is only one way to interpret them: innermost first. Thus, $++i means $(++i) and ++$x means ++($x). However, when another operator follows the operand, then the precedence of the unary operators can matter. $x^2 means ($x)^2, but -x^2 means -(x^2), because - has lower precedence than ^, whereas $ has higher precedence. This table presents awk's operators, in order of highest to lowest precedence:

`(...)`
  Grouping.

`$`
  Field.

`++ --`
  Increment, decrement.

`^ **`
  Exponentiation. These operators group right-to-left.

`+ - !`
  Unary plus, minus, logical “not.”

`* / %`
  Multiplication, division, modulus.

`+ -`
  Addition, subtraction.
String Concatenation
  No special symbol is used to indicate concatenation. The operands are simply written side by side (see Concatenation).

`< <= == !=`
`> >= >> | |&`
  Relational and redirection. The relational operators and the redirections have the same precedence level. Characters such as > serve both as relationals and as redirections; the context distinguishes between the two meanings.

  Note that the I/O redirection operators in `print` and `printf` statements belong to the statement level, not to expressions. The redirection does not produce an expression that could be the operand of another operator. As a result, it does not make sense to use a redirection operator near another operator of lower precedence without parentheses. Such combinations (for example, print foo > a ? b : c), result in syntax errors. The correct way to write this statement is print foo > (a ? b : c).

`~ !~`
  Matching, nonmatching.

`in`
  Array membership.

`&&`
  Logical “and”.

`||`
  Logical “or”.

`?:`
  Conditional. This operator groups right-to-left.

`= += -= *=`
`/= %= ^= **=`
  Assignment. These operators group right to left.

> NOTE: The |&, **, and **= operators are not specified by POSIX. For maximum portability, do not use them.

Next: Arrays, Previous: Expressions, Up: Top

## 6 Patterns, Actions, and Variables

As you have already seen, each awk statement consists of a pattern with an associated action. This chapter describes how you build patterns and actions, what kinds of things you can do within actions, and awk's built-in variables.

The pattern-action rules and the statements available for use within actions form the core of awk programming. In a sense, everything covered up to here has been the foundation that programs are built on top of. Now it's time to start building something useful.

Next: Using Shell Variables, Up: Patterns and Actions

### 6.1 Pattern Elements

Patterns in awk control the execution of rules—a rule is executed when its pattern matches the current input record. The following is a summary of the types of awk patterns:

`/`regular expression`/`
  A regular expression. It matches when the text of the input record fits the regular expression. (See Regexp.)
expression
  A single expression. It matches when its value is nonzero (if a number) or non-null (if a string). (See Expression Patterns.)
pat1`,` pat2
  A pair of patterns separated by a comma, specifying a range of records. The range includes both the initial record that matches pat1 and the final record that matches pat2. (See Ranges.)
`BEGIN`
`END`
  Special patterns for you to supply startup or cleanup actions for your awk program. (See BEGIN/END.)
empty
  The empty pattern matches every input record. (See Empty.)

Next: Expression Patterns, Up: Pattern Overview

#### 6.1.1 Regular Expressions as Patterns

Regular expressions are one of the first kinds of patterns presented in this book. This kind of pattern is simply a regexp constant in the pattern part of a rule. Its meaning is $0 ~ /pattern/. The pattern matches when the input record matches the regexp. For example:

         /foo|bar|baz/  { buzzwords++ }
         END            { print buzzwords, "buzzwords seen" }

Next: Ranges, Previous: Regexp Patterns, Up: Pattern Overview

#### 6.1.2 Expressions as Patterns

Any awk expression is valid as an awk pattern. The pattern matches if the expression's value is nonzero (if a number) or non-null (if a string). The expression is reevaluated each time the rule is tested against a new input record. If the expression uses fields such as `$1`, the value depends directly on the new input record's text; otherwise, it depends on only what has happened so far in the execution of the awk program.

Comparison expressions, using the comparison operators described in Typing and Comparison, are a very common kind of pattern. Regexp matching and nonmatching are also very common expressions. The left operand of the ~ and !~ operators is a string. The right operand is either a constant regular expression enclosed in slashes (`/`regexp`/`), or any expression whose string value is used as a dynamic regular expression (see Computed Regexps). The following example prints the second field of each input record whose first field is precisely foo:

         $ awk '$1 == "foo" { print $2 }' BBS-list

(There is no output, because there is no BBS site with the exact name foo.) Contrast this with the following regular expression match, which accepts any record with a first field that contains foo:

         $ awk '$1 ~ /foo/ { print $2 }' BBS-list
         -| 555-1234
         -| 555-6699
         -| 555-6480
         -| 555-2127

A regexp constant as a pattern is also a special case of an expression pattern. The expression `/foo/` has the value one if foo appears in the current input record. Thus, as a pattern, `/foo/` matches any record containing foo.

Boolean expressions are also commonly used as patterns. Whether the pattern matches an input record depends on whether its subexpressions match. For example, the following command prints all the records in BBS-list that contain both 2400 and foo:

         $ awk '/2400/ && /foo/' BBS-list
         -| fooey        555-1234     2400/1200/300     B

The following command prints all records in BBS-list that contain either 2400 or foo (or both, of course):

         $ awk '/2400/ || /foo/' BBS-list
         -| alpo-net     555-3412     2400/1200/300     A
         -| bites        555-1675     2400/1200/300     A
         -| fooey        555-1234     2400/1200/300     B
         -| foot         555-6699     1200/300          B
         -| macfoo       555-6480     1200/300          A
         -| sdace        555-3430     2400/1200/300     A
         -| sabafoo      555-2127     1200/300          C

The following command prints all records in BBS-list that do not contain the string foo:

         $ awk '! /foo/' BBS-list
         -| aardvark     555-5553     1200/300          B
         -| alpo-net     555-3412     2400/1200/300     A
         -| barfly       555-7685     1200/300          A
         -| bites        555-1675     2400/1200/300     A
         -| camelot      555-0542     300               C
         -| core         555-2912     1200/300          C
         -| sdace        555-3430     2400/1200/300     A

The subexpressions of a Boolean operator in a pattern can be constant regular expressions, comparisons, or any other awk expressions. Range patterns are not expressions, so they cannot appear inside Boolean patterns. Likewise, the special patterns `BEGIN` and `END`, which never match any input record, are not expressions and cannot appear inside Boolean patterns.

Next: BEGIN/END, Previous: Expression Patterns, Up: Pattern Overview

#### 6.1.3 Specifying Record Ranges with Patterns

A range pattern is made of two patterns separated by a comma, in the form begpat, endpat. It is used to match ranges of consecutive input records. The first pattern, begpat, controls where the range begins, while endpat controls where the pattern ends. For example, the following:

         awk '$1 == "on", $1 == "off"' myfile

prints every record in myfile between on/off pairs, inclusive.

A range pattern starts out by matching begpat against every input record. When a record matches begpat, the range pattern is turned on and the range pattern matches this record as well. As long as the range pattern stays turned on, it automatically matches every input record read. The range pattern also matches endpat against every input record; when this succeeds, the range pattern is turned off again for the following record. Then the range pattern goes back to checking begpat against each record.

The record that turns on the range pattern and the one that turns it off both match the range pattern. If you don't want to operate on these records, you can write `if` statements in the rule's action to distinguish them from the records you are interested in.

It is possible for a pattern to be turned on and off by the same record. If the record satisfies both conditions, then the action is executed for just that record. For example, suppose there is text between two identical markers (e.g., the % symbol), each on its own line, that should be ignored. A first attempt would be to combine a range pattern that describes the delimited text with the `next` statement (not discussed yet, see Next Statement). This causes awk to skip any further processing of the current record and start over again with the next input record. Such a program looks like this:

         /^%$/,/^%$/    { next }
                        { print }

This program fails because the range pattern is both turned on and turned off by the first line, which just has a % on it. To accomplish this task, write the program in the following manner, using a flag:

         /^%$/     { skip = ! skip; next }
         skip == 1 { next } # skip lines with `skip' set

In a range pattern, the comma (,) has the lowest precedence of all the operators (i.e., it is evaluated last). Thus, the following program attempts to combine a range pattern with another, simpler test:

         echo Yes | awk '/1/,/2/ || /Yes/'

The intent of this program is (/1/,/2/) || /Yes/. However, awk interprets this as /1/, (/2/ || /Yes/). This cannot be changed or worked around; range patterns do not combine with other patterns:

         $ echo Yes | gawk '(/1/,/2/) || /Yes/'
         error--> gawk: cmd. line:1: (/1/,/2/) || /Yes/
         error--> gawk: cmd. line:1:           ^ parse error
         error--> gawk: cmd. line:2: (/1/,/2/) || /Yes/
         error--> gawk: cmd. line:2:                   ^ unexpected newline

Next: Empty, Previous: Ranges, Up: Pattern Overview

#### 6.1.4 The `BEGIN` and `END` Special Patterns

All the patterns described so far are for matching input records. The `BEGIN` and `END` special patterns are different. They supply startup and cleanup actions for awk programs. `BEGIN` and `END` rules must have actions; there is no default action for these rules because there is no current record when they run. `BEGIN` and `END` rules are often referred to as “`BEGIN` and `END` blocks” by long-time awk programmers.

Next: I/O And BEGIN/END, Up: BEGIN/END

##### 6.1.4.1 Startup and Cleanup Actions

A `BEGIN` rule is executed once only, before the first input record is read. Likewise, an `END` rule is executed once only, after all the input is read. For example:

         $ awk '
         > BEGIN { print "Analysis of \"foo\"" }
         > /foo/ { ++n }
         > END   { print "\"foo\" appears", n, "times." }' BBS-list
         -| Analysis of "foo"
         -| "foo" appears 4 times.

This program finds the number of records in the input file BBS-list that contain the string foo. The `BEGIN` rule prints a title for the report. There is no need to use the `BEGIN` rule to initialize the counter `n` to zero, since awk does this automatically (see Variables). The second rule increments the variable `n` every time a record containing the pattern foo is read. The `END` rule prints the value of `n` at the end of the run.

The special patterns `BEGIN` and `END` cannot be used in ranges or with Boolean operators (indeed, they cannot be used with any operators). An awk program may have multiple `BEGIN` and/or `END` rules. They are executed in the order in which they appear: all the `BEGIN` rules at startup and all the `END` rules at termination. `BEGIN` and `END` rules may be intermixed with other rules. This feature was added in the 1987 version of awk and is included in the POSIX standard. The original (1978) version of awk required the `BEGIN` rule to be placed at the beginning of the program, the `END` rule to be placed at the end, and only allowed one of each. This is no longer required, but it is a good idea to follow this template in terms of program organization and readability.

Multiple `BEGIN` and `END` rules are useful for writing library functions, because each library file can have its own `BEGIN` and/or `END` rule to do its own initialization and/or cleanup. The order in which library functions are named on the command line controls the order in which their `BEGIN` and `END` rules are executed. Therefore, you have to be careful when writing such rules in library files so that the order in which they are executed doesn't matter. See Options, for more information on using library functions. See Library Functions, for a number of useful library functions.

If an awk program has only a `BEGIN` rule and no other rules, then the program exits after the `BEGIN` rule is run.26 However, if an `END` rule exists, then the input is read, even if there are no other rules in the program. This is necessary in case the `END` rule checks the `FNR` and `NR` variables.

Previous: Using BEGIN/END, Up: BEGIN/END

##### 6.1.4.2 Input/Output from `BEGIN` and `END` Rules

There are several (sometimes subtle) points to remember when doing I/O from a `BEGIN` or `END` rule. The first has to do with the value of `$0` in a `BEGIN` rule. Because `BEGIN` rules are executed before any input is read, there simply is no input record, and therefore no fields, when executing `BEGIN` rules. References to `$0` and the fields yield a null string or zero, depending upon the context. One way to give `$0` a real value is to execute a `getline` command without a variable (see Getline). Another way is simply to assign a value to `$0`.

The second point is similar to the first but from the other direction. Traditionally, due largely to implementation issues, `$0` and `NF` were undefined inside an `END` rule. The POSIX standard specifies that `NF` is available in an `END` rule. It contains the number of fields from the last input record. Most probably due to an oversight, the standard does not say that `$0` is also preserved, although logically one would think that it should be. In fact, gawk does preserve the value of `$0` for use in `END` rules. Be aware, however, that Unix awk, and possibly other implementations, do not.

The third point follows from the first two. The meaning of print inside a `BEGIN` or `END` rule is the same as always: print $0. If `$0` is the null string, then this prints an empty line. Many long time awk programmers use an unadorned print in `BEGIN` and `END` rules, to mean print "", relying on `$0` being null. Although one might generally get away with this in `BEGIN` rules, it is a very bad idea in `END` rules, at least in gawk. It is also poor style, since if an empty line is needed in the output, the program should print one explicitly.

Finally, the `next` and `nextfile` statements are not allowed in a `BEGIN` rule, because the implicit read-a-record-and-match-against-the-rules loop has not started yet. Similarly, those statements are not valid in an `END` rule, since all the input has been read. (See Next Statement, and see Nextfile Statement.)

Previous: BEGIN/END, Up: Pattern Overview

#### 6.1.5 The Empty Pattern

An empty (i.e., nonexistent) pattern is considered to match every input record. For example, the program:

         awk '{ print $1 }' BBS-list

prints the first field of every record.

Next: Action Overview, Previous: Pattern Overview, Up: Patterns and Actions

### 6.2 Using Shell Variables in Programs

awk programs are often used as components in larger programs written in shell. For example, it is very common to use a shell variable to hold a pattern that the awk program searches for. There are two ways to get the value of the shell variable into the body of the awk program.

The most common method is to use shell quoting to substitute the variable's value into the program inside the script. For example, in the following program:

         echo -n "Enter search pattern: "
         read pattern
         awk "/$pattern/ "'{ nmatches++ }
              END { print nmatches, "found" }' /path/to/data

the awk program consists of two pieces of quoted text that are concatenated together to form the program. The first part is double-quoted, which allows substitution of the `pattern` variable inside the quotes. The second part is single-quoted.

Variable substitution via quoting works, but can be potentially messy. It requires a good understanding of the shell's quoting rules (see Quoting), and it's often difficult to correctly match up the quotes when reading the program.

A better method is to use awk's variable assignment feature (see Assignment Options) to assign the shell variable's value to an awk variable's value. Then use dynamic regexps to match the pattern (see Computed Regexps). The following shows how to redo the previous example using this technique:

         echo -n "Enter search pattern: "
         read pattern
         awk -v pat="$pattern" '$0 ~ pat { nmatches++ }
                END { print nmatches, "found" }' /path/to/data

Now, the awk program is just one single-quoted string. The assignment -v pat="$pattern" still requires double quotes, in case there is whitespace in the value of `$pattern`. The awk variable `pat` could be named `pattern` too, but that would be more confusing. Using a variable also provides more flexibility, since the variable can be used anywhere inside the program—for printing, as an array subscript, or for any other use—without requiring the quoting tricks at every point in the program.

Next: Statements, Previous: Using Shell Variables, Up: Patterns and Actions

### 6.3 Actions

An awk program or script consists of a series of rules and function definitions interspersed. (Functions are described later. See User-defined.) A rule contains a pattern and an action, either of which (but not both) may be omitted. The purpose of the action is to tell awk what to do once a match for the pattern is found. Thus, in outline, an awk program generally looks like this:

         [pattern] [{ action }]
         [pattern] [{ action }]
         ...
         function name(args) { ... }
         ...

An action consists of one or more awk statements, enclosed in curly braces ({...}). Each statement specifies one thing to do. The statements are separated by newlines or semicolons. The curly braces around an action must be used even if the action contains only one statement, or if it contains no statements at all. However, if you omit the action entirely, omit the curly braces as well. An omitted action is equivalent to { print $0 }:

         /foo/  { }     match foo, do nothing --- empty action
         /foo/          match foo, print the record --- omitted action

The following types of statements are supported in awk:

Expressions
  Call functions or assign values to variables (see Expressions). Executing this kind of statement simply computes the value of the expression. This is useful when the expression has side effects (see Assignment Ops).
Control statements
  Specify the control flow of awk programs. The awk language gives you C-like constructs (`if`, `for`, `while`, and `do`) as well as a few special ones (see Statements).
Compound statements
  Consist of one or more statements enclosed in curly braces. A compound statement is used in order to put several statements together in the body of an `if`, `while`, `do`, or `for` statement.
Input statements
  Use the `getline` command (see Getline). Also supplied in awk are the `next` statement (see Next Statement), and the `nextfile` statement (see Nextfile Statement).
Output statements
  Such as `print` and `printf`. See Printing.
Deletion statements
  For deleting array elements. See Delete.

Next: Built-in Variables, Previous: Action Overview, Up: Patterns and Actions

### 6.4 Control Statements in Actions

Control statements, such as `if`, `while`, and so on, control the flow of execution in awk programs. Most of the control statements in awk are patterned on similar statements in C.

All the control statements start with special keywords, such as `if` and `while`, to distinguish them from simple expressions. Many control statements contain other statements. For example, the `if` statement contains another statement that may or may not be executed. The contained statement is called the body. To include more than one statement in the body, group them into a single compound statement with curly braces, separating them with newlines or semicolons.

Next: While Statement, Up: Statements

#### 6.4.1 The `if`-`else` Statement

The `if`-`else` statement is awk's decision-making statement. It looks like this:

         if (condition) then-body [else else-body]

The condition is an expression that controls what the rest of the statement does. If the condition is true, then-body is executed; otherwise, else-body is executed. The `else` part of the statement is optional. The condition is considered false if its value is zero or the null string; otherwise, the condition is true. Refer to the following:

         if (x % 2 == 0)
             print "x is even"
         else
             print "x is odd"

In this example, if the expression x % 2 == 0 is true (that is, if the value of `x` is evenly divisible by two), then the first `print` statement is executed; otherwise, the second `print` statement is executed. If the `else` keyword appears on the same line as then-body and then-body is not a compound statement (i.e., not surrounded by curly braces), then a semicolon must separate then-body from the `else`. To illustrate this, the previous example can be rewritten as:

         if (x % 2 == 0) print "x is even"; else
                 print "x is odd"

If the ; is left out, awk can't interpret the statement and it produces a syntax error. Don't actually write programs this way, because a human reader might fail to see the `else` if it is not the first thing on its line.

Next: Do Statement, Previous: If Statement, Up: Statements

#### 6.4.2 The `while` Statement

In programming, a loop is a part of a program that can be executed two or more times in succession. The `while` statement is the simplest looping statement in awk. It repeatedly executes a statement as long as a condition is true. For example:

         while (condition)
           body

body is a statement called the body of the loop, and condition is an expression that controls how long the loop keeps running. The first thing the `while` statement does is test the condition. If the condition is true, it executes the statement body. After body has been executed, condition is tested again, and if it is still true, body is executed again. This process repeats until the condition is no longer true. If the condition is initially false, the body of the loop is never executed and awk continues with the statement following the loop. This example prints the first three fields of each record, one per line:

         awk '{ i = 1
                while (i <= 3) {
                    print $i
                    i++
                }
         }' inventory-shipped

The body of this loop is a compound statement enclosed in braces, containing two statements. The loop works in the following manner: first, the value of `i` is set to one. Then, the `while` statement tests whether `i` is less than or equal to three. This is true when `i` equals one, so the `i`-th field is printed. Then the i++ increments the value of `i` and the loop repeats. The loop terminates when `i` reaches four.

A newline is not required between the condition and the body; however using one makes the program clearer unless the body is a compound statement or else is very simple. The newline after the open-brace that begins the compound statement is not required either, but the program is harder to read without it.

Next: For Statement, Previous: While Statement, Up: Statements

#### 6.4.3 The `do`-`while` Statement

The `do` loop is a variation of the `while` looping statement. The `do` loop executes the body once and then repeats the body as long as the condition is true. It looks like this:

         do
           body
         while (condition)

Even if the condition is false at the start, the body is executed at least once (and only once, unless executing body makes condition true). Contrast this with the corresponding `while` statement:

         while (condition)
           body

This statement does not execute body even once if the condition is false to begin with. The following is an example of a `do` statement:

         {      i = 1
                do {
                   print $0
                   i++
                } while (i <= 10)
         }

This program prints each input record 10 times. However, it isn't a very realistic example, since in this case an ordinary `while` would do just as well. This situation reflects actual experience; only occasionally is there a real use for a `do` statement.

Next: Switch Statement, Previous: Do Statement, Up: Statements

#### 6.4.4 The `for` Statement

The `for` statement makes it more convenient to count iterations of a loop. The general form of the `for` statement looks like this:

         for (initialization; condition; increment)
           body

The initialization, condition, and increment parts are arbitrary awk expressions, and body stands for any awk statement.

The `for` statement starts by executing initialization. Then, as long as the condition is true, it repeatedly executes body and then increment. Typically, initialization sets a variable to either zero or one, increment adds one to it, and condition compares it against the desired number of iterations. For example:

         awk '{ for (i = 1; i <= 3; i++)
                   print $i
         }' inventory-shipped

This prints the first three fields of each input record, with one field per line.

It isn't possible to set more than one variable in the initialization part without using a multiple assignment statement such as x = y = 0. This makes sense only if all the initial values are equal. (But it is possible to initialize additional variables by writing their assignments as separate statements preceding the `for` loop.)

The same is true of the increment part. Incrementing additional variables requires separate statements at the end of the loop. The C compound expression, using C's comma operator, is useful in this context but it is not supported in awk.

Most often, increment is an increment expression, as in the previous example. But this is not required; it can be any expression whatsoever. For example, the following statement prints all the powers of two between 1 and 100:

         for (i = 1; i <= 100; i *= 2)
           print i

If there is nothing to be done, any of the three expressions in the parentheses following the `for` keyword may be omitted. Thus, for (; x > 0;) is equivalent to while (x > 0). If the condition is omitted, it is treated as true, effectively yielding an infinite loop (i.e., a loop that never terminates).

In most cases, a `for` loop is an abbreviation for a `while` loop, as shown here:

         initialization
         while (condition) {
           body
           increment
         }

The only exception is when the `continue` statement (see Continue Statement) is used inside the loop. Changing a `for` statement to a `while` statement in this way can change the effect of the `continue` statement inside the loop.

The awk language has a `for` statement in addition to a `while` statement because a `for` loop is often both less work to type and more natural to think of. Counting the number of iterations is very common in loops. It can be easier to think of this counting as part of looping rather than as something to do inside the loop.

Next: Break Statement, Previous: For Statement, Up: Statements

#### 6.4.5 The `switch` Statement

NOTE: This subsection describes an experimental feature added in gawk 3.1.3. It is not enabled by default. To enable it, use the --enable-switch option to configure when gawk is being configured and built. See Additional Configuration Options, for more information.

The `switch` statement allows the evaluation of an expression and the execution of statements based on a `case` match. Case statements are checked for a match in the order they are defined. If no suitable `case` is found, the `default` section is executed, if supplied.

Each `case` contains a single constant, be it numeric, string, or regexp. The `switch` expression is evaluated, and then each `case`'s constant is compared against the result in turn. The type of constant determines the comparison: numeric or string do the usual comparisons. A regexp constant does a regular expression match against the string value of the original expression. The general form of the `switch` statement looks like this:

         switch (expression) {
         case value or regular expression:
             case-body
         default:
             default-body
         }

Control flow in the `switch` statement works as it does in C. Once a match to a given case is made, case statement bodies are executed until a `break`, `continue`, `next`, `nextfile` or `exit` is encountered, or the end of the `switch` statement itself. For example:

         switch (NR * 2 + 1) {
         case 3:
         case "11":
             print NR - 1
             break

         case /2[[:digit:]]+/:
             print NR

         default:
             print NR + 1

         case -1:
             print NR * -1
         }

Note that if none of the statements specified above halt execution of a matched `case` statement, execution falls through to the next `case` until execution halts. In the above example, for any case value starting with 2 followed by one or more digits, the `print` statement is executed and then falls through into the `default` section, executing its `print` statement. In turn, the −1 case will also be executed since the `default` does not halt execution.

Next: Continue Statement, Previous: Switch Statement, Up: Statements

#### 6.4.6 The `break` Statement

The `break` statement jumps out of the innermost `for`, `while`, or `do` loop that encloses it. The following example finds the smallest divisor of any integer, and also identifies prime numbers:

         # find smallest divisor of num
         {
            num = $1
            for (div = 2; div*div <= num; div++)
              if (num % div == 0)
                break
            if (num % div == 0)
              printf "Smallest divisor of %d is %d\n", num, div
            else
              printf "%d is prime\n", num
         }

When the remainder is zero in the first `if` statement, awk immediately breaks out of the containing `for` loop. This means that awk proceeds immediately to the statement following the loop and continues processing. (This is very different from the `exit` statement, which stops the entire awk program. See Exit Statement.)

Th following program illustrates how the condition of a `for` or `while` statement could be replaced with a `break` inside an `if`:

         # find smallest divisor of num
         {
           num = $1
           for (div = 2; ; div++) {
             if (num % div == 0) {
               printf "Smallest divisor of %d is %d\n", num, div
               break
             }
             if (div*div > num) {
               printf "%d is prime\n", num
               break
             }
           }
         }

The `break` statement has no meaning when used outside the body of a loop. However, although it was never documented, historical implementations of awk treated the `break` statement outside of a loop as if it were a `next` statement (see Next Statement). Recent versions of Unix awk no longer allow this usage. gawk supports this use of `break` only if --traditional has been specified on the command line (see Options). Otherwise, it is treated as an error, since the POSIX standard specifies that `break` should only be used inside the body of a loop. (d.c.)

Next: Next Statement, Previous: Break Statement, Up: Statements

#### 6.4.7 The `continue` Statement

As with `break`, the `continue` statement is used only inside `for`, `while`, and `do` loops. It skips over the rest of the loop body, causing the next cycle around the loop to begin immediately. Contrast this with `break`, which jumps out of the loop altogether.

The `continue` statement in a `for` loop directs awk to skip the rest of the body of the loop and resume execution with the increment-expression of the `for` statement. The following program illustrates this fact:

         BEGIN {
              for (x = 0; x <= 20; x++) {
                  if (x == 5)
                      continue
                  printf "%d ", x
              }
              print ""
         }

This program prints all the numbers from 0 to 20—except for 5, for which the `printf` is skipped. Because the increment x++ is not skipped, `x` does not remain stuck at 5. Contrast the `for` loop from the previous example with the following `while` loop:

         BEGIN {
              x = 0
              while (x <= 20) {
                  if (x == 5)
                      continue
                  printf "%d ", x
                  x++
              }
              print ""
         }

This program loops forever once `x` reaches 5.

The `continue` statement has no meaning when used outside the body of a loop. Historical versions of awk treated a `continue` statement outside a loop the same way they treated a `break` statement outside a loop: as if it were a `next` statement (see Next Statement). Recent versions of Unix awk no longer work this way, and gawk allows it only if --traditional is specified on the command line (see Options). Just like the `break` statement, the POSIX standard specifies that `continue` should only be used inside the body of a loop. (d.c.)

Next: Nextfile Statement, Previous: Continue Statement, Up: Statements

#### 6.4.8 The `next` Statement

The `next` statement forces awk to immediately stop processing the current record and go on to the next record. This means that no further rules are executed for the current record, and the rest of the current rule's action isn't executed.

Contrast this with the effect of the `getline` function (see Getline). That also causes awk to read the next record immediately, but it does not alter the flow of control in any way (i.e., the rest of the current action executes with a new input record).

At the highest level, awk program execution is a loop that reads an input record and then tests each rule's pattern against it. If you think of this loop as a `for` statement whose body contains the rules, then the `next` statement is analogous to a `continue` statement. It skips to the end of the body of this implicit loop and executes the increment (which reads another record).

For example, suppose an awk program works only on records with four fields, and it shouldn't fail when given bad input. To avoid complicating the rest of the program, write a “weed out” rule near the beginning, in the following manner:

         NF != 4 {
           err = sprintf("%s:%d: skipped: NF != 4\n", FILENAME, FNR)
           print err > "/dev/stderr"
           next
         }

Because of the `next` statement, the program's subsequent rules won't see the bad record. The error message is redirected to the standard error output stream, as error messages should be. For more detail see Special Files.

According to the POSIX standard, the behavior is undefined if the `next` statement is used in a `BEGIN` or `END` rule. gawk treats it as a syntax error. Although POSIX permits it, some other awk implementations don't allow the `next` statement inside function bodies (see User-defined). Just as with any other `next` statement, a `next` statement inside a function body reads the next record and starts processing it with the first rule in the program. If the `next` statement causes the end of the input to be reached, then the code in any `END` rules is executed. See BEGIN/END.

Next: Exit Statement, Previous: Next Statement, Up: Statements

#### 6.4.9 Using gawk's `nextfile` Statement

gawk provides the `nextfile` statement, which is similar to the `next` statement. However, instead of abandoning processing of the current record, the `nextfile` statement instructs gawk to stop processing the current data file.

The `nextfile` statement is a gawk extension. In most other awk implementations, or if gawk is in compatibility mode (see Options), `nextfile` is not special.

Upon execution of the `nextfile` statement, `FILENAME` is updated to the name of the next data file listed on the command line, `FNR` is reset to one, `ARGIND` is incremented, and processing starts over with the first rule in the program. (`ARGIND` hasn't been introduced yet. See Built-in Variables.) If the `nextfile` statement causes the end of the input to be reached, then the code in any `END` rules is executed. See BEGIN/END.

The `nextfile` statement is useful when there are many data files to process but it isn't necessary to process every record in every file. Normally, in order to move on to the next data file, a program has to continue scanning the unwanted records. The `nextfile` statement accomplishes this much more efficiently.

While one might think that close(FILENAME) would accomplish the same as `nextfile`, this isn't true. `close` is reserved for closing files, pipes, and coprocesses that are opened with redirections. It is not related to the main processing that awk does with the files listed in `ARGV`.

If it's necessary to use an awk version that doesn't support `nextfile`, see Nextfile Function, for a user-defined function that simulates the `nextfile` statement.

The current version of the Bell Laboratories awk (see Other Versions) also supports `nextfile`. However, it doesn't allow the `nextfile` statement inside function bodies (see User-defined). gawk does; a `nextfile` inside a function body reads the next record and starts processing it with the first rule in the program, just as any other `nextfile` statement.

Caution: Versions of gawk prior to 3.0 used two words (next file) for the `nextfile` statement. In version 3.0, this was changed to one word, because the treatment of file was inconsistent. When it appeared after `next`, file was a keyword; otherwise, it was a regular identifier. The old usage is no longer accepted; next file generates a syntax error.

Previous: Nextfile Statement, Up: Statements

#### 6.4.10 The `exit` Statement

The `exit` statement causes awk to immediately stop executing the current rule and to stop processing input; any remaining input is ignored. The `exit` statement is written as follows:

         exit [return code]

When an `exit` statement is executed from a `BEGIN` rule, the program stops processing everything immediately. No input records are read. However, if an `END` rule is present, as part of executing the `exit` statement, the `END` rule is executed (see BEGIN/END). If `exit` is used as part of an `END` rule, it causes the program to stop immediately.

An `exit` statement that is not part of a `BEGIN` or `END` rule stops the execution of any further automatic rules for the current record, skips reading any remaining input records, and executes the `END` rule if there is one.

In such a case, if you don't want the `END` rule to do its job, set a variable to nonzero before the `exit` statement and check that variable in the `END` rule. See Assert Function, for an example that does this.

If an argument is supplied to `exit`, its value is used as the exit status code for the awk process. If no argument is supplied, `exit` returns status zero (success). In the case where an argument is supplied to a first `exit` statement, and then `exit` is called a second time from an `END` rule with no argument, awk uses the previously supplied exit value. (d.c.)

For example, suppose an error condition occurs that is difficult or impossible to handle. Conventionally, programs report this by exiting with a nonzero status. An awk program can do this using an `exit` statement with a nonzero argument, as shown in the following example:

         BEGIN {
                if (("date" | getline date_now) <= 0) {
                  print "Can't get system date" > "/dev/stderr"
                  exit 1
                }
                print "current date is", date_now
                close("date")
         }

Previous: Statements, Up: Patterns and Actions

### 6.5 Built-in Variables

Most awk variables are available to use for your own purposes; they never change unless your program assigns values to them, and they never affect anything unless your program examines them. However, a few variables in awk have special built-in meanings. awk examines some of these automatically, so that they enable you to tell awk how to do certain things. Others are set automatically by awk, so that they carry information from the internal workings of awk to your program.

This section documents all the built-in variables of gawk, most of which are also documented in the chapters describing their areas of activity.

Next: Auto-set, Up: Built-in Variables

#### 6.5.1 Built-in Variables That Control awk

The following is an alphabetical list of variables that you can change to control how awk does certain things. The variables that are specific to gawk are marked with a pound sign (#).

`BINMODE #`
  On non-POSIX systems, this variable specifies use of binary mode for all I/O. Numeric values of one, two, or three specify that input files, output files, or all files, respectively, should use binary I/O. Alternatively, string values of `"r"` or `"w"` specify that input files and output files, respectively, should use binary I/O. A string value of `"rw"` or `"wr"` indicates that all files should use binary I/O. Any other string value is equivalent to `"rw"`, but gawk generates a warning message. `BINMODE` is described in more detail in PC Using.

  This variable is a gawk extension. In other awk implementations (except mawk, see Other Versions), or if gawk is in compatibility mode (see Options), it is not special.

`CONVFMT`
  This string controls conversion of numbers to strings (see Conversion). It works by being passed, in effect, as the first argument to the `sprintf` function (see String Functions). Its default value is `"%.6g"`. `CONVFMT` was introduced by the POSIX standard.

`FIELDWIDTHS #`
  This is a space-separated list of columns that tells gawk how to split input with fixed columnar boundaries. Assigning a value to `FIELDWIDTHS` overrides the use of `FS` for field splitting. See Constant Size, for more information.

  If gawk is in compatibility mode (see Options), then `FIELDWIDTHS` has no special meaning, and field-splitting operations occur based exclusively on the value of `FS`.

`FS`
  This is the input field separator (see Field Separators). The value is a single-character string or a multi-character regular expression that matches the separations between fields in an input record. If the value is the null string (`""`), then each character in the record becomes a separate field. (This behavior is a gawk extension. POSIX awk does not specify the behavior when `FS` is the null string.)

  The default value is `" "`, a string consisting of a single space. As a special exception, this value means that any sequence of spaces, tabs, and/or newlines is a single separator.27 It also causes spaces, tabs, and newlines at the beginning and end of a record to be ignored.

  You can set the value of `FS` on the command line using the -F option:

                awk -F, 'program' input-files

  If gawk is using `FIELDWIDTHS` for field splitting, assigning a value to `FS` causes gawk to return to the normal, `FS`-based field splitting. An easy way to do this is to simply say FS = FS, perhaps with an explanatory comment.

`IGNORECASE #`
  If `IGNORECASE` is nonzero or non-null, then all string comparisons and all regular expression matching are case independent. Thus, regexp matching with ~ and !~, as well as the `gensub`, `gsub`, `index`, `match`, `split`, and `sub` functions, record termination with `RS`, and field splitting with `FS`, all ignore case when doing their particular regexp operations. However, the value of `IGNORECASE` does not affect array subscripting and it does not affect field splitting when using a single-character field separator. See Case-sensitivity.

  If gawk is in compatibility mode (see Options), then `IGNORECASE` has no special meaning. Thus, string and regexp operations are always case-sensitive.

`LINT #`
  When this variable is true (nonzero or non-null), gawk behaves as if the --lint command-line option is in effect. (see Options). With a value of `"fatal"`, lint warnings become fatal errors. With a value of `"invalid"`, only warnings about things that are actually invalid are issued. (This is not fully implemented yet.) Any other true value prints nonfatal warnings. Assigning a false value to `LINT` turns off the lint warnings.

  This variable is a gawk extension. It is not special in other awk implementations. Unlike the other special variables, changing `LINT` does affect the production of lint warnings, even if gawk is in compatibility mode. Much as the --lint and --traditional options independently control different aspects of gawk's behavior, the control of lint warnings during program execution is independent of the flavor of awk being executed.

`OFMT`
  This string controls conversion of numbers to strings (see Conversion) for printing with the `print` statement. It works by being passed as the first argument to the `sprintf` function (see String Functions). Its default value is `"%.6g"`. Earlier versions of awk also used `OFMT` to specify the format for converting numbers to strings in general expressions; this is now done by `CONVFMT`.

`OFS`
  This is the output field separator (see Output Separators). It is output between the fields printed by a `print` statement. Its default value is `" "`, a string consisting of a single space.

`ORS`
  This is the output record separator. It is output at the end of every `print` statement. Its default value is `"\n"`, the newline character. (See Output Separators.)

`RS`
  This is awk's input record separator. Its default value is a string containing a single newline character, which means that an input record consists of a single line of text. It can also be the null string, in which case records are separated by runs of blank lines. If it is a regexp, records are separated by matches of the regexp in the input text. (See Records.)

  The ability for `RS` to be a regular expression is a gawk extension. In most other awk implementations, or if gawk is in compatibility mode (see Options), just the first character of `RS`'s value is used.

`SUBSEP`
  This is the subscript separator. It has the default value of `"\034"` and is used to separate the parts of the indices of a multidimensional array. Thus, the expression `foo["A", "B"]` really accesses `foo["A\034B"]` (see Multi-dimensional).

`TEXTDOMAIN #`
  This variable is used for internationalization of programs at the awk level. It sets the default text domain for specially marked string constants in the source text, as well as for the `dcgettext`, `dcngettext` and `bindtextdomain` functions (see Internationalization). The default value of `TEXTDOMAIN` is `"messages"`.

  This variable is a gawk extension. In other awk implementations, or if gawk is in compatibility mode (see Options), it is not special.

Next: ARGC and ARGV, Previous: User-modified, Up: Built-in Variables

#### 6.5.2 Built-in Variables That Convey Information

The following is an alphabetical list of variables that awk sets automatically on certain occasions in order to provide information to your program. The variables that are specific to gawk are marked with a pound sign (#).

`ARGC`,`ARGV`
  The command-line arguments available to awk programs are stored in an array called `ARGV`. `ARGC` is the number of command-line arguments present. See Other Arguments. Unlike most awk arrays, `ARGV` is indexed from 0 to `ARGC` − 1. In the following example:

                $ awk 'BEGIN {
                >         for (i = 0; i < ARGC; i++)
                >             print ARGV[i]
                >      }' inventory-shipped BBS-list
                -| awk
                -| inventory-shipped
                -| BBS-list

  `ARGV[0]` contains `"awk"`, `ARGV[1]` contains `"inventory-shipped"`, and `ARGV[2]` contains `"BBS-list"`. The value of `ARGC` is three, one more than the index of the last element in `ARGV`, because the elements are numbered from zero.

  The names `ARGC` and `ARGV`, as well as the convention of indexing the array from 0 to `ARGC` − 1, are derived from the C language's method of accessing command-line arguments.

  The value of `ARGV[0]` can vary from system to system. Also, you should note that the program text is not included in `ARGV`, nor are any of awk's command-line options. See ARGC and ARGV, for information about how awk uses these variables.

`ARGIND #`
  The index in `ARGV` of the current file being processed. Every time gawk opens a new data file for processing, it sets `ARGIND` to the index in `ARGV` of the file name. When gawk is processing the input files, FILENAME == ARGV[ARGIND] is always true.

  This variable is useful in file processing; it allows you to tell how far along you are in the list of data files as well as to distinguish between successive instances of the same file name on the command line.

  While you can change the value of `ARGIND` within your awk program, gawk automatically sets it to a new value when the next file is opened.

  This variable is a gawk extension. In other awk implementations, or if gawk is in compatibility mode (see Options), it is not special.

`ENVIRON`
  An associative array that contains the values of the environment. The array indices are the environment variable names; the elements are the values of the particular environment variables. For example, `ENVIRON["HOME"]` might be /home/arnold. Changing this array does not affect the environment passed on to any programs that awk may spawn via redirection or the `system` function.

  Some operating systems may not have environment variables. On such systems, the `ENVIRON` array is empty (except for `ENVIRON["AWKPATH"]`, see AWKPATH Variable).

`ERRNO #`
  If a system error occurs during a redirection for `getline`, during a read for `getline`, or during a `close` operation, then `ERRNO` contains a string describing the error.

  `ERRNO` works similarly to the C variable `errno`. In particular gawk never clears it (sets it to zero or `""`). Thus, you should only expect its value to be meaningful when an I/O operation returns a failure value, such as `getline` returning −1. You are, of course, free to clear it yourself before doing an I/O operation.

  This variable is a gawk extension. In other awk implementations, or if gawk is in compatibility mode (see Options), it is not special.

`FILENAME`
  The name of the file that awk is currently reading. When no data files are listed on the command line, awk reads from the standard input and `FILENAME` is set to `"-"`. `FILENAME` is changed each time a new file is read (see Reading Files). Inside a `BEGIN` rule, the value of `FILENAME` is `""`, since there are no input files being processed yet.28 (d.c.) Note, though, that using `getline` (see Getline) inside a `BEGIN` rule can give `FILENAME` a value.

`FNR`
  The current record number in the current file. `FNR` is incremented each time a new record is read (see Getline). It is reinitialized to zero each time a new input file is started.

`NF`
  The number of fields in the current input record. `NF` is set each time a new record is read, when a new field is created or when `$0` changes (see Fields).

  Unlike most of the variables described in this section, assigning a value to `NF` has the potential to affect awk's internal workings. In particular, assignments to `NF` can be used to create or remove fields from the current record: See Changing Fields.

`NR`
  The number of input records awk has processed since the beginning of the program's execution (see Records). `NR` is incremented each time a new record is read.

`PROCINFO #`
  The elements of this array provide access to information about the running awk program. The following elements (listed alphabetically) are guaranteed to be available:
  `PROCINFO["egid"]`
    The value of the `getegid` system call.
  `PROCINFO["euid"]`
    The value of the `geteuid` system call.
  `PROCINFO["FS"]`
    This is `"FS"` if field splitting with `FS` is in effect, or it is `"FIELDWIDTHS"` if field splitting with `FIELDWIDTHS` is in effect.
  `PROCINFO["gid"]`
    The value of the `getgid` system call.
  `PROCINFO["pgrpid"]`
    The process group ID of the current process.
  `PROCINFO["pid"]`
    The process ID of the current process.
  `PROCINFO["ppid"]`
    The parent process ID of the current process.
  `PROCINFO["uid"]`
    The value of the `getuid` system call.
  `PROCINFO["version"]`
    The version of gawk. This is available from version 3.1.4 and later.

  On some systems, there may be elements in the array, `"group1"` through `"group` N`"` for some N. N is the number of supplementary groups that the process has. Use the `in` operator to test for these elements (see Reference to Elements).

  This array is a gawk extension. In other awk implementations, or if gawk is in compatibility mode (see Options), it is not special.

`RLENGTH`
  The length of the substring matched by the `match` function (see String Functions). `RLENGTH` is set by invoking the `match` function. Its value is the length of the matched string, or −1 if no match is found.

`RSTART`
  The start-index in characters of the substring that is matched by the `match` function (see String Functions). `RSTART` is set by invoking the `match` function. Its value is the position of the string where the matched substring starts, or zero if no match was found.

`RT #`
  This is set each time a record is read. It contains the input text that matched the text denoted by `RS`, the record separator.

  This variable is a gawk extension. In other awk implementations, or if gawk is in compatibility mode (see Options), it is not special.

#### Advanced Notes: Changing `NR` and `FNR`

awk increments `NR` and `FNR` each time it reads a record, instead of setting them to the absolute value of the number of records read. This means that a program can change these variables and their new values are incremented for each record. (d.c.) This is demonstrated in the following example:

         $ echo '1
         > 2
         > 3
         > 4' | awk 'NR == 2 { NR = 17 }
         > { print NR }'
         -| 1
         -| 17
         -| 18
         -| 19

Before `FNR` was added to the awk language (see V7/SVR3.1), many awk programs used this feature to track the number of records in a file by resetting `NR` to zero when `FILENAME` changed.

Previous: Auto-set, Up: Built-in Variables

#### 6.5.3 Using `ARGC` and `ARGV`

Auto-set, presented the following program describing the information contained in `ARGC` and `ARGV`:

         $ awk 'BEGIN {
         >        for (i = 0; i < ARGC; i++)
         >            print ARGV[i]
         >      }' inventory-shipped BBS-list
         -| awk
         -| inventory-shipped
         -| BBS-list

In this example, `ARGV[0]` contains awk, `ARGV[1]` contains inventory-shipped, and `ARGV[2]` contains BBS-list. Notice that the awk program is not entered in `ARGV`. The other special command-line options, with their arguments, are also not entered. This includes variable assignments done with the -v option (see Options). Normal variable assignments on the command line are treated as arguments and do show up in the `ARGV` array:

         $ cat showargs.awk
         -| BEGIN {
         -|     printf "A=%d, B=%d\n", A, B
         -|     for (i = 0; i < ARGC; i++)
         -|         printf "\tARGV[%d] = %s\n", i, ARGV[i]
         -| }
         -| END   { printf "A=%d, B=%d\n", A, B }
         $ awk -v A=1 -f showargs.awk B=2 /dev/null
         -| A=1, B=0
         -|        ARGV[0] = awk
         -|        ARGV[1] = B=2
         -|        ARGV[2] = /dev/null
         -| A=1, B=2

A program can alter `ARGC` and the elements of `ARGV`. Each time awk reaches the end of an input file, it uses the next element of `ARGV` as the name of the next input file. By storing a different string there, a program can change which files are read. Use `"-"` to represent the standard input. Storing additional elements and incrementing `ARGC` causes additional files to be read.

If the value of `ARGC` is decreased, that eliminates input files from the end of the list. By recording the old value of `ARGC` elsewhere, a program can treat the eliminated arguments as something other than file names.

To eliminate a file from the middle of the list, store the null string (`""`) into `ARGV` in place of the file's name. As a special feature, awk ignores file names that have been replaced with the null string. Another option is to use the `delete` statement to remove elements from `ARGV` (see Delete).

All of these actions are typically done in the `BEGIN` rule, before actual processing of the input begins. See Split Program, and see Tee Program, for examples of each way of removing elements from `ARGV`. The following fragment processes `ARGV` in order to examine, and then remove, command-line options:

         BEGIN {
             for (i = 1; i < ARGC; i++) {
                 if (ARGV[i] == "-v")
                     verbose = 1
                 else if (ARGV[i] == "-d")
                     debug = 1
                 else if (ARGV[i] ~ /^-?/) {
                     e = sprintf("%s: unrecognized option -- %c",
                             ARGV[0], substr(ARGV[i], 1, ,1))
                     print e > "/dev/stderr"
                 } else
                     break
                 delete ARGV[i]
             }
         }

To actually get the options into the awk program, end the awk options with -- and then supply the awk program's options, in the following manner:

         awk -f myprog -- -v -d file1 file2 ...

This is not necessary in gawk. Unless --posix has been specified, gawk silently puts any unrecognized options into `ARGV` for the awk program to deal with. As soon as it sees an unknown option, gawk stops looking for other options that it might otherwise recognize. The previous example with gawk would be:

         gawk -f myprog -d -v file1 file2 ...

Because -d is not a valid gawk option, it and the following -v are passed on to the awk program.

Next: Functions, Previous: Patterns and Actions, Up: Top

## 7 Arrays in awk

An array is a table of values called elements. The elements of an array are distinguished by their indices. Indices may be either numbers or strings.

This chapter describes how arrays work in awk, how to use array elements, how to scan through every element in an array, and how to remove array elements. It also describes how awk simulates multidimensional arrays, as well as some of the less obvious points about array usage. The chapter finishes with a discussion of gawk's facility for sorting an array based on its indices.

awk maintains a single set of names that may be used for naming variables, arrays, and functions (see User-defined). Thus, you cannot have a variable and an array with the same name in the same awk program.

Next: Reference to Elements, Up: Arrays

### 7.1 Introduction to Arrays

The awk language provides one-dimensional arrays for storing groups of related strings or numbers. Every awk array must have a name. Array names have the same syntax as variable names; any valid variable name would also be a valid array name. But one name cannot be used in both ways (as an array and as a variable) in the same awk program.

Arrays in awk superficially resemble arrays in other programming languages, but there are fundamental differences. In awk, it isn't necessary to specify the size of an array before starting to use it. Additionally, any number or string in awk, not just consecutive integers, may be used as an array index.

In most other languages, arrays must be declared before use, including a specification of how many elements or components they contain. In such languages, the declaration causes a contiguous block of memory to be allocated for that many elements. Usually, an index in the array must be a positive integer. For example, the index zero specifies the first element in the array, which is actually stored at the beginning of the block of memory. Index one specifies the second element, which is stored in memory right after the first element, and so on. It is impossible to add more elements to the array, because it has room only for as many elements as given in the declaration. (Some languages allow arbitrary starting and ending indices—e.g., 15 .. 27—but the size of the array is still fixed when the array is declared.)

A contiguous array of four elements might look like the following example, conceptually, if the element values are 8, `"foo"`, `""`, and 30:

Only the values are stored; the indices are implicit from the order of the values. Here, 8 is the value at index zero, because 8 appears in the position with zero elements before it.

Arrays in awk are different—they are associative. This means that each array is a collection of pairs: an index and its corresponding array element value:

         Element 3     Value 30
         Element 1     Value "foo"
         Element 0     Value 8
         Element 2     Value ""

The pairs are shown in jumbled order because their order is irrelevant.

One advantage of associative arrays is that new pairs can be added at any time. For example, suppose a tenth element is added to the array whose value is `"number ten"`. The result is:

         Element 10    Value "number ten"
         Element 3     Value 30
         Element 1     Value "foo"
         Element 0     Value 8
         Element 2     Value ""

Now the array is sparse, which just means some indices are missing. It has elements 0–3 and 10, but doesn't have elements 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9.

Another consequence of associative arrays is that the indices don't have to be positive integers. Any number, or even a string, can be an index. For example, the following is an array that translates words from English to French:

         Element "dog" Value "chien"
         Element "cat" Value "chat"
         Element "one" Value "un"
         Element 1     Value "un"

Here we decided to translate the number one in both spelled-out and numeric form—thus illustrating that a single array can have both numbers and strings as indices. In fact, array subscripts are always strings; this is discussed in more detail in Numeric Array Subscripts. Here, the number `1` isn't double-quoted, since awk automatically converts it to a string.

The value of `IGNORECASE` has no effect upon array subscripting. The identical string value used to store an array element must be used to retrieve it. When awk creates an array (e.g., with the `split` built-in function), that array's indices are consecutive integers starting at one. (See String Functions.)

awk's arrays are efficient—the time to access an element is independent of the number of elements in the array.

Next: Assigning Elements, Previous: Array Intro, Up: Arrays

### 7.2 Referring to an Array Element

The principal way to use an array is to refer to one of its elements. An array reference is an expression as follows:

         array[index]

Here, array is the name of an array. The expression index is the index of the desired element of the array.

The value of the array reference is the current value of that array element. For example, `foo[4.3]` is an expression for the element of array `foo` at index 4.3.

A reference to an array element that has no recorded value yields a value of `""`, the null string. This includes elements that have not been assigned any value as well as elements that have been deleted (see Delete). Such a reference automatically creates that array element, with the null string as its value. (In some cases, this is unfortunate, because it might waste memory inside awk.)

To determine whether an element exists in an array at a certain index, use the following expression:

         index in array

This expression tests whether the particular index exists, without the side effect of creating that element if it is not present. The expression has the value one (true) if array`[`index`]` exists and zero (false) if it does not exist. For example, this statement tests whether the array `frequencies` contains the index 2:

         if (2 in frequencies)
             print "Subscript 2 is present."

Note that this is not a test of whether the array `frequencies` contains an element whose value is two. There is no way to do that except to scan all the elements. Also, this does not create `frequencies[2]`, while the following (incorrect) alternative does:

         if (frequencies[2] != "")
             print "Subscript 2 is present."

Next: Array Example, Previous: Reference to Elements, Up: Arrays

### 7.3 Assigning Array Elements

Array elements can be assigned values just like awk variables:

         array[subscript] = value

array is the name of an array. The expression subscript is the index of the element of the array that is assigned a value. The expression value is the value to assign to that element of the array.

Next: Scanning an Array, Previous: Assigning Elements, Up: Arrays

### 7.4 Basic Array Example

The following program takes a list of lines, each beginning with a line number, and prints them out in order of line number. The line numbers are not in order when they are first read—instead they are scrambled. This program sorts the lines by making an array using the line numbers as subscripts. The program then prints out the lines in sorted order of their numbers. It is a very simple program and gets confused upon encountering repeated numbers, gaps, or lines that don't begin with a number:

         {
           if ($1 > max)
             max = $1
           arr[$1] = $0
         }

         END {
           for (x = 1; x <= max; x++)
             print arr[x]
         }

The first rule keeps track of the largest line number seen so far; it also stores each line into the array `arr`, at an index that is the line's number. The second rule runs after all the input has been read, to print out all the lines. When this program is run with the following input:

         5  I am the Five man
         2  Who are you?  The new number two!
         4  . . . And four on the floor
         1  Who is number one?
         3  I three you.

Its output is:

         1  Who is number one?
         2  Who are you?  The new number two!
         3  I three you.
         4  . . . And four on the floor
         5  I am the Five man

If a line number is repeated, the last line with a given number overrides the others. Gaps in the line numbers can be handled with an easy improvement to the program's `END` rule, as follows:

         END {
           for (x = 1; x <= max; x++)
             if (x in arr)
               print arr[x]
         }

Next: Delete, Previous: Array Example, Up: Arrays

### 7.5 Scanning All Elements of an Array

In programs that use arrays, it is often necessary to use a loop that executes once for each element of an array. In other languages, where arrays are contiguous and indices are limited to positive integers, this is easy: all the valid indices can be found by counting from the lowest index up to the highest. This technique won't do the job in awk, because any number or string can be an array index. So awk has a special kind of `for` statement for scanning an array:

         for (var in array)
           body

This loop executes body once for each index in array that the program has previously used, with the variable var set to that index.

The following program uses this form of the `for` statement. The first rule scans the input records and notes which words appear (at least once) in the input, by storing a one into the array `used` with the word as index. The second rule scans the elements of `used` to find all the distinct words that appear in the input. It prints each word that is more than 10 characters long and also prints the number of such words. See String Functions, for more information on the built-in function `length`.

         # Record a 1 for each word that is used at least once
         {
             for (i = 1; i <= NF; i++)
                 used[$i] = 1
         }

         # Find number of distinct words more than 10 characters long
         END {
             for (x in used)
                 if (length(x) > 10) {
                     ++num_long_words
                     print x
                 }
             print num_long_words, "words longer than 10 characters"
         }

See Word Sorting, for a more detailed example of this type.

The order in which elements of the array are accessed by this statement is determined by the internal arrangement of the array elements within awk and cannot be controlled or changed. This can lead to problems if new elements are added to array by statements in the loop body; it is not predictable whether the `for` loop will reach them. Similarly, changing var inside the loop may produce strange results. It is best to avoid such things.

Next: Numeric Array Subscripts, Previous: Scanning an Array, Up: Arrays

### 7.6 The `delete` Statement

To remove an individual element of an array, use the `delete` statement:

         delete array[index]

Once an array element has been deleted, any value the element once had is no longer available. It is as if the element had never been referred to or had been given a value. The following is an example of deleting elements in an array:

         for (i in frequencies)
           delete frequencies[i]

This example removes all the elements from the array `frequencies`. Once an element is deleted, a subsequent `for` statement to scan the array does not report that element and the `in` operator to check for the presence of that element returns zero (i.e., false):

         delete foo[4]
         if (4 in foo)
             print "This will never be printed"

It is important to note that deleting an element is not the same as assigning it a null value (the empty string, `""`). For example:

         foo[4] = ""
         if (4 in foo)
           print "This is printed, even though foo[4] is empty"

It is not an error to delete an element that does not exist. If --lint is provided on the command line (see Options), gawk issues a warning message when an element that is not in the array is deleted.

All the elements of an array may be deleted with a single statement by leaving off the subscript in the `delete` statement, as follows:

         delete array

This ability is a gawk extension; it is not available in compatibility mode (see Options).

Using this version of the `delete` statement is about three times more efficient than the equivalent loop that deletes each element one at a time.

The following statement provides a portable but nonobvious way to clear out an array:29

         split("", array)

The `split` function (see String Functions) clears out the target array first. This call asks it to split apart the null string. Because there is no data to split out, the function simply clears the array and then returns.

Caution: Deleting an array does not change its type; you cannot delete an array and then use the array's name as a scalar (i.e., a regular variable). For example, the following does not work:

         a[1] = 3; delete a; a = 3

Next: Uninitialized Subscripts, Previous: Delete, Up: Arrays

### 7.7 Using Numbers to Subscript Arrays

An important aspect about arrays to remember is that array subscripts are always strings. When a numeric value is used as a subscript, it is converted to a string value before being used for subscripting (see Conversion). This means that the value of the built-in variable `CONVFMT` can affect how your program accesses elements of an array. For example:

         xyz = 12.153
         data[xyz] = 1
         CONVFMT = "%2.2f"
         if (xyz in data)
             printf "%s is in data\n", xyz
         else
             printf "%s is not in data\n", xyz

This prints 12.15 is not in data. The first statement gives `xyz` a numeric value. Assigning to `data[xyz]` subscripts `data` with the string value `"12.153"` (using the default conversion value of `CONVFMT`, `"%.6g"`). Thus, the array element `data["12.153"]` is assigned the value one. The program then changes the value of `CONVFMT`. The test (xyz in data) generates a new string value from `xyz`—this time `"12.15"`—because the value of `CONVFMT` only allows two significant digits. This test fails, since `"12.15"` is a different string from `"12.153"`.

According to the rules for conversions (see Conversion), integer values are always converted to strings as integers, no matter what the value of `CONVFMT` may happen to be. So the usual case of the following works:

         for (i = 1; i <= maxsub; i++)
             do something with array[i]

The “integer values always convert to strings as integers” rule has an additional consequence for array indexing. Octal and hexadecimal constants (see Nondecimal-numbers) are converted internally into numbers, and their original form is forgotten. This means, for example, that `array[17]`, `array[021]`, and `array[0x11]` all refer to the same element!

As with many things in awk, the majority of the time things work as one would expect them to. But it is useful to have a precise knowledge of the actual rules which sometimes can have a subtle effect on your programs.

Next: Multi-dimensional, Previous: Numeric Array Subscripts, Up: Arrays

### 7.8 Using Uninitialized Variables as Subscripts

Suppose it's necessary to write a program to print the input data in reverse order. A reasonable attempt to do so (with some test data) might look like this:

         $ echo 'line 1
         > line 2
         > line 3' | awk '{ l[lines] = $0; ++lines }
         > END {
         >     for (i = lines-1; i >= 0; --i)
         >        print l[i]
         > }'
         -| line 3
         -| line 2

Unfortunately, the very first line of input data did not come out in the output!

At first glance, this program should have worked. The variable `lines` is uninitialized, and uninitialized variables have the numeric value zero. So, awk should have printed the value of `l[0]`.

The issue here is that subscripts for awk arrays are always strings. Uninitialized variables, when used as strings, have the value `""`, not zero. Thus, line 1 ends up stored in `l[""]`. The following version of the program works correctly:

         { l[lines++] = $0 }
         END {
             for (i = lines - 1; i >= 0; --i)
                print l[i]
         }

Here, the ++ forces `lines` to be numeric, thus making the “old value” numeric zero. This is then converted to `"0"` as the array subscript.

Even though it is somewhat unusual, the null string (`""`) is a valid array subscript. (d.c.) gawk warns about the use of the null string as a subscript if --lint is provided on the command line (see Options).

Next: Multi-scanning, Previous: Uninitialized Subscripts, Up: Arrays

### 7.9 Multidimensional Arrays

A multidimensional array is an array in which an element is identified by a sequence of indices instead of a single index. For example, a two-dimensional array requires two indices. The usual way (in most languages, including awk) to refer to an element of a two-dimensional array named `grid` is with `grid[`x`,`y`]`.

Multidimensional arrays are supported in awk through concatenation of indices into one string. awk converts the indices into strings (see Conversion) and concatenates them together, with a separator between them. This creates a single string that describes the values of the separate indices. The combined string is used as a single index into an ordinary, one-dimensional array. The separator used is the value of the built-in variable `SUBSEP`.

For example, suppose we evaluate the expression foo[5,12] = "value" when the value of `SUBSEP` is `"@"`. The numbers 5 and 12 are converted to strings and concatenated with an @ between them, yielding `"5@12"`; thus, the array element `foo["5@12"]` is set to `"value"`.

Once the element's value is stored, awk has no record of whether it was stored with a single index or a sequence of indices. The two expressions foo[5,12] and foo[5 SUBSEP 12] are always equivalent.

The default value of `SUBSEP` is the string `"\034"`, which contains a nonprinting character that is unlikely to appear in an awk program or in most input data. The usefulness of choosing an unlikely character comes from the fact that index values that contain a string matching `SUBSEP` can lead to combined strings that are ambiguous. Suppose that `SUBSEP` is `"@"`; then foo["a@b", "c"] and foo["a", "b@c"] are indistinguishable because both are actually stored as foo["a@b@c"].

To test whether a particular index sequence exists in a multidimensional array, use the same operator (in) that is used for single dimensional arrays. Write the whole sequence of indices in parentheses, separated by commas, as the left operand:

         (subscript1, subscript2, ...) in array

The following example treats its input as a two-dimensional array of fields; it rotates this array 90 degrees clockwise and prints the result. It assumes that all lines have the same number of elements:

         {
              if (max_nf < NF)
                   max_nf = NF
              max_nr = NR
              for (x = 1; x <= NF; x++)
                   vector[x, NR] = $x
         }

         END {
              for (x = 1; x <= max_nf; x++) {
                   for (y = max_nr; y >= 1; --y)
                        printf("%s ", vector[x, y])
                   printf("\n")
              }
         }

When given the input:

         1 2 3 4 5 6
         2 3 4 5 6 1
         3 4 5 6 1 2
         4 5 6 1 2 3

the program produces the following output:

         4 3 2 1
         5 4 3 2
         6 5 4 3
         1 6 5 4
         2 1 6 5
         3 2 1 6

Next: Array Sorting, Previous: Multi-dimensional, Up: Arrays

### 7.10 Scanning Multidimensional Arrays

There is no special `for` statement for scanning a “multidimensional” array. There cannot be one, because, in truth, there are no multidimensional arrays or elements—there is only a multidimensional way of accessing an array.

However, if your program has an array that is always accessed as multidimensional, you can get the effect of scanning it by combining the scanning `for` statement (see Scanning an Array) with the built-in `split` function (see String Functions). It works in the following manner:

         for (combined in array) {
             split(combined, separate, SUBSEP)
             ...
         }

This sets the variable `combined` to each concatenated combined index in the array, and splits it into the individual indices by breaking it apart where the value of `SUBSEP` appears. The individual indices then become the elements of the array `separate`.

Thus, if a value is previously stored in `array[1, "foo"]`; then an element with index `"1\034foo"` exists in `array`. (Recall that the default value of `SUBSEP` is the character with code 034.) Sooner or later, the `for` statement finds that index and does an iteration with the variable `combined` set to `"1\034foo"`. Then the `split` function is called as follows:

         split("1\034foo", separate, "\034")

The result is to set `separate[1]` to `"1"` and `separate[2]` to `"foo"`. Presto! The original sequence of separate indices is recovered.

Previous: Multi-scanning, Up: Arrays

### 7.11 Sorting Array Values and Indices with gawk

The order in which an array is scanned with a for (i in array) loop is essentially arbitrary. In most awk implementations, sorting an array requires writing a `sort` function. While this can be educational for exploring different sorting algorithms, usually that's not the point of the program. gawk provides the built-in `asort` and `asorti` functions (see String Functions) for sorting arrays. For example:

         populate the array data
         n = asort(data)
         for (i = 1; i <= n; i++)
             do something with data[i]

After the call to `asort`, the array `data` is indexed from 1 to some number n, the total number of elements in `data`. (This count is `asort`'s return value.) `data[1]` <= `data[2]` <= `data[3]`, and so on. The comparison of array elements is done using gawk's usual comparison rules (see Typing and Comparison).

An important side effect of calling `asort` is that the array's original indices are irrevocably lost. As this isn't always desirable, `asort` accepts a second argument:

         populate the array source
         n = asort(source, dest)
         for (i = 1; i <= n; i++)
             do something with dest[i]

In this case, gawk copies the `source` array into the `dest` array and then sorts `dest`, destroying its indices. However, the `source` array is not affected.

Often, what's needed is to sort on the values of the indices instead of the values of the elements. To do that, starting with gawk 3.1.2, use the `asorti` function. The interface is identical to that of `asort`, except that the index values are used for sorting, and become the values of the result array:

         { source[$0] = some_func($0) }

         END {
             n = asorti(source, dest)
             for (i = 1; i <= n; i++) {
                 do something with dest[i]             Work with sorted indices directly
                 ...
                 do something with source[dest[i]]     Access original array via sorted indices
             }
         }

If your version of gawk is 3.1.0 or 3.1.1, you don't have `asorti`. Instead, use a helper array to hold the sorted index values, and then access the original array's elements. It works in the following way:

         populate the array data
         # copy indices
         j = 1
         for (i in data) {
             ind[j] = i    # index value becomes element value
             j++
         }
         n = asort(ind)    # index values are now sorted
         for (i = 1; i <= n; i++) {
             do something with ind[i]           Work with sorted indices directly
             ...
             do something with data[ind[i]]     Access original array via sorted indices
         }

Sorting the array by replacing the indices provides maximal flexibility. To traverse the elements in decreasing order, use a loop that goes from n down to 1, either over the elements or over the indices.

Copying array indices and elements isn't expensive in terms of memory. Internally, gawk maintains reference counts to data. For example, when `asort` copies the first array to the second one, there is only one copy of the original array elements' data, even though both arrays use the values. Similarly, when copying the indices from `data` to `ind`, there is only one copy of the actual index strings.

We said previously that comparisons are done using gawk's “usual comparison rules.” Because `IGNORECASE` affects string comparisons, the value of `IGNORECASE` also affects sorting for both `asort` and `asorti`. Caveat Emptor.

Next: Internationalization, Previous: Arrays, Up: Top

## 8 Functions

This chapter describes awk's built-in functions, which fall into three categories: numeric, string, and I/O. gawk provides additional groups of functions to work with values that represent time, do bit manipulation, and internationalize and localize programs.

Besides the built-in functions, awk has provisions for writing new functions that the rest of a program can use. The second half of this chapter describes these user-defined functions.

Next: User-defined, Up: Functions

### 8.1 Built-in Functions

Built-in functions are always available for your awk program to call. This section defines all the built-in functions in awk; some of these are mentioned in other sections but are summarized here for your convenience.

Next: Numeric Functions, Up: Built-in

#### 8.1.1 Calling Built-in Functions

To call one of awk's built-in functions, write the name of the function followed by arguments in parentheses. For example, atan2(y + z, 1) is a call to the function `atan2` and has two arguments.

Whitespace is ignored between the built-in function name and the open parenthesis, and it is good practice to avoid using whitespace there. User-defined functions do not permit whitespace in this way, and it is easier to avoid mistakes by following a simple convention that always works—no whitespace after a function name.

Each built-in function accepts a certain number of arguments. In some cases, arguments can be omitted. The defaults for omitted arguments vary from function to function and are described under the individual functions. In some awk implementations, extra arguments given to built-in functions are ignored. However, in gawk, it is a fatal error to give extra arguments to a built-in function.

When a function is called, expressions that create the function's actual parameters are evaluated completely before the call is performed. For example, in the following code fragment:

         i = 4
         j = sqrt(i++)

the variable `i` is incremented to the value five before `sqrt` is called with a value of four for its actual parameter. The order of evaluation of the expressions used for the function's parameters is undefined. Thus, avoid writing programs that assume that parameters are evaluated from left to right or from right to left. For example:

         i = 5
         j = atan2(i++, i *= 2)

If the order of evaluation is left to right, then `i` first becomes 6, and then 12, and `atan2` is called with the two arguments 6 and 12. But if the order of evaluation is right to left, `i` first becomes 10, then 11, and `atan2` is called with the two arguments 11 and 10.

Next: String Functions, Previous: Calling Built-in, Up: Built-in

#### 8.1.2 Numeric Functions

The following list describes all of the built-in functions that work with numbers. Optional parameters are enclosed in square brackets ([ ]):

`int(`x`)`
  This returns the nearest integer to x, located between x and zero and truncated toward zero.

  For example, `int(3)` is 3, `int(3.9)` is 3, `int(-3.9)` is −3, and `int(-3)` is −3 as well.

`sqrt(`x`)`
  This returns the positive square root of x. gawk reports an error if x is negative. Thus, `sqrt(4)` is 2.
`exp(`x`)`
  This returns the exponential of x (`e ^` x) or reports an error if x is out of range. The range of values x can have depends on your machine's floating-point representation.
`log(`x`)`
  This returns the natural logarithm of x, if x is positive; otherwise, it reports an error.
`sin(`x`)`
  This returns the sine of x, with x in radians.
`cos(`x`)`
  This returns the cosine of x, with x in radians.
`atan2(`y`,` x`)`
  This returns the arctangent of y`/` x in radians.
`rand()`
  This returns a random number. The values of `rand` are uniformly distributed between zero and one. The value could be zero but is never one.30

  Often random integers are needed instead. Following is a user-defined function that can be used to obtain a random non-negative integer less than n:

                function randint(n) {
                     return int(n * rand())
                }

  The multiplication produces a random number greater than zero and less than `n`. Using `int`, this result is made into an integer between zero and `n` − 1, inclusive.

  The following example uses a similar function to produce random integers between one and n. This program prints a new random number for each input record:

                # Function to roll a simulated die.
                function roll(n) { return 1 + int(rand() * n) }

                # Roll 3 six-sided dice and
                # print total number of points.
                {
                      printf("%d points\n",
                             roll(6)+roll(6)+roll(6))
                }

  Caution: In most awk implementations, including gawk, `rand` starts generating numbers from the same starting number, or seed, each time you run awk. Thus, a program generates the same results each time you run it. The numbers are random within one awk run but predictable from run to run. This is convenient for debugging, but if you want a program to do different things each time it is used, you must change the seed to a value that is different in each run. To do this, use `srand`.

`srand(`[x]`)`
  The function `srand` sets the starting point, or seed, for generating random numbers to the value x.

  Each seed value leads to a particular sequence of random numbers.31 Thus, if the seed is set to the same value a second time, the same sequence of random numbers is produced again.

  Different awk implementations use different random-number generators internally. Don't expect the same awk program to produce the same series of random numbers when executed by different versions of awk.

  If the argument x is omitted, as in srand(), then the current date and time of day are used for a seed. This is the way to get random numbers that are truly unpredictable.

  The return value of `srand` is the previous seed. This makes it easy to keep track of the seeds in case you need to consistently reproduce sequences of random numbers.

Next: I/O Functions, Previous: Numeric Functions, Up: Built-in

#### 8.1.3 String-Manipulation Functions

The functions in this section look at or change the text of one or more strings. Optional parameters are enclosed in square brackets ([ ]). Those functions that are specific to gawk are marked with a pound sign (#):

`asort(`source [`,` dest]`) #`
  `asort` is a gawk-specific extension, returning the number of elements in the array source. The contents of source are sorted using gawk's normal rules for comparing values (in particular, `IGNORECASE` affects the sorting) and the indices of the sorted values of source are replaced with sequential integers starting with one. If the optional array dest is specified, then source is duplicated into dest. dest is then sorted, leaving the indices of source unchanged. For example, if the contents of `a` are as follows:

                a["last"] = "de"
                a["first"] = "sac"
                a["middle"] = "cul"

  A call to `asort`:

                asort(a)

  results in the following contents of `a`:

                a[1] = "cul"
                a[2] = "de"
                a[3] = "sac"

  The `asort` function is described in more detail in Array Sorting. `asort` is a gawk extension; it is not available in compatibility mode (see Options).

`asorti(`source [`,` dest]`) #`
  `asorti` is a gawk-specific extension, returning the number of elements in the array source. It works similarly to `asort`, however, the indices are sorted, instead of the values. As array indices are always strings, the comparison performed is always a string comparison. (Here too, `IGNORECASE` affects the sorting.)

  The `asorti` function is described in more detail in Array Sorting. It was added in gawk 3.1.2. `asorti` is a gawk extension; it is not available in compatibility mode (see Options).

`index(`in`,` find`)`
  This searches the string in for the first occurrence of the string find, and returns the position in characters where that occurrence begins in the string in. Consider the following example:

                $ awk 'BEGIN { print index("peanut", "an") }'
                -| 3

  If find is not found, `index` returns zero. (Remember that string indices in awk start at one.)

`length(`[string]`)`
  This returns the number of characters in string. If string is a number, the length of the digit string representing that number is returned. For example, `length("abcde")` is 5. By contrast, `length(15 * 35)` works out to 3. In this example, 15 * 35 = 525, and 525 is then converted to the string `"525"`, which has three characters.

  If no argument is supplied, `length` returns the length of `$0`.

  > NOTE: In older versions of awk, the `length` function could be called without any parentheses. Doing so is marked as “deprecated” in the POSIX standard. This means that while a program can do this, it is a feature that can eventually be removed from a future version of the standard. Therefore, for programs to be maximally portable, always supply the parentheses.

`match(`string`,` regexp [`,` array]`)`
  The `match` function searches string for the longest, leftmost substring matched by the regular expression, regexp. It returns the character position, or index, at which that substring begins (one, if it starts at the beginning of string). If no match is found, it returns zero.

  The regexp argument may be either a regexp constant (/.../) or a string constant ("..."). In the latter case, the string is treated as a regexp to be matched. Computed Regexps, for a discussion of the difference between the two forms, and the implications for writing your program correctly.

  The order of the first two arguments is backwards from most other string functions that work with regular expressions, such as `sub` and `gsub`. It might help to remember that for `match`, the order is the same as for the ~ operator: string ~ regexp.

  The `match` function sets the built-in variable `RSTART` to the index. It also sets the built-in variable `RLENGTH` to the length in characters of the matched substring. If no match is found, `RSTART` is set to zero, and `RLENGTH` to −1.

  For example:

                {
                       if ($1 == "FIND")
                         regex = $2
                       else {
                         where = match($0, regex)
                         if (where != 0)
                           print "Match of", regex, "found at",
                                     where, "in", $0
                       }
                }

  This program looks for lines that match the regular expression stored in the variable `regex`. This regular expression can be changed. If the first word on a line is FIND, `regex` is changed to be the second word on that line. Therefore, if given:

                FIND ru+n
                My program runs
                but not very quickly
                FIND Melvin
                JF+KM
                This line is property of Reality Engineering Co.
                Melvin was here.

  awk prints:

                Match of ru+n found at 12 in My program runs
                Match of Melvin found at 1 in Melvin was here.

  If array is present, it is cleared, and then the 0th element of array is set to the entire portion of string matched by regexp. If regexp contains parentheses, the integer-indexed elements of array are set to contain the portion of string matching the corresponding parenthesized subexpression. For example:

                $ echo foooobazbarrrrr |
                > gawk '{ match($0, /(fo+).+(bar*)/, arr)
                >           print arr[1], arr[2] }'
                -| foooo barrrrr

  In addition, beginning with gawk 3.1.2, multidimensional subscripts are available providing the start index and length of each matched subexpression:

                $ echo foooobazbarrrrr |
                > gawk '{ match($0, /(fo+).+(bar*)/, arr)
                >           print arr[1], arr[2]
                >           print arr[1, "start"], arr[1, "length"]
                >           print arr[2, "start"], arr[2, "length"]
                > }'
                -| foooo barrrrr
                -| 1 5
                -| 9 7

  There may not be subscripts for the start and index for every parenthesized subexpressions, since they may not all have matched text; thus they should be tested for with the `in` operator (see Reference to Elements).

  The array argument to `match` is a gawk extension. In compatibility mode (see Options), using a third argument is a fatal error.

`split(`string`,` array [`,` fieldsep]`)`
  This function divides string into pieces separated by fieldsep and stores the pieces in array. The first piece is stored in array`[1]`, the second piece in array`[2]`, and so forth. The string value of the third argument, fieldsep, is a regexp describing where to split string (much as `FS` can be a regexp describing where to split input records). If fieldsep is omitted, the value of `FS` is used. `split` returns the number of elements created.

  The `split` function splits strings into pieces in a manner similar to the way input lines are split into fields. For example:

                split("cul-de-sac", a, "-")

  splits the string cul-de-sac into three fields using - as the separator. It sets the contents of the array `a` as follows:

                a[1] = "cul"
                a[2] = "de"
                a[3] = "sac"

  The value returned by this call to `split` is three.

  As with input field-splitting, when the value of fieldsep is `" "`, leading and trailing whitespace is ignored, and the elements are separated by runs of whitespace. Also as with input field-splitting, if fieldsep is the null string, each individual character in the string is split into its own array element. (This is a gawk-specific extension.)

  Note, however, that `RS` has no effect on the way `split` works. Even though RS = "" causes newline to also be an input field separator, this does not affect how `split` splits strings.

  Modern implementations of awk, including gawk, allow the third argument to be a regexp constant (`/abc/`) as well as a string. (d.c.) The POSIX standard allows this as well. Computed Regexps, for a discussion of the difference between using a string constant or a regexp constant, and the implications for writing your program correctly.

  Before splitting the string, `split` deletes any previously existing elements in the array array.

  If string is null, the array has no elements. (So this is a portable way to delete an entire array with one statement. See Delete.)

  If string does not match fieldsep at all (but is not null), array has one element only. The value of that element is the original string.

`sprintf(`format`,` expression1`, ...)`
  This returns (without printing) the string that `printf` would have printed out with the same arguments (see Printf). For example:

                pival = sprintf("pi = %.2f (approx.)", 22/7)

  assigns the string `"pi = 3.14 (approx.)"` to the variable `pival`.

`strtonum(`str`) #`
  Examines str and returns its numeric value. If str begins with a leading 0, `strtonum` assumes that str is an octal number. If str begins with a leading 0x or 0X, `strtonum` assumes that str is a hexadecimal number. For example:

                $ echo 0x11 |
                > gawk '{ printf "%d\n", strtonum($1) }'
                -| 17

  Using the `strtonum` function is not the same as adding zero to a string value; the automatic coercion of strings to numbers works only for decimal data, not for octal or hexadecimal.32

  `strtonum` is a gawk extension; it is not available in compatibility mode (see Options).

`sub(`regexp`,` replacement [`,` target]`)`
  The `sub` function alters the value of target. It searches this value, which is treated as a string, for the leftmost, longest substring matched by the regular expression regexp. Then the entire string is changed by replacing the matched text with replacement. The modified string becomes the new value of target.

  The regexp argument may be either a regexp constant (/.../) or a string constant ("..."). In the latter case, the string is treated as a regexp to be matched. Computed Regexps, for a discussion of the difference between the two forms, and the implications for writing your program correctly.

  This function is peculiar because target is not simply used to compute a value, and not just any expression will do—it must be a variable, field, or array element so that `sub` can store a modified value there. If this argument is omitted, then the default is to use and alter `$0`.33 For example:

                str = "water, water, everywhere"
                sub(/at/, "ith", str)

  sets `str` to `"wither, water, everywhere"`, by replacing the leftmost longest occurrence of at with ith.

  The `sub` function returns the number of substitutions made (either one or zero).

  If the special character & appears in replacement, it stands for the precise substring that was matched by regexp. (If the regexp can match more than one string, then this precise substring may vary.) For example:

                { sub(/candidate/, "& and his wife"); print }

  changes the first occurrence of candidate to candidate and his wife on each input line. Here is another example:

                $ awk 'BEGIN {
                >         str = "daabaaa"
                >         sub(/a+/, "C&C", str)
                >         print str
                > }'
                -| dCaaCbaaa

  This shows how & can represent a nonconstant string and also illustrates the “leftmost, longest” rule in regexp matching (see Leftmost Longest).

  The effect of this special character (&) can be turned off by putting a backslash before it in the string. As usual, to insert one backslash in the string, you must write two backslashes. Therefore, write \\& in a string constant to include a literal & in the replacement. For example, the following shows how to replace the first | on each line with an &:

                { sub(/\|/, "\\&"); print }

  As mentioned, the third argument to `sub` must be a variable, field or array reference. Some versions of awk allow the third argument to be an expression that is not an lvalue. In such a case, `sub` still searches for the pattern and returns zero or one, but the result of the substitution (if any) is thrown away because there is no place to put it. Such versions of awk accept expressions such as the following:

                sub(/USA/, "United States", "the USA and Canada")

  For historical compatibility, gawk accepts erroneous code, such as in the previous example. However, using any other nonchangeable object as the third parameter causes a fatal error and your program will not run.

  Finally, if the regexp is not a regexp constant, it is converted into a string, and then the value of that string is treated as the regexp to match.

`gsub(`regexp`,` replacement [`,` target]`)`
  This is similar to the `sub` function, except `gsub` replaces all of the longest, leftmost, nonoverlapping matching substrings it can find. The g in `gsub` stands for “global,” which means replace everywhere. For example:

                { gsub(/Britain/, "United Kingdom"); print }

  replaces all occurrences of the string Britain with United Kingdom for all input records.

  The `gsub` function returns the number of substitutions made. If the variable to search and alter (target) is omitted, then the entire input record (`$0`) is used. As in `sub`, the characters & and \ are special, and the third argument must be assignable.

`gensub(`regexp`,` replacement`,` how [`,` target]`) #`
  `gensub` is a general substitution function. Like `sub` and `gsub`, it searches the target string target for matches of the regular expression regexp. Unlike `sub` and `gsub`, the modified string is returned as the result of the function and the original target string is not changed. If how is a string beginning with g or G, then it replaces all matches of regexp with replacement. Otherwise, how is treated as a number that indicates which match of regexp to replace. If no target is supplied, `$0` is used.

  `gensub` provides an additional feature that is not available in `sub` or `gsub`: the ability to specify components of a regexp in the replacement text. This is done by using parentheses in the regexp to mark the components and then specifying \N in the replacement text, where N is a digit from 1 to 9. For example:

                $ gawk '
                > BEGIN {
                >      a = "abc def"
                >      b = gensub(/(.+) (.+)/, "\\2 \\1", "g", a)
                >      print b
                > }'
                -| def abc

  As with `sub`, you must type two backslashes in order to get one into the string. In the replacement text, the sequence \0 represents the entire matched text, as does the character &.

  The following example shows how you can use the third argument to control which match of the regexp should be changed:

                $ echo a b c a b c |
                > gawk '{ print gensub(/a/, "AA", 2) }'
                -| a b c AA b c

  In this case, `$0` is used as the default target string. `gensub` returns the new string as its result, which is passed directly to `print` for printing.

  If the how argument is a string that does not begin with g or G, or if it is a number that is less than or equal to zero, only one substitution is performed. If how is zero, gawk issues a warning message.

  If regexp does not match target, `gensub`'s return value is the original unchanged value of target.

  `gensub` is a gawk extension; it is not available in compatibility mode (see Options).

`substr(`string`,` start [`,` length]`)`
  This returns a length-character-long substring of string, starting at character number start. The first character of a string is character number one.34 For example, `substr("washington", 5, 3)` returns `"ing"`.

  If length is not present, this function returns the whole suffix of string that begins at character number start. For example, `substr("washington", 5)` returns `"ington"`. The whole suffix is also returned if length is greater than the number of characters remaining in the string, counting from character start.

  If start is less than one, `substr` treats it as if it was one. (POSIX doesn't specify what to do in this case: Unix awk acts this way, and therefore gawk does too.) If start is greater than the number of characters in the string, `substr` returns the null string. Similarly, if length is present but less than or equal to zero, the null string is returned.

  The string returned by `substr` cannot be assigned. Thus, it is a mistake to attempt to change a portion of a string, as shown in the following example:

                string = "abcdef"
                # try to get "abCDEf", won't work
                substr(string, 3, 3) = "CDE"

  It is also a mistake to use `substr` as the third argument of `sub` or `gsub`:

                gsub(/xyz/, "pdq", substr($0, 5, 20))  # WRONG

  (Some commercial versions of awk do in fact let you use `substr` this way, but doing so is not portable.)

  If you need to replace bits and pieces of a string, combine `substr` with string concatenation, in the following manner:

                string = "abcdef"
                ...
                string = substr(string, 1, 2) "CDE" substr(string, 6)

`tolower(`string`)`
  This returns a copy of string, with each uppercase character in the string replaced with its corresponding lowercase character. Nonalphabetic characters are left unchanged. For example, `tolower("MiXeD cAsE 123")` returns `"mixed case 123"`.
`toupper(`string`)`
  This returns a copy of string, with each lowercase character in the string replaced with its corresponding uppercase character. Nonalphabetic characters are left unchanged. For example, `toupper("MiXeD cAsE 123")` returns `"MIXED CASE 123"`.

Up: String Functions

##### 8.1.3.1 More About \ and & with `sub`, `gsub`, and `gensub`

When using `sub`, `gsub`, or `gensub`, and trying to get literal backslashes and ampersands into the replacement text, you need to remember that there are several levels of escape processing going on.

First, there is the lexical level, which is when awk reads your program and builds an internal copy of it that can be executed. Then there is the runtime level, which is when awk actually scans the replacement string to determine what to generate.

At both levels, awk looks for a defined set of characters that can come after a backslash. At the lexical level, it looks for the escape sequences listed in Escape Sequences. Thus, for every \ that awk processes at the runtime level, type two backslashes at the lexical level. When a character that is not valid for an escape sequence follows the \, Unix awk and gawk both simply remove the initial \ and put the next character into the string. Thus, for example, `"a\qb"` is treated as `"aqb"`.

At the runtime level, the various functions handle sequences of \ and & differently. The situation is (sadly) somewhat complex. Historically, the `sub` and `gsub` functions treated the two character sequence \& specially; this sequence was replaced in the generated text with a single &. Any other \ within the replacement string that did not precede an & was passed through unchanged. This is illustrated in table-sub-escapes.

          You type         sub sees          sub generates
          ———–         ————–          ———————
              \&              &            the matched text
             \\&             \&            a literal &
            \\\&             \&            a literal &
           \\\\&            \\&            a literal \&
          \\\\\&            \\&            a literal \&
         \\\\\\&           \\\&            a literal \\&
             \\q             \q            a literal \q

Table 8.1: Historical Escape Sequence Processing for sub and gsub

This table shows both the lexical-level processing, where an odd number of backslashes becomes an even number at the runtime level, as well as the runtime processing done by `sub`. (For the sake of simplicity, the rest of the following tables only show the case of even numbers of backslashes entered at the lexical level.)

The problem with the historical approach is that there is no way to get a literal \ followed by the matched text.

The 1992 POSIX standard attempted to fix this problem. That standard says that `sub` and `gsub` look for either a \ or an & after the \. If either one follows a \, that character is output literally. The interpretation of \ and & then becomes as shown in table-sub-posix-92.

          You type         sub sees          sub generates
          ———–         ————–          ———————
               &              &            the matched text
             \\&             \&            a literal &
           \\\\&            \\&            a literal \, then the matched text
         \\\\\\&           \\\&            a literal \&

Table 8.2: 1992 POSIX Rules for sub and gsub Escape Sequence Processing

This appears to solve the problem. Unfortunately, the phrasing of the standard is unusual. It says, in effect, that \ turns off the special meaning of any following character, but for anything other than \ and &, such special meaning is undefined. This wording leads to two problems:

- Backslashes must now be doubled in the replacement string, breaking historical awk programs.
- To make sure that an awk program is portable, every character in the replacement string must be preceded with a backslash.35

Because of the problems just listed, in 1996, the gawk maintainer submitted proposed text for a revised standard that reverts to rules that correspond more closely to the original existing practice. The proposed rules have special cases that make it possible to produce a \ preceding the matched text. This is shown in table-sub-proposed.

          You type         sub sees         sub generates
          ———–         ————–         ———————
         \\\\\\&           \\\&            a literal \&
           \\\\&            \\&            a literal \, followed by the matched text
             \\&             \&            a literal &
             \\q             \q            a literal \q
            \\\\             \\            \\

Table 8.3: Propsosed rules for sub and backslash

In a nutshell, at the runtime level, there are now three special sequences of characters (\\\&, \\& and \&) whereas historically there was only one. However, as in the historical case, any \ that is not part of one of these three sequences is not special and appears in the output literally.

gawk 3.0 and 3.1 follow these proposed POSIX rules for `sub` and `gsub`. The POSIX standard took much longer to be revised than was expected in 1996. The 2001 standard does not follow the above rules. Instead, the rules there are somewhat simpler. The results are similar except for one case.

The 2001 POSIX rules state that \& in the replacement string produces a literal &, \\ produces a literal \, and \ followed by anything else is not special; the \ is placed straight into the output. These rules are presented in table-posix-2001-sub.

          You type         sub sees         sub generates
          ———–         ————–         ———————
         \\\\\\&           \\\&            a literal \&
           \\\\&            \\&            a literal \, followed by the matched text
             \\&             \&            a literal &
             \\q             \q            a literal \q
            \\\\             \\            \

Table 8.4: POSIX 2001 rules for sub

The only case where the difference is noticeable is the last one: \\\\ is seen as \\ and produces \ instead of \\.

Starting with version 3.1.4, gawk follows the POSIX rules when --posix is specified (see Options). Otherwise, it continues to follow the 1996 proposed rules, since, as of this writing, that has been its behavior for over seven years.

> NOTE: At the next major release, gawk will switch to using the POSIX 2001 rules by default.

The rules for `gensub` are considerably simpler. At the runtime level, whenever gawk sees a \, if the following character is a digit, then the text that matched the corresponding parenthesized subexpression is placed in the generated output. Otherwise, no matter what character follows the \, it appears in the generated text and the \ does not, as shown in table-gensub-escapes.

           You type          gensub sees         gensub generates
           ———–          ——————         ————————–
               &                    &            the matched text
             \\&                   \&            a literal &
            \\\\                   \\            a literal \
           \\\\&                  \\&            a literal \, then the matched text
         \\\\\\&                 \\\&            a literal \&
             \\q                   \q            a literal q

Table 8.5: Escape Sequence Processing for gensub

Because of the complexity of the lexical and runtime level processing and the special cases for `sub` and `gsub`, we recommend the use of gawk and `gensub` when you have to do substitutions.

#### Advanced Notes: Matching the Null String

In awk, the * operator can match the null string. This is particularly important for the `sub`, `gsub`, and `gensub` functions. For example:

         $ echo abc | awk '{ gsub(/m*/, "X"); print }'
         -| XaXbXcX

Although this makes a certain amount of sense, it can be surprising.

Next: Time Functions, Previous: String Functions, Up: Built-in

#### 8.1.4 Input/Output Functions

The following functions relate to input/output (I/O). Optional parameters are enclosed in square brackets ([ ]):

`close(`filename [`,` how]`)`
  Close the file filename for input or output. Alternatively, the argument may be a shell command that was used for creating a coprocess, or for redirecting to or from a pipe; then the coprocess or pipe is closed. See Close Files And Pipes, for more information.

  When closing a coprocess, it is occasionally useful to first close one end of the two-way pipe and then to close the other. This is done by providing a second argument to `close`. This second argument should be one of the two string values `"to"` or `"from"`, indicating which end of the pipe to close. Case in the string does not matter. See Two-way I/O, which discusses this feature in more detail and gives an example.

`fflush(`[filename]`)`
  Flush any buffered output associated with filename, which is either a file opened for writing or a shell command for redirecting output to a pipe or coprocess.

  Many utility programs buffer their output; i.e., they save information to write to a disk file or terminal in memory until there is enough for it to be worthwhile to send the data to the output device. This is often more efficient than writing every little bit of information as soon as it is ready. However, sometimes it is necessary to force a program to flush its buffers; that is, write the information to its destination, even if a buffer is not full. This is the purpose of the `fflush` function—gawk also buffers its output and the `fflush` function forces gawk to flush its buffers.

  `fflush` was added to the Bell Laboratories research version of awk in 1994; it is not part of the POSIX standard and is not available if --posix has been specified on the command line (see Options).

  gawk extends the `fflush` function in two ways. The first is to allow no argument at all. In this case, the buffer for the standard output is flushed. The second is to allow the null string (`""`) as the argument. In this case, the buffers for all open output files and pipes are flushed.

  `fflush` returns zero if the buffer is successfully flushed; otherwise, it returns −1. In the case where all buffers are flushed, the return value is zero only if all buffers were flushed successfully. Otherwise, it is −1, and gawk warns about the problem filename.

  gawk also issues a warning message if you attempt to flush a file or pipe that was opened for reading (such as with `getline`), or if filename is not an open file, pipe, or coprocess. In such a case, `fflush` returns −1, as well.

`system(`command`)`
  Executes operating-system commands and then returns to the awk program. The `system` function executes the command given by the string command. It returns the status returned by the command that was executed as its value.

  For example, if the following fragment of code is put in your awk program:

                END {
                     system("date | mail -s 'awk run done' root")
                }

  the system administrator is sent mail when the awk program finishes processing input and begins its end-of-input processing.

  Note that redirecting `print` or `printf` into a pipe is often enough to accomplish your task. If you need to run many commands, it is more efficient to simply print them down a pipeline to the shell:

                while (more stuff to do)
                    print command | "/bin/sh"
                close("/bin/sh")

  However, if your awk program is interactive, `system` is useful for cranking up large self-contained programs, such as a shell or an editor. Some operating systems cannot implement the `system` function. `system` causes a fatal error if it is not supported.

#### Advanced Notes: Interactive Versus Noninteractive Buffering

As a side point, buffering issues can be even more confusing, depending upon whether your program is interactive, i.e., communicating with a user sitting at a keyboard.36

Interactive programs generally line buffer their output; i.e., they write out every line. Noninteractive programs wait until they have a full buffer, which may be many lines of output. Here is an example of the difference:

         $ awk '{ print $1 + $2 }'
         1 1
         -| 2
         2 3
         -| 5
         Ctrl-d

Each line of output is printed immediately. Compare that behavior with this example:

         $ awk '{ print $1 + $2 }' | cat
         1 1
         2 3
         Ctrl-d
         -| 2
         -| 5

Here, no output is printed until after the `Ctrl-d` is typed, because it is all buffered and sent down the pipe to cat in one shot.

#### Advanced Notes: Controlling Output Buffering with `system`

The `fflush` function provides explicit control over output buffering for individual files and pipes. However, its use is not portable to many other awk implementations. An alternative method to flush output buffers is to call `system` with a null string as its argument:

         system("")   # flush output

gawk treats this use of the `system` function as a special case and is smart enough not to run a shell (or other command interpreter) with the empty command. Therefore, with gawk, this idiom is not only useful, it is also efficient. While this method should work with other awk implementations, it does not necessarily avoid starting an unnecessary shell. (Other implementations may only flush the buffer associated with the standard output and not necessarily all buffered output.)

If you think about what a programmer expects, it makes sense that `system` should flush any pending output. The following program:

         BEGIN {
              print "first print"
              system("echo system echo")
              print "second print"
         }

must print:

         first print
         system echo
         second print

and not:

         system echo
         first print
         second print

If awk did not flush its buffers before calling `system`, you would see the latter (undesirable) output.

Next: Bitwise Functions, Previous: I/O Functions, Up: Built-in

#### 8.1.5 Using gawk's Timestamp Functions

`awk` programs are commonly used to process log files containing timestamp information, indicating when a particular log record was written. Many programs log their timestamp in the form returned by the `time` system call, which is the number of seconds since a particular epoch. On POSIX-compliant systems, it is the number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC, not counting leap seconds.37 All known POSIX-compliant systems support timestamps from 0 through 2^31 - 1, which is sufficient to represent times through 2038-01-19 03:14:07 UTC. Many systems support a wider range of timestamps, including negative timestamps that represent times before the epoch.

In order to make it easier to process such log files and to produce useful reports, gawk provides the following functions for working with timestamps. They are gawk extensions; they are not specified in the POSIX standard, nor are they in any other known version of awk.38 Optional parameters are enclosed in square brackets ([ ]):

`systime()`
  This function returns the current time as the number of seconds since the system epoch. On POSIX systems, this is the number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC, not counting leap seconds. It may be a different number on other systems.
`mktime(`datespec`)`
  This function turns datespec into a timestamp in the same form as is returned by `systime`. It is similar to the function of the same name in ISO C. The argument, datespec, is a string of the form `"`YYYY`` MM`` DD`` HH`` MM`` SS`[`DST`]"`. The string consists of six or seven numbers representing, respectively, the full year including century, the month from 1 to 12, the day of the month from 1 to 31, the hour of the day from 0 to 23, the minute from 0 to 59, the second from 0 to 60,39 and an optional daylight-savings flag.

  The values of these numbers need not be within the ranges specified; for example, an hour of −1 means 1 hour before midnight. The origin-zero Gregorian calendar is assumed, with year 0 preceding year 1 and year −1 preceding year 0. The time is assumed to be in the local timezone. If the daylight-savings flag is positive, the time is assumed to be daylight savings time; if zero, the time is assumed to be standard time; and if negative (the default), `mktime` attempts to determine whether daylight savings time is in effect for the specified time.

  If datespec does not contain enough elements or if the resulting time is out of range, `mktime` returns −1.

`strftime(`[format [`,` timestamp]]`)`
  This function returns a string. It is similar to the function of the same name in ISO C. The time specified by timestamp is used to produce a string, based on the contents of the format string. The timestamp is in the same format as the value returned by the `systime` function. If no timestamp argument is supplied, gawk uses the current time of day as the timestamp. If no format argument is supplied, `strftime` uses `"%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Z %Y"`. This format string produces output that is (almost) equivalent to that of the date utility. (Versions of gawk prior to 3.0 require the format argument.)

The `systime` function allows you to compare a timestamp from a log file with the current time of day. In particular, it is easy to determine how long ago a particular record was logged. It also allows you to produce log records using the “seconds since the epoch” format.

The `mktime` function allows you to convert a textual representation of a date and time into a timestamp. This makes it easy to do before/after comparisons of dates and times, particularly when dealing with date and time data coming from an external source, such as a log file.

The `strftime` function allows you to easily turn a timestamp into human-readable information. It is similar in nature to the `sprintf` function (see String Functions), in that it copies nonformat specification characters verbatim to the returned string, while substituting date and time values for format specifications in the format string.

`strftime` is guaranteed by the 1999 ISO C standard40 to support the following date format specifications:

`%a`
  The locale's abbreviated weekday name.
`%A`
  The locale's full weekday name.
`%b`
  The locale's abbreviated month name.
`%B`
  The locale's full month name.
`%c`
  The locale's “appropriate” date and time representation. (This is %A %B %d %T %Y in the `"C"` locale.)
`%C`
  The century. This is the year divided by 100 and truncated to the next lower integer.
`%d`
  The day of the month as a decimal number (01–31).
`%D`
  Equivalent to specifying %m/%d/%y.
`%e`
  The day of the month, padded with a space if it is only one digit.
`%F`
  Equivalent to specifying %Y-%m-%d. This is the ISO 8601 date format.
`%g`
  The year modulo 100 of the ISO week number, as a decimal number (00–99). For example, January 1, 1993 is in week 53 of 1992. Thus, the year of its ISO week number is 1992, even though its year is 1993. Similarly, December 31, 1973 is in week 1 of 1974. Thus, the year of its ISO week number is 1974, even though its year is 1973.
`%G`
  The full year of the ISO week number, as a decimal number.
`%h`
  Equivalent to %b.
`%H`
  The hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number (00–23).
`%I`
  The hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number (01–12).
`%j`
  The day of the year as a decimal number (001–366).
`%m`
  The month as a decimal number (01–12).
`%M`
  The minute as a decimal number (00–59).
`%n`
  A newline character (ASCII LF).
`%p`
  The locale's equivalent of the AM/PM designations associated with a 12-hour clock.
`%r`
  The locale's 12-hour clock time. (This is %I:%M:%S %p in the `"C"` locale.)
`%R`
  Equivalent to specifying %H:%M.
`%S`
  The second as a decimal number (00–60).
`%t`
  A TAB character.
`%T`
  Equivalent to specifying %H:%M:%S.
`%u`
  The weekday as a decimal number (1–7). Monday is day one.
`%U`
  The week number of the year (the first Sunday as the first day of week one) as a decimal number (00–53).
`%V`
  The week number of the year (the first Monday as the first day of week one) as a decimal number (01–53). The method for determining the week number is as specified by ISO 8601. (To wit: if the week containing January 1 has four or more days in the new year, then it is week one; otherwise it is week 53 of the previous year and the next week is week one.)
`%w`
  The weekday as a decimal number (0–6). Sunday is day zero.
`%W`
  The week number of the year (the first Monday as the first day of week one) as a decimal number (00–53).
`%x`
  The locale's “appropriate” date representation. (This is %A %B %d %Y in the `"C"` locale.)
`%X`
  The locale's “appropriate” time representation. (This is %T in the `"C"` locale.)
`%y`
  The year modulo 100 as a decimal number (00–99).
`%Y`
  The full year as a decimal number (e.g., 1995).
`%z`
  The timezone offset in a +HHMM format (e.g., the format necessary to produce RFC 822/RFC 1036 date headers).
`%Z`
  The time zone name or abbreviation; no characters if no time zone is determinable.
`%Ec %EC %Ex %EX %Ey %EY %Od %Oe %OH`
`%OI %Om %OM %OS %Ou %OU %OV %Ow %OW %Oy`
  “Alternate representations” for the specifications that use only the second letter (%c, %C, and so on).41 (These facilitate compliance with the POSIX date utility.)
`%%`
  A literal %.

If a conversion specifier is not one of the above, the behavior is undefined.42

Informally, a locale is the geographic place in which a program is meant to run. For example, a common way to abbreviate the date September 4, 1991 in the United States is “9/4/91.” In many countries in Europe, however, it is abbreviated “4.9.91.” Thus, the %x specification in a `"US"` locale might produce 9/4/91, while in a `"EUROPE"` locale, it might produce 4.9.91. The ISO C standard defines a default `"C"` locale, which is an environment that is typical of what most C programmers are used to.

A public-domain C version of `strftime` is supplied with gawk for systems that are not yet fully standards-compliant. It supports all of the just listed format specifications. If that version is used to compile gawk (see Installation), then the following additional format specifications are available:

`%k`
  The hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number (0–23). Single-digit numbers are padded with a space.
`%l`
  The hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number (1–12). Single-digit numbers are padded with a space.
`%N`
  The “Emperor/Era” name. Equivalent to `%C`.
`%o`
  The “Emperor/Era” year. Equivalent to `%y`.
`%s`
  The time as a decimal timestamp in seconds since the epoch.
`%v`
  The date in VMS format (e.g., 20-JUN-1991).

Additionally, the alternate representations are recognized but their normal representations are used.

This example is an awk implementation of the POSIX date utility. Normally, the date utility prints the current date and time of day in a well-known format. However, if you provide an argument to it that begins with a +, date copies nonformat specifier characters to the standard output and interprets the current time according to the format specifiers in the string. For example:

         $ date '+Today is %A, %B %d, %Y.'
         -| Today is Thursday, September 14, 2000.

Here is the gawk version of the date utility. It has a shell “wrapper” to handle the -u option, which requires that date run as if the time zone is set to UTC:

         #! /bin/sh
         #
         # date --- approximate the P1003.2 'date' command

         case $1 in
         -u)  TZ=UTC0     # use UTC
              export TZ
              shift ;;
         esac

         gawk 'BEGIN  {
             format = "%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Z %Y"
             exitval = 0

             if (ARGC > 2)
                 exitval = 1
             else if (ARGC == 2) {
                 format = ARGV[1]
                 if (format ~ /^\+/)
                     format = substr(format, 2)   # remove leading +
             }
             print strftime(format)
             exit exitval
         }' "$@"

Next: I18N Functions, Previous: Time Functions, Up: Built-in

#### 8.1.6 Bit-Manipulation Functions of gawk

> I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
> Anonymous

Many languages provide the ability to perform bitwise operations on two integer numbers. In other words, the operation is performed on each successive pair of bits in the operands. Three common operations are bitwise AND, OR, and XOR. The operations are described in table-bitwise-ops.

                         Bit Operator
                   |  AND  |   OR  |  XOR
                   |—+—+—+—+—+—
         Operands  | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1
         ————–+—+—+—+—+—+—
             0     | 0   0 | 0   1 | 0   1
             1     | 0   1 | 1   1 | 1   0

Table 8.6: Bitwise Operations

As you can see, the result of an AND operation is 1 only when both bits are 1. The result of an OR operation is 1 if either bit is 1. The result of an XOR operation is 1 if either bit is 1, but not both. The next operation is the complement; the complement of 1 is 0 and the complement of 0 is 1. Thus, this operation “flips” all the bits of a given value.

Finally, two other common operations are to shift the bits left or right. For example, if you have a bit string 10111001 and you shift it right by three bits, you end up with 00010111.43 If you start over again with 10111001 and shift it left by three bits, you end up with 11001000. gawk provides built-in functions that implement the bitwise operations just described. They are:

`and(`v1`,` v2`)` | Returns the bitwise AND of the values provided by v1 and v2.
`or(`v1`,` v2`)` | Returns the bitwise OR of the values provided by v1 and v2.
`xor(`v1`,` v2`)` | Returns the bitwise XOR of the values provided by v1 and v2.
`compl(`val`)` | Returns the bitwise complement of val.
`lshift(`val`,` count`)` | Returns the value of val, shifted left by count bits.
`rshift(`val`,` count`)` | Returns the value of val, shifted right by count bits.

For all of these functions, first the double-precision floating-point value is converted to the widest C unsigned integer type, then the bitwise operation is performed. If the result cannot be represented exactly as a C `double`, leading nonzero bits are removed one by one until it can be represented exactly. The result is then converted back into a C `double`. (If you don't understand this paragraph, don't worry about it.)

Here is a user-defined function (see User-defined) that illustrates the use of these functions:

         # bits2str --- turn a byte into readable 1's and 0's

         function bits2str(bits,        data, mask)
         {
             if (bits == 0)
                 return "0"

             mask = 1
             for (; bits != 0; bits = rshift(bits, 1))
                 data = (and(bits, mask) ? "1" : "0") data

             while ((length(data) % 8) != 0)
                 data = "0" data

             return data
         }

         BEGIN {
             printf "123 = %s\n", bits2str(123)
             printf "0123 = %s\n", bits2str(0123)
             printf "0x99 = %s\n", bits2str(0x99)
             comp = compl(0x99)
             printf "compl(0x99) = %#x = %s\n", comp, bits2str(comp)
             shift = lshift(0x99, 2)
             printf "lshift(0x99, 2) = %#x = %s\n", shift, bits2str(shift)
             shift = rshift(0x99, 2)
             printf "rshift(0x99, 2) = %#x = %s\n", shift, bits2str(shift)
         }

This program produces the following output when run:

         $ gawk -f testbits.awk
         -| 123 = 01111011
         -| 0123 = 01010011
         -| 0x99 = 10011001
         -| compl(0x99) = 0xffffff66 = 11111111111111111111111101100110
         -| lshift(0x99, 2) = 0x264 = 0000001001100100
         -| rshift(0x99, 2) = 0x26 = 00100110

The `bits2str` function turns a binary number into a string. The number `1` represents a binary value where the rightmost bit is set to 1. Using this mask, the function repeatedly checks the rightmost bit. ANDing the mask with the value indicates whether the rightmost bit is 1 or not. If so, a `"1"` is concatenated onto the front of the string. Otherwise, a `"0"` is added. The value is then shifted right by one bit and the loop continues until there are no more 1 bits.

If the initial value is zero it returns a simple `"0"`. Otherwise, at the end, it pads the value with zeros to represent multiples of 8-bit quantities. This is typical in modern computers.

The main code in the `BEGIN` rule shows the difference between the decimal and octal values for the same numbers (see Nondecimal-numbers), and then demonstrates the results of the `compl`, `lshift`, and `rshift` functions.

Previous: Bitwise Functions, Up: Built-in

#### 8.1.7 Using gawk's String-Translation Functions

gawk provides facilities for internationalizing awk programs. These include the functions described in the following list. The descriptions here are purposely brief. See Internationalization, for the full story. Optional parameters are enclosed in square brackets ([ ]):

`dcgettext(`string [`,` domain [`,` category]]`)`
  This function returns the translation of string in text domain domain for locale category category. The default value for domain is the current value of `TEXTDOMAIN`. The default value for category is `"LC_MESSAGES"`.

`dcngettext(`string1`,` string2`,` number [`,` domain [`,` category]]`)`
  This function returns the plural form used for number of the translation of string1 and string2 in text domain domain for locale category category. string1 is the English singular variant of a message, and string2 the English plural variant of the same message. The default value for domain is the current value of `TEXTDOMAIN`. The default value for category is `"LC_MESSAGES"`.

`bindtextdomain(`directory [`,` domain]`)`
  This function allows you to specify the directory in which gawk will look for message translation files, in case they will not or cannot be placed in the “standard” locations (e.g., during testing). It returns the directory in which domain is “bound.”

  The default domain is the value of `TEXTDOMAIN`. If directory is the null string (`""`), then `bindtextdomain` returns the current binding for the given domain.

Previous: Built-in, Up: Functions

### 8.2 User-Defined Functions

Complicated awk programs can often be simplified by defining your own functions. User-defined functions can be called just like built-in ones (see Function Calls), but it is up to you to define them, i.e., to tell awk what they should do.

Next: Function Example, Up: User-defined

#### 8.2.1 Function Definition Syntax

Definitions of functions can appear anywhere between the rules of an awk program. Thus, the general form of an awk program is extended to include sequences of rules and user-defined function definitions. There is no need to put the definition of a function before all uses of the function. This is because awk reads the entire program before starting to execute any of it.

The definition of a function named name looks like this:

         function name(parameter-list)
         {
              body-of-function
         }

name is the name of the function to define. A valid function name is like a valid variable name: a sequence of letters, digits, and underscores that doesn't start with a digit. Within a single awk program, any particular name can only be used as a variable, array, or function.

parameter-list is a list of the function's arguments and local variable names, separated by commas. When the function is called, the argument names are used to hold the argument values given in the call. The local variables are initialized to the empty string. A function cannot have two parameters with the same name, nor may it have a parameter with the same name as the function itself.

The body-of-function consists of awk statements. It is the most important part of the definition, because it says what the function should actually do. The argument names exist to give the body a way to talk about the arguments; local variables exist to give the body places to keep temporary values.

Argument names are not distinguished syntactically from local variable names. Instead, the number of arguments supplied when the function is called determines how many argument variables there are. Thus, if three argument values are given, the first three names in parameter-list are arguments and the rest are local variables.

It follows that if the number of arguments is not the same in all calls to the function, some of the names in parameter-list may be arguments on some occasions and local variables on others. Another way to think of this is that omitted arguments default to the null string.

Usually when you write a function, you know how many names you intend to use for arguments and how many you intend to use as local variables. It is conventional to place some extra space between the arguments and the local variables, in order to document how your function is supposed to be used.

During execution of the function body, the arguments and local variable values hide, or shadow, any variables of the same names used in the rest of the program. The shadowed variables are not accessible in the function definition, because there is no way to name them while their names have been taken away for the local variables. All other variables used in the awk program can be referenced or set normally in the function's body.

The arguments and local variables last only as long as the function body is executing. Once the body finishes, you can once again access the variables that were shadowed while the function was running.

The function body can contain expressions that call functions. They can even call this function, either directly or by way of another function. When this happens, we say the function is recursive. The act of a function calling itself is called recursion.

In many awk implementations, including gawk, the keyword `function` may be abbreviated `func`. However, POSIX only specifies the use of the keyword `function`. This actually has some practical implications. If gawk is in POSIX-compatibility mode (see Options), then the following statement does not define a function:

         func foo() { a = sqrt($1) ; print a }

Instead it defines a rule that, for each record, concatenates the value of the variable func with the return value of the function foo. If the resulting string is non-null, the action is executed. This is probably not what is desired. (awk accepts this input as syntactically valid, because functions may be used before they are defined in awk programs.)

To ensure that your awk programs are portable, always use the keyword `function` when defining a function.

Next: Function Caveats, Previous: Definition Syntax, Up: User-defined

#### 8.2.2 Function Definition Examples

Here is an example of a user-defined function, called `myprint`, that takes a number and prints it in a specific format:

         function myprint(num)
         {
              printf "%6.3g\n", num
         }

To illustrate, here is an awk rule that uses our `myprint` function:

         $3 > 0     { myprint($3) }

This program prints, in our special format, all the third fields that contain a positive number in our input. Therefore, when given the following:

          1.2   3.4    5.6   7.8
          9.10 11.12 -13.14 15.16
         17.18 19.20  21.22 23.24

this program, using our function to format the results, prints:

            5.6
           21.2

This function deletes all the elements in an array:

         function delarray(a,    i)
         {
             for (i in a)
                delete a[i]
         }

When working with arrays, it is often necessary to delete all the elements in an array and start over with a new list of elements (see Delete). Instead of having to repeat this loop everywhere that you need to clear out an array, your program can just call `delarray`. (This guarantees portability. The use of delete array to delete the contents of an entire array is a nonstandard extension.)

The following is an example of a recursive function. It takes a string as an input parameter and returns the string in backwards order. Recursive functions must always have a test that stops the recursion. In this case, the recursion terminates when the starting position is zero, i.e., when there are no more characters left in the string.

         function rev(str, start)
         {
             if (start == 0)
                 return ""

             return (substr(str, start, 1) rev(str, start - 1))
         }

If this function is in a file named rev.awk, it can be tested this way:

         $ echo "Don't Panic!" |
         > gawk --source '{ print rev($0, length($0)) }' -f rev.awk
         -| !cinaP t'noD

The C `ctime` function takes a timestamp and returns it in a string, formatted in a well-known fashion. The following example uses the built-in `strftime` function (see Time Functions) to create an awk version of `ctime`:

         # ctime.awk
         #
         # awk version of C ctime(3) function

         function ctime(ts,    format)
         {
             format = "%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Z %Y"
             if (ts == 0)
                 ts = systime()       # use current time as default
             return strftime(format, ts)
         }

Next: Return Statement, Previous: Function Example, Up: User-defined

#### 8.2.3 Calling User-Defined Functions

Calling a function means causing the function to run and do its job. A function call is an expression and its value is the value returned by the function.

A function call consists of the function name followed by the arguments in parentheses. awk expressions are what you write in the call for the arguments. Each time the call is executed, these expressions are evaluated, and the values are the actual arguments. For example, here is a call to `foo` with three arguments (the first being a string concatenation):

         foo(x y, "lose", 4 * z)

Caution: Whitespace characters (spaces and tabs) are not allowed between the function name and the open-parenthesis of the argument list. If you write whitespace by mistake, awk might think that you mean to concatenate a variable with an expression in parentheses. However, it notices that you used a function name and not a variable name, and reports an error.

When a function is called, it is given a copy of the values of its arguments. This is known as call by value. The caller may use a variable as the expression for the argument, but the called function does not know this—it only knows what value the argument had. For example, if you write the following code:

         foo = "bar"
         z = myfunc(foo)

then you should not think of the argument to `myfunc` as being “the variable `foo`.” Instead, think of the argument as the string value `"bar"`. If the function `myfunc` alters the values of its local variables, this has no effect on any other variables. Thus, if `myfunc` does this:

         function myfunc(str)
         {
           print str
           str = "zzz"
           print str
         }

to change its first argument variable `str`, it does not change the value of `foo` in the caller. The role of `foo` in calling `myfunc` ended when its value (`"bar"`) was computed. If `str` also exists outside of `myfunc`, the function body cannot alter this outer value, because it is shadowed during the execution of `myfunc` and cannot be seen or changed from there.

However, when arrays are the parameters to functions, they are not copied. Instead, the array itself is made available for direct manipulation by the function. This is usually called call by reference. Changes made to an array parameter inside the body of a function are visible outside that function.

> NOTE: Changing an array parameter inside a function can be very dangerous if you do not watch what you are doing. For example:

>               function changeit(array, ind, nvalue)
>               {
>                    array[ind] = nvalue
>               }

>               BEGIN {
>                   a[1] = 1; a[2] = 2; a[3] = 3
>                   changeit(a, 2, "two")
>                   printf "a[1] = %s, a[2] = %s, a[3] = %s\n",
>                           a[1], a[2], a[3]
>               }

> prints a[1] = 1, a[2] = two, a[3] = 3, because `changeit` stores `"two"` in the second element of `a`.

Some awk implementations allow you to call a function that has not been defined. They only report a problem at runtime when the program actually tries to call the function. For example:

         BEGIN {
             if (0)
                 foo()
             else
                 bar()
         }
         function bar() { ... }
         # note that `foo' is not defined

Because the if statement will never be true, it is not really a problem that `foo` has not been defined. Usually, though, it is a problem if a program calls an undefined function.

If --lint is specified (see Options), gawk reports calls to undefined functions.

Some awk implementations generate a runtime error if you use the `next` statement (see Next Statement) inside a user-defined function. gawk does not have this limitation.

Next: Dynamic Typing, Previous: Function Caveats, Up: User-defined

#### 8.2.4 The `return` Statement

The body of a user-defined function can contain a `return` statement. This statement returns control to the calling part of the awk program. It can also be used to return a value for use in the rest of the awk program. It looks like this:

         return [expression]

The expression part is optional. If it is omitted, then the returned value is undefined, and therefore, unpredictable.

A `return` statement with no value expression is assumed at the end of every function definition. So if control reaches the end of the function body, then the function returns an unpredictable value. awk does not warn you if you use the return value of such a function.

Sometimes, you want to write a function for what it does, not for what it returns. Such a function corresponds to a `void` function in C or to a `procedure` in Pascal. Thus, it may be appropriate to not return any value; simply bear in mind that if you use the return value of such a function, you do so at your own risk.

The following is an example of a user-defined function that returns a value for the largest number among the elements of an array:

         function maxelt(vec,   i, ret)
         {
              for (i in vec) {
                   if (ret == "" || vec[i] > ret)
                        ret = vec[i]
              }
              return ret
         }

You call `maxelt` with one argument, which is an array name. The local variables `i` and `ret` are not intended to be arguments; while there is nothing to stop you from passing more than one argument to `maxelt`, the results would be strange. The extra space before `i` in the function parameter list indicates that `i` and `ret` are not supposed to be arguments. You should follow this convention when defining functions.

The following program uses the `maxelt` function. It loads an array, calls `maxelt`, and then reports the maximum number in that array:

         function maxelt(vec,   i, ret)
         {
              for (i in vec) {
                   if (ret == "" || vec[i] > ret)
                        ret = vec[i]
              }
              return ret
         }

         # Load all fields of each record into nums.
         {
              for(i = 1; i <= NF; i++)
                   nums[NR, i] = $i
         }

         END {
              print maxelt(nums)
         }

Given the following input:

          1 5 23 8 16
         44 3 5 2 8 26
         256 291 1396 2962 100
         -6 467 998 1101
         99385 11 0 225

the program reports (predictably) that `99385` is the largest number in the array.

Previous: Return Statement, Up: User-defined

#### 8.2.5 Functions and Their Effects on Variable Typing

awk is a very fluid language. It is possible that awk can't tell if an identifier represents a regular variable or an array until runtime. Here is an annotated sample program:

         function foo(a)
         {
             a[1] = 1   # parameter is an array
         }

         BEGIN {
             b = 1
             foo(b)  # invalid: fatal type mismatch

             foo(x)  # x uninitialized, becomes an array dynamically
             x = 1   # now not allowed, runtime error
         }

Usually, such things aren't a big issue, but it's worth being aware of them.

Next: Advanced Features, Previous: Functions, Up: Top

## 9 Internationalization with gawk

Once upon a time, computer makers wrote software that worked only in English. Eventually, hardware and software vendors noticed that if their systems worked in the native languages of non-English-speaking countries, they were able to sell more systems. As a result, internationalization and localization of programs and software systems became a common practice.

Until recently, the ability to provide internationalization was largely restricted to programs written in C and C++. This chapter describes the underlying library gawk uses for internationalization, as well as how gawk makes internationalization features available at the awk program level. Having internationalization available at the awk level gives software developers additional flexibility—they are no longer required to write in C when internationalization is a requirement.

Next: Explaining gettext, Up: Internationalization

### 9.1 Internationalization and Localization

Internationalization means writing (or modifying) a program once, in such a way that it can use multiple languages without requiring further source-code changes. Localization means providing the data necessary for an internationalized program to work in a particular language. Most typically, these terms refer to features such as the language used for printing error messages, the language used to read responses, and information related to how numerical and monetary values are printed and read.

Next: Programmer i18n, Previous: I18N and L10N, Up: Internationalization

### 9.2 GNU `gettext`

The facilities in GNU `gettext` focus on messages; strings printed by a program, either directly or via formatting with `printf` or `sprintf`.44

When using GNU `gettext`, each application has its own text domain. This is a unique name, such as kpilot or gawk, that identifies the application. A complete application may have multiple components—programs written in C or C++, as well as scripts written in sh or awk. All of the components use the same text domain.

To make the discussion concrete, assume we're writing an application named guide. Internationalization consists of the following steps, in this order:

1. The programmer goes through the source for all of guide's components and marks each string that is a candidate for translation. For example, `"`-F': option required"` is a good candidate for translation. A table with strings of option names is not (e.g., gawk's --profile option should remain the same, no matter what the local language).

2. The programmer indicates the application's text domain (`"guide"`) to the `gettext` library, by calling the `textdomain` function.
3. Messages from the application are extracted from the source code and collected into a portable object file (guide.po), which lists the strings and their translations. The translations are initially empty. The original (usually English) messages serve as the key for lookup of the translations.

4. For each language with a translator, guide.po is copied and translations are created and shipped with the application.

5. Each language's .po file is converted into a binary message object (.mo) file. A message object file contains the original messages and their translations in a binary format that allows fast lookup of translations at runtime.
6. When guide is built and installed, the binary translation files are installed in a standard place.

7. For testing and development, it is possible to tell `gettext` to use .mo files in a different directory than the standard one by using the `bindtextdomain` function.

8. At runtime, guide looks up each string via a call to `gettext`. The returned string is the translated string if available, or the original string if not.
9. If necessary, it is possible to access messages from a different text domain than the one belonging to the application, without having to switch the application's default text domain back and forth.

In C (or C++), the string marking and dynamic translation lookup are accomplished by wrapping each string in a call to `gettext`:

         printf(gettext("Don't Panic!\n"));

The tools that extract messages from source code pull out all strings enclosed in calls to `gettext`.

The GNU `gettext` developers, recognizing that typing gettext over and over again is both painful and ugly to look at, use the macro _ (an underscore) to make things easier:

         /* In the standard header file: */
         #define _(str) gettext(str)

         /* In the program text: */
         printf(_("Don't Panic!\n"));

This reduces the typing overhead to just three extra characters per string and is considerably easier to read as well. There are locale categories for different types of locale-related information. The defined locale categories that `gettext` knows about are:

`LC_MESSAGES`
  Text messages. This is the default category for `gettext` operations, but it is possible to supply a different one explicitly, if necessary. (It is almost never necessary to supply a different category.)

`LC_COLLATE`
  Text-collation information; i.e., how different characters and/or groups of characters sort in a given language.

`LC_CTYPE`
  Character-type information (alphabetic, digit, upper- or lowercase, and so on). This information is accessed via the POSIX character classes in regular expressions, such as `/[[:alnum:]]/` (see Regexp Operators).

`LC_MONETARY`
  Monetary information, such as the currency symbol, and whether the symbol goes before or after a number.

`LC_NUMERIC`
  Numeric information, such as which characters to use for the decimal point and the thousands separator.45

`LC_RESPONSE`
  Response information, such as how “yes” and “no” appear in the local language, and possibly other information as well.

`LC_TIME`
  Time- and date-related information, such as 12- or 24-hour clock, month printed before or after day in a date, local month abbreviations, and so on.

`LC_ALL`
  All of the above. (Not too useful in the context of `gettext`.)

Next: Translator i18n, Previous: Explaining gettext, Up: Internationalization

### 9.3 Internationalizing awk Programs

gawk provides the following variables and functions for internationalization:

`TEXTDOMAIN`
  This variable indicates the application's text domain. For compatibility with GNU `gettext`, the default value is `"messages"`.

`_"your message here"`
  String constants marked with a leading underscore are candidates for translation at runtime. String constants without a leading underscore are not translated.

`dcgettext(`string [`,` domain [`,` category]]`)`
  This built-in function returns the translation of string in text domain domain for locale category category. The default value for domain is the current value of `TEXTDOMAIN`. The default value for category is `"LC_MESSAGES"`.

  If you supply a value for category, it must be a string equal to one of the known locale categories described in the previous section. You must also supply a text domain. Use `TEXTDOMAIN` if you want to use the current domain.

  Caution: The order of arguments to the awk version of the `dcgettext` function is purposely different from the order for the C version. The awk version's order was chosen to be simple and to allow for reasonable awk-style default arguments.

`dcngettext(`string1`,` string2`,` number [`,` domain [`,` category]]`)`
  This built-in function returns the plural form used for number of the translation of string1 and string2 in text domain domain for locale category category. string1 is the English singular variant of a message, and string2 the English plural variant of the same message. The default value for domain is the current value of `TEXTDOMAIN`. The default value for category is `"LC_MESSAGES"`.

  The same remarks as for the `dcgettext` function apply.

`bindtextdomain(`directory [`,` domain]`)`
  This built-in function allows you to specify the directory in which `gettext` looks for .mo files, in case they will not or cannot be placed in the standard locations (e.g., during testing). It returns the directory in which domain is “bound.”

  The default domain is the value of `TEXTDOMAIN`. If directory is the null string (`""`), then `bindtextdomain` returns the current binding for the given domain.

To use these facilities in your awk program, follow the steps outlined in the previous section, like so:

1. Set the variable `TEXTDOMAIN` to the text domain of your program. This is best done in a `BEGIN` rule (see BEGIN/END), or it can also be done via the -v command-line option (see Options):

                 BEGIN {
                     TEXTDOMAIN = "guide"
                     ...
                 }

2. Mark all translatable strings with a leading underscore (_) character. It must be adjacent to the opening quote of the string. For example:

                 print _"hello, world"
                 x = _"you goofed"
                 printf(_"Number of users is %d\n", nusers)

3. If you are creating strings dynamically, you can still translate them, using the `dcgettext` built-in function:

                 message = nusers " users logged in"
                 message = dcgettext(message, "adminprog")
                 print message

   Here, the call to `dcgettext` supplies a different text domain (`"adminprog"`) in which to find the message, but it uses the default `"LC_MESSAGES"` category.

4. During development, you might want to put the .mo file in a private directory for testing. This is done with the `bindtextdomain` built-in function:

                 BEGIN {
                    TEXTDOMAIN = "guide"   # our text domain
                    if (Testing) {
                        # where to find our files
                        bindtextdomain("testdir")
                        # joe is in charge of adminprog
                        bindtextdomain("../joe/testdir", "adminprog")
                    }
                    ...
                 }

See I18N Example, for an example program showing the steps to create and use translations from awk.

Next: I18N Example, Previous: Programmer i18n, Up: Internationalization

### 9.4 Translating awk Programs

Once a program's translatable strings have been marked, they must be extracted to create the initial .po file. As part of translation, it is often helpful to rearrange the order in which arguments to `printf` are output.

gawk's --gen-po command-line option extracts the messages and is discussed next. After that, `printf`'s ability to rearrange the order for `printf` arguments at runtime is covered.

Next: Printf Ordering, Up: Translator i18n

#### 9.4.1 Extracting Marked Strings

Once your awk program is working, and all the strings have been marked and you've set (and perhaps bound) the text domain, it is time to produce translations. First, use the --gen-po command-line option to create the initial .po file:

         $ gawk --gen-po -f guide.awk > guide.po

When run with --gen-po, gawk does not execute your program. Instead, it parses it as usual and prints all marked strings to standard output in the format of a GNU `gettext` Portable Object file. Also included in the output are any constant strings that appear as the first argument to `dcgettext` or as the first and second argument to `dcngettext`.46 See I18N Example, for the full list of steps to go through to create and test translations for guide.

Next: I18N Portability, Previous: String Extraction, Up: Translator i18n

#### 9.4.2 Rearranging `printf` Arguments

Format strings for `printf` and `sprintf` (see Printf) present a special problem for translation. Consider the following:47

         printf(_"String `%s' has %d characters\n",
                   string, length(string)))

A possible German translation for this might be:

         "%d Zeichen lang ist die Zeichenkette `%s'\n"

The problem should be obvious: the order of the format specifications is different from the original! Even though `gettext` can return the translated string at runtime, it cannot change the argument order in the call to `printf`.

To solve this problem, `printf` format specificiers may have an additional optional element, which we call a positional specifier. For example:

         "%2$d Zeichen lang ist die Zeichenkette `%1$s'\n"

Here, the positional specifier consists of an integer count, which indicates which argument to use, and a $. Counts are one-based, and the format string itself is not included. Thus, in the following example, string is the first argument and length(string) is the second:

         $ gawk 'BEGIN {
         >     string = "Dont Panic"
         >     printf _"%2$d characters live in \"%1$s\"\n",
         >                         string, length(string)
         > }'
         -| 10 characters live in "Dont Panic"

If present, positional specifiers come first in the format specification, before the flags, the field width, and/or the precision.

Positional specifiers can be used with the dynamic field width and precision capability:

         $ gawk 'BEGIN {
         >    printf("%*.*s\n", 10, 20, "hello")
         >    printf("%3$*2$.*1$s\n", 20, 10, "hello")
         > }'
         -|      hello
         -|      hello

> NOTE: When using * with a positional specifier, the * comes first, then the integer position, and then the $. This is somewhat counterintutive.

gawk does not allow you to mix regular format specifiers and those with positional specifiers in the same string:

         $ gawk 'BEGIN { printf _"%d %3$s\n", 1, 2, "hi" }'
         error--> gawk: cmd. line:1: fatal: must use `count$' on all formats or none

> NOTE: There are some pathological cases that gawk may fail to diagnose. In such cases, the output may not be what you expect. It's still a bad idea to try mixing them, even if gawk doesn't detect it.

Although positional specifiers can be used directly in awk programs, their primary purpose is to help in producing correct translations of format strings into languages different from the one in which the program is first written.

Previous: Printf Ordering, Up: Translator i18n

#### 9.4.3 awk Portability Issues

gawk's internationalization features were purposely chosen to have as little impact as possible on the portability of awk programs that use them to other versions of awk. Consider this program:

         BEGIN {
             TEXTDOMAIN = "guide"
             if (Test_Guide)   # set with -v
                 bindtextdomain("/test/guide/messages")
             print _"don't panic!"
         }

As written, it won't work on other versions of awk. However, it is actually almost portable, requiring very little change:

- Assignments to `TEXTDOMAIN` won't have any effect, since `TEXTDOMAIN` is not special in other awk implementations.
- Non-GNU versions of awk treat marked strings as the concatenation of a variable named `_` with the string following it.48 Typically, the variable `_` has the null string (`""`) as its value, leaving the original string constant as the result.
- By defining “dummy” functions to replace `dcgettext`, `dcngettext` and `bindtextdomain`, the awk program can be made to run, but all the messages are output in the original language. For example:

                function bindtextdomain(dir, domain)
                {
                    return dir
                }

                function dcgettext(string, domain, category)
                {
                    return string
                }

                function dcngettext(string1, string2, number, domain, category)
                {
                    return (number == 1 ? string1 : string2)
                }

- The use of positional specifications in `printf` or `sprintf` is not portable. To support `gettext` at the C level, many systems' C versions of `sprintf` do support positional specifiers. But it works only if enough arguments are supplied in the function call. Many versions of awk pass `printf` formats and arguments unchanged to the underlying C library version of `sprintf`, but only one format and argument at a time. What happens if a positional specification is used is anybody's guess. However, since the positional specifications are primarily for use in translated format strings, and since non-GNU awks never retrieve the translated string, this should not be a problem in practice.

Next: Gawk I18N, Previous: Translator i18n, Up: Internationalization

### 9.5 A Simple Internationalization Example

Now let's look at a step-by-step example of how to internationalize and localize a simple awk program, using guide.awk as our original source:

         BEGIN {
             TEXTDOMAIN = "guide"
             bindtextdomain(".")  # for testing
             print _"Don't Panic"
             print _"The Answer Is", 42
             print "Pardon me, Zaphod who?"
         }

Run gawk --gen-po to create the .po file:

         $ gawk --gen-po -f guide.awk > guide.po

This produces:

         #: guide.awk:4
         msgid "Don't Panic"
         msgstr ""

         #: guide.awk:5
         msgid "The Answer Is"
         msgstr ""

This original portable object file is saved and reused for each language into which the application is translated. The `msgid` is the original string and the `msgstr` is the translation.

> NOTE: Strings not marked with a leading underscore do not appear in the guide.po file.

Next, the messages must be translated. Here is a translation to a hypothetical dialect of English, called “Mellow”:49

         $ cp guide.po guide-mellow.po
         Add translations to guide-mellow.po ...

Following are the translations:

         #: guide.awk:4
         msgid "Don't Panic"
         msgstr "Hey man, relax!"

         #: guide.awk:5
         msgid "The Answer Is"
         msgstr "Like, the scoop is"

The next step is to make the directory to hold the binary message object file and then to create the guide.mo file. The directory layout shown here is standard for GNU `gettext` on GNU/Linux systems. Other versions of `gettext` may use a different layout:

         $ mkdir en_US en_US/LC_MESSAGES

The msgfmt utility does the conversion from human-readable .po file to machine-readable .mo file. By default, msgfmt creates a file named messages. This file must be renamed and placed in the proper directory so that gawk can find it:

         $ msgfmt guide-mellow.po
         $ mv messages en_US/LC_MESSAGES/guide.mo

Finally, we run the program to test it:

         $ gawk -f guide.awk
         -| Hey man, relax!
         -| Like, the scoop is 42
         -| Pardon me, Zaphod who?

If the three replacement functions for `dcgettext`, `dcngettext` and `bindtextdomain` (see I18N Portability) are in a file named libintl.awk, then we can run guide.awk unchanged as follows:

         $ gawk --posix -f guide.awk -f libintl.awk
         -| Don't Panic
         -| The Answer Is 42
         -| Pardon me, Zaphod who?

Previous: I18N Example, Up: Internationalization

### 9.6 gawk Can Speak Your Language

As of version 3.1, gawk itself has been internationalized using the GNU `gettext` package. (GNU `gettext` is described in complete detail in GNU gettext tools.) As of this writing, the latest version of GNU `gettext` is version 0.11.5.

If a translation of gawk's messages exists, then gawk produces usage messages, warnings, and fatal errors in the local language.

On systems that do not use version 2 (or later) of the GNU C library, you should configure gawk with the --with-included-gettext option before compiling and installing it. See Additional Configuration Options, for more information.

Next: Invoking Gawk, Previous: Internationalization, Up: Top

## 10 Advanced Features of gawk

> Write documentation as if whoever reads it is a violent psychopath who knows where you live.
> Steve English, as quoted by Peter Langston

This chapter discusses advanced features in gawk. It's a bit of a “grab bag” of items that are otherwise unrelated to each other. First, a command-line option allows gawk to recognize nondecimal numbers in input data, not just in awk programs. Next, two-way I/O, discussed briefly in earlier parts of this Web page, is described in full detail, along with the basics of TCP/IP networking and BSD portal files. Finally, gawk can profile an awk program, making it possible to tune it for performance.

Dynamic Extensions, discusses the ability to dynamically add new built-in functions to gawk. As this feature is still immature and likely to change, its description is relegated to an appendix.

Next: Two-way I/O, Up: Advanced Features

### 10.1 Allowing Nondecimal Input Data

If you run gawk with the --non-decimal-data option, you can have nondecimal constants in your input data:

         $ echo 0123 123 0x123 |
         > gawk --non-decimal-data '{ printf "%d, %d, %d\n",
         >                                         $1, $2, $3 }'
         -| 83, 123, 291

For this feature to work, write your program so that gawk treats your data as numeric:

         $ echo 0123 123 0x123 | gawk '{ print $1, $2, $3 }'
         -| 0123 123 0x123

The `print` statement treats its expressions as strings. Although the fields can act as numbers when necessary, they are still strings, so `print` does not try to treat them numerically. You may need to add zero to a field to force it to be treated as a number. For example:

         $ echo 0123 123 0x123 | gawk --non-decimal-data '
         > { print $1, $2, $3
         >   print $1 + 0, $2 + 0, $3 + 0 }'
         -| 0123 123 0x123
         -| 83 123 291

Because it is common to have decimal data with leading zeros, and because using it could lead to surprising results, the default is to leave this facility disabled. If you want it, you must explicitly request it.

Caution: Use of this option is not recommended. It can break old programs very badly. Instead, use the `strtonum` function to convert your data (see Nondecimal-numbers). This makes your programs easier to write and easier to read, and leads to less surprising results.

Next: TCP/IP Networking, Previous: Nondecimal Data, Up: Advanced Features

### 10.2 Two-Way Communications with Another Process

         From: brennan@whidbey.com (Mike Brennan)
         Newsgroups: comp.lang.awk
         Subject: Re: Learn the SECRET to Attract Women Easily
         Date: 4 Aug 1997 17:34:46 GMT

         Message-ID: <5s53rm$eca@news.whidbey.com>

         On 3 Aug 1997 13:17:43 GMT, Want More Dates???
         <tracy78@kilgrona.com> wrote:
         >Learn the SECRET to Attract Women Easily
         >
         >The SCENT(tm)  Pheromone Sex Attractant For Men to Attract Women

         The scent of awk programmers is a lot more attractive to women than
         the scent of perl programmers.
         --
         Mike Brennan

It is often useful to be able to send data to a separate program for processing and then read the result. This can always be done with temporary files:

         # write the data for processing
         tempfile = ("mydata." PROCINFO["pid"])
         while (not done with data)
             print data | ("subprogram > " tempfile)
         close("subprogram > " tempfile)

         # read the results, remove tempfile when done
         while ((getline newdata < tempfile) > 0)
             process newdata appropriately
         close(tempfile)
         system("rm " tempfile)

This works, but not elegantly. Among other things, it requires that the program be run in a directory that cannot be shared among users; for example, /tmp will not do, as another user might happen to be using a temporary file with the same name.

Starting with version 3.1 of gawk, it is possible to open a two-way pipe to another process. The second process is termed a coprocess, since it runs in parallel with gawk. The two-way connection is created using the new |& operator (borrowed from the Korn shell, ksh):50

         do {
             print data |& "subprogram"
             "subprogram" |& getline results
         } while (data left to process)
         close("subprogram")

The first time an I/O operation is executed using the |& operator, gawk creates a two-way pipeline to a child process that runs the other program. Output created with `print` or `printf` is written to the program's standard input, and output from the program's standard output can be read by the gawk program using `getline`. As is the case with processes started by |, the subprogram can be any program, or pipeline of programs, that can be started by the shell.

There are some cautionary items to be aware of:

- As the code inside gawk currently stands, the coprocess's standard error goes to the same place that the parent gawk's standard error goes. It is not possible to read the child's standard error separately.

- I/O buffering may be a problem. gawk automatically flushes all output down the pipe to the child process. However, if the coprocess does not flush its output, gawk may hang when doing a `getline` in order to read the coprocess's results. This could lead to a situation known as deadlock, where each process is waiting for the other one to do something.

It is possible to close just one end of the two-way pipe to a coprocess, by supplying a second argument to the `close` function of either `"to"` or `"from"` (see Close Files And Pipes). These strings tell gawk to close the end of the pipe that sends data to the process or the end that reads from it, respectively.

This is particularly necessary in order to use the system sort utility as part of a coprocess; sort must read all of its input data before it can produce any output. The sort program does not receive an end-of-file indication until gawk closes the write end of the pipe.

When you have finished writing data to the sort utility, you can close the `"to"` end of the pipe, and then start reading sorted data via `getline`. For example:

         BEGIN {
             command = "LC_ALL=C sort"
             n = split("abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz", a, "")

             for (i = n; i > 0; i--)
                 print a[i] |& command
             close(command, "to")

             while ((command |& getline line) > 0)
                 print "got", line
             close(command)
         }

This program writes the letters of the alphabet in reverse order, one per line, down the two-way pipe to sort. It then closes the write end of the pipe, so that sort receives an end-of-file indication. This causes sort to sort the data and write the sorted data back to the gawk program. Once all of the data has been read, gawk terminates the coprocess and exits.

As a side note, the assignment LC_ALL=C in the sort command ensures traditional Unix (ASCII) sorting from sort.

Beginning with gawk 3.1.2, you may use Pseudo-ttys (ptys) for two-way communication instead of pipes, if your system supports them. This is done on a per-command basis, by setting a special element in the `PROCINFO` array (see Auto-set), like so:

         command = "sort -nr"           # command, saved in variable for convenience
         PROCINFO[command, "pty"] = 1   # update PROCINFO
         print ... |& command       # start two-way pipe
         ...

Using ptys avoids the buffer deadlock issues described earlier, at some loss in performance. If your system does not have ptys, or if all the system's ptys are in use, gawk automatically falls back to using regular pipes.

Next: Portal Files, Previous: Two-way I/O, Up: Advanced Features

### 10.3 Using gawk for Network Programming

> `EMISTERED`: A host is a host from coast to coast,
> and no-one can talk to host that's close,
> unless the host that isn't close
> is busy hung or dead.

In addition to being able to open a two-way pipeline to a coprocess on the same system (see Two-way I/O), it is possible to make a two-way connection to another process on another system across an IP networking connection.

You can think of this as just a very long two-way pipeline to a coprocess. The way gawk decides that you want to use TCP/IP networking is by recognizing special file names that begin with /inet/.

The full syntax of the special file name is /inet/protocol/local-port/remote-host/remote-port. The components are:

protocol
  The protocol to use over IP. This must be either tcp, udp, or raw, for a TCP, UDP, or raw IP connection, respectively. The use of TCP is recommended for most applications.

  Caution: The use of raw sockets is not currently supported in version 3.1 of gawk.

local-port
  The local TCP or UDP port number to use. Use a port number of 0 when you want the system to pick a port. This is what you should do when writing a TCP or UDP client. You may also use a well-known service name, such as smtp or http, in which case gawk attempts to determine the predefined port number using the C `getservbyname` function.
remote-host
  The IP address or fully-qualified domain name of the Internet host to which you want to connect.
remote-port
  The TCP or UDP port number to use on the given remote-host. Again, use 0 if you don't care, or else a well-known service name.

Consider the following very simple example:

         BEGIN {
           Service = "/inet/tcp/0/localhost/daytime"
           Service |& getline
           print $0
           close(Service)
         }

This program reads the current date and time from the local system's TCP daytime server. It then prints the results and closes the connection.

Because this topic is extensive, the use of gawk for TCP/IP programming is documented separately. See TCP/IP Internetworking with gawk, which comes as part of the gawk distribution, for a much more complete introduction and discussion, as well as extensive examples.

Next: Profiling, Previous: TCP/IP Networking, Up: Advanced Features

### 10.4 Using gawk with BSD Portals

Similar to the /inet special files, if gawk is configured with the --enable-portals option (see Quick Installation), then gawk treats files whose pathnames begin with `/p` as 4.4 BSD-style portals.

When used with the |& operator, gawk opens the file for two-way communications. The operating system's portal mechanism then manages creating the process associated with the portal and the corresponding communications with the portal's process.

Previous: Portal Files, Up: Advanced Features

### 10.5 Profiling Your awk Programs

Beginning with version 3.1 of gawk, you may produce execution traces of your awk programs. This is done with a specially compiled version of gawk, called pgawk (“profiling gawk”).

pgawk is identical in every way to gawk, except that when it has finished running, it creates a profile of your program in a file named awkprof.out. Because it is profiling, it also executes up to 45% slower than gawk normally does.

As shown in the following example, the --profile option can be used to change the name of the file where pgawk will write the profile:

         $ pgawk --profile=myprog.prof -f myprog.awk data1 data2

In the above example, pgawk places the profile in myprog.prof instead of in awkprof.out.

Regular gawk also accepts this option. When called with just --profile, gawk “pretty prints” the program into awkprof.out, without any execution counts. You may supply an option to --profile to change the file name. Here is a sample session showing a simple awk program, its input data, and the results from running pgawk. First, the awk program:

         BEGIN { print "First BEGIN rule" }

         END { print "First END rule" }

         /foo/ {
             print "matched /foo/, gosh"
             for (i = 1; i <= 3; i++)
                 sing()
         }

         {
             if (/foo/)
                 print "if is true"
             else
                 print "else is true"
         }

         BEGIN { print "Second BEGIN rule" }

         END { print "Second END rule" }

         function sing(    dummy)
         {
             print "I gotta be me!"
         }

Following is the input data:

         foo
         bar
         baz
         foo
         junk

Here is the awkprof.out that results from running pgawk on this program and data (this example also illustrates that awk programmers sometimes have to work late):

                 # gawk profile, created Sun Aug 13 00:00:15 2000

                 # BEGIN block(s)

                 BEGIN {
              1          print "First BEGIN rule"
              1          print "Second BEGIN rule"
                 }

                 # Rule(s)

              5  /foo/   { # 2
              2          print "matched /foo/, gosh"
              6          for (i = 1; i <= 3; i++) {
              6                  sing()
                         }
                 }

              5  {
              5          if (/foo/) { # 2
              2                  print "if is true"
              3          } else {
              3                  print "else is true"
                         }
                 }

                 # END block(s)

                 END {
              1          print "First END rule"
              1          print "Second END rule"
                 }

                 # Functions, listed alphabetically

              6  function sing(dummy)
                 {
              6          print "I gotta be me!"
                 }

This example illustrates many of the basic rules for profiling output. The rules are as follows:

- The program is printed in the order `BEGIN` rule, pattern/action rules, `END` rule and functions, listed alphabetically. Multiple `BEGIN` and `END` rules are merged together.

- Pattern-action rules have two counts. The first count, to the left of the rule, shows how many times the rule's pattern was tested. The second count, to the right of the rule's opening left brace in a comment, shows how many times the rule's action was executed. The difference between the two indicates how many times the rule's pattern evaluated to false.
- Similarly, the count for an `if`-`else` statement shows how many times the condition was tested. To the right of the opening left brace for the `if`'s body is a count showing how many times the condition was true. The count for the `else` indicates how many times the test failed.

- The count for a loop header (such as `for` or `while`) shows how many times the loop test was executed. (Because of this, you can't just look at the count on the first statement in a rule to determine how many times the rule was executed. If the first statement is a loop, the count is misleading.)

- For user-defined functions, the count next to the `function` keyword indicates how many times the function was called. The counts next to the statements in the body show how many times those statements were executed.

- The layout uses “K&R” style with tabs. Braces are used everywhere, even when the body of an `if`, `else`, or loop is only a single statement.

- Parentheses are used only where needed, as indicated by the structure of the program and the precedence rules. For example, (3 + 5) * 4 means add three plus five, then multiply the total by four. However, 3 + 5 * 4 has no parentheses, and means 3 + (5 * 4).
- All string concatenations are parenthesized too. (This could be made a bit smarter.)
- Parentheses are used around the arguments to `print` and `printf` only when the `print` or `printf` statement is followed by a redirection. Similarly, if the target of a redirection isn't a scalar, it gets parenthesized.
- pgawk supplies leading comments in front of the `BEGIN` and `END` rules, the pattern/action rules, and the functions.

The profiled version of your program may not look exactly like what you typed when you wrote it. This is because pgawk creates the profiled version by “pretty printing” its internal representation of the program. The advantage to this is that pgawk can produce a standard representation. The disadvantage is that all source-code comments are lost, as are the distinctions among multiple `BEGIN` and `END` rules. Also, things such as:

         /foo/

come out as:

         /foo/   {
             print $0
         }

which is correct, but possibly surprising.

Besides creating profiles when a program has completed, pgawk can produce a profile while it is running. This is useful if your awk program goes into an infinite loop and you want to see what has been executed. To use this feature, run pgawk in the background:

         $ pgawk -f myprog &
         [1] 13992

The shell prints a job number and process ID number; in this case, 13992. Use the kill command to send the `USR1` signal to pgawk:

         $ kill -USR1 13992

As usual, the profiled version of the program is written to awkprof.out, or to a different file if you use the --profile option.

Along with the regular profile, as shown earlier, the profile includes a trace of any active functions:

         # Function Call Stack:

         #   3. baz
         #   2. bar
         #   1. foo
         # -- main --

You may send pgawk the `USR1` signal as many times as you like. Each time, the profile and function call trace are appended to the output profile file.

If you use the `HUP` signal instead of the `USR1` signal, pgawk produces the profile and the function call trace and then exits.

When pgawk runs on MS-DOS or MS-Windows, it uses the `INT` and `QUIT` signals for producing the profile and, in the case of the `INT` signal, pgawk exits. This is because these systems don't support the kill command, so the only signals you can deliver to a program are those generated by the keyboard. The `INT` signal is generated by the `Ctrl-<C>` or `Ctrl-<BREAK>` key, while the `QUIT` signal is generated by the `Ctrl-<\>` key.

Next: Library Functions, Previous: Advanced Features, Up: Top

## 11 Running awk and gawk

This chapter covers how to run awk, both POSIX-standard and gawk-specific command-line options, and what awk and gawk do with non-option arguments. It then proceeds to cover how gawk searches for source files, obsolete options and/or features, and known bugs in gawk. This chapter rounds out the discussion of awk as a program and as a language.

While a number of the options and features described here were discussed in passing earlier in the book, this chapter provides the full details.

Next: Options, Up: Invoking Gawk

### 11.1 Invoking awk

There are two ways to run awk—with an explicit program or with one or more program files. Here are templates for both of them; items enclosed in [...] in these templates are optional:

         awk [options] -f progfile [--] file ...
         awk [options] [--] 'program' file ...

Besides traditional one-letter POSIX-style options, gawk also supports GNU long options.

It is possible to invoke awk with an empty program:

         awk '' datafile1 datafile2

Doing so makes little sense, though; awk exits silently when given an empty program. (d.c.) If --lint has been specified on the command line, gawk issues a warning that the program is empty.

Next: Other Arguments, Previous: Command Line, Up: Invoking Gawk

### 11.2 Command-Line Options

Options begin with a dash and consist of a single character. GNU-style long options consist of two dashes and a keyword. The keyword can be abbreviated, as long as the abbreviation allows the option to be uniquely identified. If the option takes an argument, then the keyword is either immediately followed by an equals sign (=) and the argument's value, or the keyword and the argument's value are separated by whitespace. If a particular option with a value is given more than once, it is the last value that counts.

Each long option for gawk has a corresponding POSIX-style option. The long and short options are interchangeable in all contexts. The options and their meanings are as follows:

`-F` fs
`--field-separator` fs
  Sets the `FS` variable to fs (see Field Separators).
`-f` source-file
`--file` source-file
  Indicates that the awk program is to be found in source-file instead of in the first non-option argument.
`-v` var`=`val
`--assign` var`=`val
  Sets the variable var to the value val before execution of the program begins. Such variable values are available inside the `BEGIN` rule (see Other Arguments).

  The -v option can only set one variable, but it can be used more than once, setting another variable each time, like this: awk -v foo=1 -v bar=2 ....

  Caution: Using -v to set the values of the built-in variables may lead to surprising results. awk will reset the values of those variables as it needs to, possibly ignoring any predefined value you may have given.

`-mf` N
`-mr` N
  Sets various memory limits to the value N. The f flag sets the maximum number of fields and the r flag sets the maximum record size. These two flags and the -m option are from the Bell Laboratories research version of Unix awk. They are provided for compatibility but otherwise ignored by gawk, since gawk has no predefined limits. (The Bell Laboratories awk no longer needs these options; it continues to accept them to avoid breaking old programs.)
`-W` gawk-opt
  Following the POSIX standard, implementation-specific options are supplied as arguments to the -W option. These options also have corresponding GNU-style long options. Note that the long options may be abbreviated, as long as the abbreviations remain unique. The full list of gawk-specific options is provided next.
`--`
  Signals the end of the command-line options. The following arguments are not treated as options even if they begin with -. This interpretation of -- follows the POSIX argument parsing conventions.

  This is useful if you have file names that start with -, or in shell scripts, if you have file names that will be specified by the user that could start with -.

The previous list described options mandated by the POSIX standard, as well as options available in the Bell Laboratories version of awk. The following list describes gawk-specific options:

`-W compat`
`-W traditional`
`--compat`
`--traditional`
  Specifies compatibility mode, in which the GNU extensions to the awk language are disabled, so that gawk behaves just like the Bell Laboratories research version of Unix awk. --traditional is the preferred form of this option. See POSIX/GNU, which summarizes the extensions. Also see Compatibility Mode.
`-W copyright`
`--copyright`
  Print the short version of the General Public License and then exit.
`-W copyleft`
`--copyleft`
  Just like --copyright. This option may disappear in a future version of gawk.

`-W dump-variables`[`=`file]
`--dump-variables`[`=`file]
  Prints a sorted list of global variables, their types, and final values to file. If no file is provided, gawk prints this list to the file named awkvars.out in the current directory.

  Having a list of all global variables is a good way to look for typographical errors in your programs. You would also use this option if you have a large program with a lot of functions, and you want to be sure that your functions don't inadvertently use global variables that you meant to be local. (This is a particularly easy mistake to make with simple variable names like `i`, `j`, etc.)

`-W gen-po`
`--gen-po`
  Analyzes the source program and generates a GNU `gettext` Portable Object file on standard output for all string constants that have been marked for translation. See Internationalization, for information about this option.
`-W help`
`-W usage`
`--help`
`--usage`
  Prints a “usage” message summarizing the short and long style options that gawk accepts and then exit.
`-W lint`[`=fatal`]
`--lint`[`=fatal`]
  Warns about constructs that are dubious or nonportable to other awk implementations. Some warnings are issued when gawk first reads your program. Others are issued at runtime, as your program executes. With an optional argument of fatal, lint warnings become fatal errors. This may be drastic, but its use will certainly encourage the development of cleaner awk programs. With an optional argument of invalid, only warnings about things that are actually invalid are issued. (This is not fully implemented yet.)
`-W lint-old`
`--lint-old`
  Warns about constructs that are not available in the original version of awk from Version 7 Unix (see V7/SVR3.1).
`-W non-decimal-data`
`--non-decimal-data`
  Enable automatic interpretation of octal and hexadecimal values in input data (see Nondecimal Data).

  Caution: This option can severely break old programs. Use with care.

`-W posix`
`--posix`
  Operates in strict POSIX mode. This disables all gawk extensions (just like --traditional) and adds the following additional restrictions:
  - `\x` escape sequences are not recognized (see Escape Sequences).

  - Newlines do not act as whitespace to separate fields when `FS` is equal to a single space (see Fields).
  - Newlines are not allowed after ? or : (see Conditional Exp).
  - The synonym `func` for the keyword `function` is not recognized (see Definition Syntax).

  - The ** and **= operators cannot be used in place of ^ and ^= (see Arithmetic Ops, and also see Assignment Ops).

  - Specifying -Ft on the command-line does not set the value of `FS` to be a single TAB character (see Field Separators).

  - The `fflush` built-in function is not supported (see I/O Functions).

  If you supply both --traditional and --posix on the command line, --posix takes precedence. gawk also issues a warning if both options are supplied.

`-W profile`[`=`file]
`--profile`[`=`file]
  Enable profiling of awk programs (see Profiling). By default, profiles are created in a file named awkprof.out. The optional file argument allows you to specify a different file name for the profile file.

  When run with gawk, the profile is just a “pretty printed” version of the program. When run with pgawk, the profile contains execution counts for each statement in the program in the left margin, and function call counts for each function.

`-W re-interval`
`--re-interval`
  Allows interval expressions (see Regexp Operators) in regexps. Because interval expressions were traditionally not available in awk, gawk does not provide them by default. This prevents old awk programs from breaking.
`-W source` program-text
`--source` program-text
  Allows you to mix source code in files with source code that you enter on the command line. Program source code is taken from the program-text. This is particularly useful when you have library functions that you want to use from your command-line programs (see AWKPATH Variable).
`-W version`
`--version`
  Prints version information for this particular copy of gawk. This allows you to determine if your copy of gawk is up to date with respect to whatever the Free Software Foundation is currently distributing. It is also useful for bug reports (see Bugs).

As long as program text has been supplied, any other options are flagged as invalid with a warning message but are otherwise ignored.

In compatibility mode, as a special case, if the value of fs supplied to the -F option is t, then `FS` is set to the TAB character (`"\t"`). This is true only for --traditional and not for --posix (see Field Separators).

The -f option may be used more than once on the command line. If it is, awk reads its program source from all of the named files, as if they had been concatenated together into one big file. This is useful for creating libraries of awk functions. These functions can be written once and then retrieved from a standard place, instead of having to be included into each individual program. (As mentioned in Definition Syntax, function names must be unique.)

Library functions can still be used, even if the program is entered at the terminal, by specifying -f /dev/tty. After typing your program, type `Ctrl-d` (the end-of-file character) to terminate it. (You may also use -f - to read program source from the standard input but then you will not be able to also use the standard input as a source of data.)

Because it is clumsy using the standard awk mechanisms to mix source file and command-line awk programs, gawk provides the --source option. This does not require you to pre-empt the standard input for your source code; it allows you to easily mix command-line and library source code (see AWKPATH Variable).

If no -f or --source option is specified, then gawk uses the first non-option command-line argument as the text of the program source code.

If the environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT exists, then gawk behaves in strict POSIX mode, exactly as if you had supplied the --posix command-line option. Many GNU programs look for this environment variable to turn on strict POSIX mode. If --lint is supplied on the command line and gawk turns on POSIX mode because of POSIXLY_CORRECT, then it issues a warning message indicating that POSIX mode is in effect. You would typically set this variable in your shell's startup file. For a Bourne-compatible shell (such as bash), you would add these lines to the .profile file in your home directory:

         POSIXLY_CORRECT=true
         export POSIXLY_CORRECT

For a csh-compatible shell,51 you would add this line to the .login file in your home directory:

         setenv POSIXLY_CORRECT true

Having POSIXLY_CORRECT set is not recommended for daily use, but it is good for testing the portability of your programs to other environments.

Next: AWKPATH Variable, Previous: Options, Up: Invoking Gawk

### 11.3 Other Command-Line Arguments

Any additional arguments on the command line are normally treated as input files to be processed in the order specified. However, an argument that has the form var`=`value, assigns the value value to the variable var—it does not specify a file at all. (This was discussed earlier in Assignment Options.)

All these arguments are made available to your awk program in the `ARGV` array (see Built-in Variables). Command-line options and the program text (if present) are omitted from `ARGV`. All other arguments, including variable assignments, are included. As each element of `ARGV` is processed, gawk sets the variable `ARGIND` to the index in `ARGV` of the current element.

The distinction between file name arguments and variable-assignment arguments is made when awk is about to open the next input file. At that point in execution, it checks the file name to see whether it is really a variable assignment; if so, awk sets the variable instead of reading a file.

Therefore, the variables actually receive the given values after all previously specified files have been read. In particular, the values of variables assigned in this fashion are not available inside a `BEGIN` rule (see BEGIN/END), because such rules are run before awk begins scanning the argument list.

The variable values given on the command line are processed for escape sequences (see Escape Sequences). (d.c.)

In some earlier implementations of awk, when a variable assignment occurred before any file names, the assignment would happen before the `BEGIN` rule was executed. awk's behavior was thus inconsistent; some command-line assignments were available inside the `BEGIN` rule, while others were not. Unfortunately, some applications came to depend upon this “feature.” When awk was changed to be more consistent, the -v option was added to accommodate applications that depended upon the old behavior.

The variable assignment feature is most useful for assigning to variables such as `RS`, `OFS`, and `ORS`, which control input and output formats before scanning the data files. It is also useful for controlling state if multiple passes are needed over a data file. For example:

         awk 'pass == 1  { pass 1 stuff }
              pass == 2  { pass 2 stuff }' pass=1 mydata pass=2 mydata

Given the variable assignment feature, the -F option for setting the value of `FS` is not strictly necessary. It remains for historical compatibility.

Next: Obsolete, Previous: Other Arguments, Up: Invoking Gawk

### 11.4 The AWKPATH Environment Variable

In most awk implementations, you must supply a precise path name for each program file, unless the file is in the current directory. But in gawk, if the file name supplied to the -f option does not contain a /, then gawk searches a list of directories (called the search path), one by one, looking for a file with the specified name.

The search path is a string consisting of directory names separated by colons. gawk gets its search path from the AWKPATH environment variable. If that variable does not exist, gawk uses a default path, .:/usr/local/share/awk.52 (Programs written for use by system administrators should use an AWKPATH variable that does not include the current directory, ..)

The search path feature is particularly useful for building libraries of useful awk functions. The library files can be placed in a standard directory in the default path and then specified on the command line with a short file name. Otherwise, the full file name would have to be typed for each file.

By using both the --source and -f options, your command-line awk programs can use facilities in awk library files (see Library Functions). Path searching is not done if gawk is in compatibility mode. This is true for both --traditional and --posix. See Options.

> NOTE: If you want files in the current directory to be found, you must include the current directory in the path, either by including . explicitly in the path or by writing a null entry in the path. (A null entry is indicated by starting or ending the path with a colon or by placing two colons next to each other (::).) If the current directory is not included in the path, then files cannot be found in the current directory. This path search mechanism is identical to the shell's.

Starting with version 3.0, if AWKPATH is not defined in the environment, gawk places its default search path into `ENVIRON["AWKPATH"]`. This makes it easy to determine the actual search path that gawk will use from within an awk program.

While you can change `ENVIRON["AWKPATH"]` within your awk program, this has no effect on the running program's behavior. This makes sense: the AWKPATH environment variable is used to find the program source files. Once your program is running, all the files have been found, and gawk no longer needs to use AWKPATH.

Next: Undocumented, Previous: AWKPATH Variable, Up: Invoking Gawk

### 11.5 Obsolete Options and/or Features

This section describes features and/or command-line options from previous releases of gawk that are either not available in the current version or that are still supported but deprecated (meaning that they will not be in the next release).

For version 3.1 of gawk, there are no deprecated command-line options from the previous version of gawk. The use of next file (two words) for `nextfile` was deprecated in gawk 3.0 but still worked. Starting with version 3.1, the two-word usage is no longer accepted.

The process-related special files described in Special Process, work as described, but are now considered deprecated. gawk prints a warning message every time they are used. (Use `PROCINFO` instead; see Auto-set.) They will be removed from the next release of gawk.

Next: Known Bugs, Previous: Obsolete, Up: Invoking Gawk

### 11.6 Undocumented Options and Features

> Use the Source, Luke!
> Obi-Wan

This section intentionally left blank.

Previous: Undocumented, Up: Invoking Gawk

### 11.7 Known Bugs in gawk

- The -F option for changing the value of `FS` (see Options) is not necessary given the command-line variable assignment feature; it remains only for backward compatibility.
- Syntactically invalid single-character programs tend to overflow the parse stack, generating a rather unhelpful message. Such programs are surprisingly difficult to diagnose in the completely general case, and the effort to do so really is not worth it.

Next: Sample Programs, Previous: Invoking Gawk, Up: Top

## 12 A Library of awk Functions

User-defined, describes how to write your own awk functions. Writing functions is important, because it allows you to encapsulate algorithms and program tasks in a single place. It simplifies programming, making program development more manageable, and making programs more readable.

One valuable way to learn a new programming language is to read programs in that language. To that end, this chapter and Sample Programs, provide a good-sized body of code for you to read, and hopefully, to learn from.

This chapter presents a library of useful awk functions. Many of the sample programs presented later in this Web page use these functions. The functions are presented here in a progression from simple to complex.

Extract Program, presents a program that you can use to extract the source code for these example library functions and programs from the Texinfo source for this Web page. (This has already been done as part of the gawk distribution.)

If you have written one or more useful, general-purpose awk functions and would like to contribute them to the author's collection of awk programs, see How To Contribute, for more information.

The programs in this chapter and in Sample Programs, freely use features that are gawk-specific. Rewriting these programs for different implementations of awk is pretty straightforward.

Diagnostic error messages are sent to /dev/stderr. Use | "cat 1>&2" instead of > "/dev/stderr" if your system does not have a /dev/stderr, or if you cannot use gawk.

A number of programs use `nextfile` (see Nextfile Statement) to skip any remaining input in the input file. Nextfile Function, shows you how to write a function that does the same thing.

Finally, some of the programs choose to ignore upper- and lowercase distinctions in their input. They do so by assigning one to `IGNORECASE`. You can achieve almost the same effect53 by adding the following rule to the beginning of the program:

         # ignore case
         { $0 = tolower($0) }

Also, verify that all regexp and string constants used in comparisons use only lowercase letters.

Next: General Functions, Up: Library Functions

### 12.1 Naming Library Function Global Variables

Due to the way the awk language evolved, variables are either global (usable by the entire program) or local (usable just by a specific function). There is no intermediate state analogous to `static` variables in C.

Library functions often need to have global variables that they can use to preserve state information between calls to the function—for example, `getopt`'s variable `_opti` (see Getopt Function). Such variables are called private, since the only functions that need to use them are the ones in the library.

When writing a library function, you should try to choose names for your private variables that will not conflict with any variables used by either another library function or a user's main program. For example, a name like i or j is not a good choice, because user programs often use variable names like these for their own purposes.

The example programs shown in this chapter all start the names of their private variables with an underscore (_). Users generally don't use leading underscores in their variable names, so this convention immediately decreases the chances that the variable name will be accidentally shared with the user's program.

In addition, several of the library functions use a prefix that helps indicate what function or set of functions use the variables—for example, `_pw_byname` in the user database routines (see Passwd Functions). This convention is recommended, since it even further decreases the chance of inadvertent conflict among variable names. Note that this convention is used equally well for variable names and for private function names as well.54

As a final note on variable naming, if a function makes global variables available for use by a main program, it is a good convention to start that variable's name with a capital letter—for example, `getopt`'s `Opterr` and `Optind` variables (see Getopt Function). The leading capital letter indicates that it is global, while the fact that the variable name is not all capital letters indicates that the variable is not one of awk's built-in variables, such as `FS`.

It is also important that all variables in library functions that do not need to save state are, in fact, declared local.55 If this is not done, the variable could accidentally be used in the user's program, leading to bugs that are very difficult to track down:

         function lib_func(x, y,    l1, l2)
         {
             ...
             use variable some_var   # some_var should be local
             ...                   # but is not by oversight
         }

A different convention, common in the Tcl community, is to use a single associative array to hold the values needed by the library function(s), or “package.” This significantly decreases the number of actual global names in use. For example, the functions described in Passwd Functions, might have used array elements `PW_data["inited"]`, `PW_data["total"]`, `PW_data["count"]`, and `PW_data["awklib"]`, instead of `_pw_inited`, `_pw_awklib`, `_pw_total`, and `_pw_count`.

The conventions presented in this section are exactly that: conventions. You are not required to write your programs this way—we merely recommend that you do so.

Next: Data File Management, Previous: Library Names, Up: Library Functions

### 12.2 General Programming

This section presents a number of functions that are of general programming use.

Next: Strtonum Function, Up: General Functions

#### 12.2.1 Implementing `nextfile` as a Function

The `nextfile` statement, presented in Nextfile Statement, is a gawk-specific extension—it is not available in most other implementations of awk. This section shows two versions of a `nextfile` function that you can use to simulate gawk's `nextfile` statement if you cannot use gawk.

A first attempt at writing a `nextfile` function is as follows:

         # nextfile --- skip remaining records in current file
         # this should be read in before the "main" awk program

         function nextfile()    { _abandon_ = FILENAME; next }
         _abandon_ == FILENAME  { next }

Because it supplies a rule that must be executed first, this file should be included before the main program. This rule compares the current data file's name (which is always in the `FILENAME` variable) to a private variable named `_abandon_`. If the file name matches, then the action part of the rule executes a `next` statement to go on to the next record. (The use of _ in the variable name is a convention. It is discussed more fully in Library Names.)

The use of the `next` statement effectively creates a loop that reads all the records from the current data file. The end of the file is eventually reached and a new data file is opened, changing the value of `FILENAME`. Once this happens, the comparison of `_abandon_` to `FILENAME` fails, and execution continues with the first rule of the “real” program.

The `nextfile` function itself simply sets the value of `_abandon_` and then executes a `next` statement to start the loop.

This initial version has a subtle problem. If the same data file is listed twice on the commandline, one right after the other or even with just a variable assignment between them, this code skips right through the file a second time, even though it should stop when it gets to the end of the first occurrence. A second version of `nextfile` that remedies this problem is shown here:

         # nextfile --- skip remaining records in current file
         # correctly handle successive occurrences of the same file

         # this should be read in before the "main" awk program

         function nextfile()   { _abandon_ = FILENAME; next }

         _abandon_ == FILENAME {
               if (FNR == 1)
                   _abandon_ = ""
               else
                   next
         }

The `nextfile` function has not changed. It makes `_abandon_` equal to the current file name and then executes a `next` statement. The `next` statement reads the next record and increments `FNR` so that `FNR` is guaranteed to have a value of at least two. However, if `nextfile` is called for the last record in the file, then awk closes the current data file and moves on to the next one. Upon doing so, `FILENAME` is set to the name of the new file and `FNR` is reset to one. If this next file is the same as the previous one, `_abandon_` is still equal to `FILENAME`. However, `FNR` is equal to one, telling us that this is a new occurrence of the file and not the one we were reading when the `nextfile` function was executed. In that case, `_abandon_` is reset to the empty string, so that further executions of this rule fail (until the next time that `nextfile` is called).

If `FNR` is not one, then we are still in the original data file and the program executes a `next` statement to skip through it.

An important question to ask at this point is: given that the functionality of `nextfile` can be provided with a library file, why is it built into gawk? Adding features for little reason leads to larger, slower programs that are harder to maintain. The answer is that building `nextfile` into gawk provides significant gains in efficiency. If the `nextfile` function is executed at the beginning of a large data file, awk still has to scan the entire file, splitting it up into records, just to skip over it. The built-in `nextfile` can simply close the file immediately and proceed to the next one, which saves a lot of time. This is particularly important in awk, because awk programs are generally I/O-bound (i.e., they spend most of their time doing input and output, instead of performing computations).

Next: Assert Function, Previous: Nextfile Function, Up: General Functions

#### 12.2.2 Converting Strings To Numbers

The `strtonum` function (see String Functions) is a gawk extension. The following function provides an implementation for other versions of awk:

         # strtonum --- convert string to number

         function mystrtonum(str,        ret, chars, n, i, k, c)
         {
             if (str ~ /^0[0-7]*$/) {
                 # octal
                 n = length(str)
                 ret = 0
                 for (i = 1; i <= n; i++) {
                     c = substr(str, i, 1)
                     if ((k = index("01234567", c)) > 0)
                         k-- # adjust for 1-basing in awk

                     ret = ret * 8 + k
                 }
             } else if (str ~ /^0[xX][0-9a-fA-f]+/) {
                 # hexadecimal
                 str = substr(str, 3)    # lop off leading 0x
                 n = length(str)
                 ret = 0
                 for (i = 1; i <= n; i++) {
                     c = substr(str, i, 1)
                     c = tolower(c)
                     if ((k = index("0123456789", c)) > 0)
                         k-- # adjust for 1-basing in awk
                     else if ((k = index("abcdef", c)) > 0)
                         k += 9

                     ret = ret * 16 + k
                 }
             } else if (str ~ /^[-+]?([0-9]+([.][0-9]*([Ee][0-9]+)?)?|([.][0-9]+([Ee][-+]?[0-9]+)?))$/) {
                 # decimal number, possibly floating point
                 ret = str + 0
             } else
                 ret = "NOT-A-NUMBER"

             return ret
         }

         # BEGIN {     # gawk test harness
         #     a[1] = "25"
         #     a[2] = ".31"
         #     a[3] = "0123"
         #     a[4] = "0xdeadBEEF"
         #     a[5] = "123.45"
         #     a[6] = "1.e3"
         #     a[7] = "1.32"
         #     a[7] = "1.32E2"
         #
         #     for (i = 1; i in a; i++)
         #         print a[i], strtonum(a[i]), mystrtonum(a[i])
         # }

The function first looks for C-style octal numbers (base 8). If the input string matches a regular expression describing octal numbers, then `mystrtonum` loops through each character in the string. It sets `k` to the index in `"01234567"` of the current octal digit. Since the return value is one-based, the k-- adjusts `k` so it can be used in computing the return value.

Similar logic applies to the code that checks for and converts a hexadecimal value, which starts with 0x or 0X. The use of `tolower` simplifies the computation for finding the correct numeric value for each hexadecimal digit.

Finally, if the string matches the (rather complicated) regex for a regular decimal integer or floating-point numer, the computation ret = str + 0 lets awk convert the value to a number.

A commented-out test program is included, so that the function can be tested with gawk and the results compared to the built-in `strtonum` function.

Next: Round Function, Previous: Strtonum Function, Up: General Functions

#### 12.2.3 Assertions

When writing large programs, it is often useful to know that a condition or set of conditions is true. Before proceeding with a particular computation, you make a statement about what you believe to be the case. Such a statement is known as an assertion. The C language provides an `<assert.h>` header file and corresponding `assert` macro that the programmer can use to make assertions. If an assertion fails, the `assert` macro arranges to print a diagnostic message describing the condition that should have been true but was not, and then it kills the program. In C, using `assert` looks this:

         #include <assert.h>

         int myfunc(int a, double b)
         {
              assert(a <= 5 && b >= 17.1);
              ...
         }

If the assertion fails, the program prints a message similar to this:

         prog.c:5: assertion failed: a <= 5 && b >= 17.1

The C language makes it possible to turn the condition into a string for use in printing the diagnostic message. This is not possible in awk, so this `assert` function also requires a string version of the condition that is being tested. Following is the function:

         # assert --- assert that a condition is true. Otherwise exit.

         function assert(condition, string)
         {
             if (! condition) {
                 printf("%s:%d: assertion failed: %s\n",
                     FILENAME, FNR, string) > "/dev/stderr"
                 _assert_exit = 1
                 exit 1
             }
         }

         END {
             if (_assert_exit)
                 exit 1
         }

The `assert` function tests the `condition` parameter. If it is false, it prints a message to standard error, using the `string` parameter to describe the failed condition. It then sets the variable `_assert_exit` to one and executes the `exit` statement. The `exit` statement jumps to the `END` rule. If the `END` rules finds `_assert_exit` to be true, it exits immediately.

The purpose of the test in the `END` rule is to keep any other `END` rules from running. When an assertion fails, the program should exit immediately. If no assertions fail, then `_assert_exit` is still false when the `END` rule is run normally, and the rest of the program's `END` rules execute. For all of this to work correctly, assert.awk must be the first source file read by awk. The function can be used in a program in the following way:

         function myfunc(a, b)
         {
              assert(a <= 5 && b >= 17.1, "a <= 5 && b >= 17.1")
              ...
         }

If the assertion fails, you see a message similar to the following:

         mydata:1357: assertion failed: a <= 5 && b >= 17.1

There is a small problem with this version of `assert`. An `END` rule is automatically added to the program calling `assert`. Normally, if a program consists of just a `BEGIN` rule, the input files and/or standard input are not read. However, now that the program has an `END` rule, awk attempts to read the input data files or standard input (see Using BEGIN/END), most likely causing the program to hang as it waits for input.

There is a simple workaround to this: make sure the `BEGIN` rule always ends with an `exit` statement.

Next: Cliff Random Function, Previous: Assert Function, Up: General Functions

#### 12.2.4 Rounding Numbers

The way `printf` and `sprintf` (see Printf) perform rounding often depends upon the system's C `sprintf` subroutine. On many machines, `sprintf` rounding is “unbiased,” which means it doesn't always round a trailing .5 up, contrary to naive expectations. In unbiased rounding, .5 rounds to even, rather than always up, so 1.5 rounds to 2 but 4.5 rounds to 4. This means that if you are using a format that does rounding (e.g., `"%.0f"`), you should check what your system does. The following function does traditional rounding; it might be useful if your awk's `printf` does unbiased rounding:

         # round.awk --- do normal rounding

         function round(x,   ival, aval, fraction)
         {
            ival = int(x)    # integer part, int() truncates

            # see if fractional part
            if (ival == x)   # no fraction
               return x

            if (x < 0) {
               aval = -x     # absolute value
               ival = int(aval)
               fraction = aval - ival
               if (fraction >= .5)
                  return int(x) - 1   # -2.5 --> -3
               else
                  return int(x)       # -2.3 --> -2
            } else {
               fraction = x - ival
               if (fraction >= .5)
                  return ival + 1
               else
                  return ival
            }
         }

         # test harness
         { print $0, round($0) }

Next: Ordinal Functions, Previous: Round Function, Up: General Functions

#### 12.2.5 The Cliff Random Number Generator

The Cliff random number generator56 is a very simple random number generator that “passes the noise sphere test for randomness by showing no structure.” It is easily programmed, in less than 10 lines of awk code:

         # cliff_rand.awk --- generate Cliff random numbers

         BEGIN { _cliff_seed = 0.1 }

         function cliff_rand()
         {
             _cliff_seed = (100 * log(_cliff_seed)) % 1
             if (_cliff_seed < 0)
                 _cliff_seed = - _cliff_seed
             return _cliff_seed
         }

This algorithm requires an initial “seed” of 0.1. Each new value uses the current seed as input for the calculation. If the built-in `rand` function (see Numeric Functions) isn't random enough, you might try using this function instead.

Next: Join Function, Previous: Cliff Random Function, Up: General Functions

#### 12.2.6 Translating Between Characters and Numbers

One commercial implementation of awk supplies a built-in function, `ord`, which takes a character and returns the numeric value for that character in the machine's character set. If the string passed to `ord` has more than one character, only the first one is used.

The inverse of this function is `chr` (from the function of the same name in Pascal), which takes a number and returns the corresponding character. Both functions are written very nicely in awk; there is no real reason to build them into the awk interpreter:

         # ord.awk --- do ord and chr

         # Global identifiers:
         #    _ord_:        numerical values indexed by characters
         #    _ord_init:    function to initialize _ord_

         BEGIN    { _ord_init() }

         function _ord_init(    low, high, i, t)
         {
             low = sprintf("%c", 7) # BEL is ascii 7
             if (low == "\a") {    # regular ascii
                 low = 0
                 high = 127
             } else if (sprintf("%c", 128 + 7) == "\a") {
                 # ascii, mark parity
                 low = 128
                 high = 255
             } else {        # ebcdic(!)
                 low = 0
                 high = 255
             }

             for (i = low; i <= high; i++) {
                 t = sprintf("%c", i)
                 _ord_[t] = i
             }
         }

Some explanation of the numbers used by `chr` is worthwhile. The most prominent character set in use today is ASCII. Although an 8-bit byte can hold 256 distinct values (from 0 to 255), ASCII only defines characters that use the values from 0 to 127.57 In the now distant past, at least one minicomputer manufacturer used ASCII, but with mark parity, meaning that the leftmost bit in the byte is always 1. This means that on those systems, characters have numeric values from 128 to 255. Finally, large mainframe systems use the EBCDIC character set, which uses all 256 values. While there are other character sets in use on some older systems, they are not really worth worrying about:

         function ord(str,    c)
         {
             # only first character is of interest
             c = substr(str, 1, 1)
             return _ord_[c]
         }

         function chr(c)
         {
             # force c to be numeric by adding 0
             return sprintf("%c", c + 0)
         }

         #### test code ####
         # BEGIN    \
         # {
         #    for (;;) {
         #        printf("enter a character: ")
         #        if (getline var <= 0)
         #            break
         #        printf("ord(%s) = %d\n", var, ord(var))
         #    }
         # }

An obvious improvement to these functions is to move the code for the `_ord_init` function into the body of the `BEGIN` rule. It was written this way initially for ease of development. There is a “test program” in a `BEGIN` rule, to test the function. It is commented out for production use.

Next: Gettimeofday Function, Previous: Ordinal Functions, Up: General Functions

#### 12.2.7 Merging an Array into a String

When doing string processing, it is often useful to be able to join all the strings in an array into one long string. The following function, `join`, accomplishes this task. It is used later in several of the application programs (see Sample Programs).

Good function design is important; this function needs to be general but it should also have a reasonable default behavior. It is called with an array as well as the beginning and ending indices of the elements in the array to be merged. This assumes that the array indices are numeric—a reasonable assumption since the array was likely created with `split` (see String Functions):

         # join.awk --- join an array into a string

         function join(array, start, end, sep,    result, i)
         {
             if (sep == "")
                sep = " "
             else if (sep == SUBSEP) # magic value
                sep = ""
             result = array[start]
             for (i = start + 1; i <= end; i++)
                 result = result sep array[i]
             return result
         }

An optional additional argument is the separator to use when joining the strings back together. If the caller supplies a nonempty value, `join` uses it; if it is not supplied, it has a null value. In this case, `join` uses a single blank as a default separator for the strings. If the value is equal to `SUBSEP`, then `join` joins the strings with no separator between them. `SUBSEP` serves as a “magic” value to indicate that there should be no separation between the component strings.58

Previous: Join Function, Up: General Functions

#### 12.2.8 Managing the Time of Day

The `systime` and `strftime` functions described in Time Functions, provide the minimum functionality necessary for dealing with the time of day in human readable form. While `strftime` is extensive, the control formats are not necessarily easy to remember or intuitively obvious when reading a program.

The following function, `gettimeofday`, populates a user-supplied array with preformatted time information. It returns a string with the current time formatted in the same way as the date utility:

         # gettimeofday.awk --- get the time of day in a usable format

         # Returns a string in the format of output of date(1)
         # Populates the array argument time with individual values:
         #    time["second"]       -- seconds (0 - 59)
         #    time["minute"]       -- minutes (0 - 59)
         #    time["hour"]         -- hours (0 - 23)
         #    time["althour"]      -- hours (0 - 12)
         #    time["monthday"]     -- day of month (1 - 31)
         #    time["month"]        -- month of year (1 - 12)
         #    time["monthname"]    -- name of the month
         #    time["shortmonth"]   -- short name of the month
         #    time["year"]         -- year modulo 100 (0 - 99)
         #    time["fullyear"]     -- full year
         #    time["weekday"]      -- day of week (Sunday = 0)
         #    time["altweekday"]   -- day of week (Monday = 0)
         #    time["dayname"]      -- name of weekday
         #    time["shortdayname"] -- short name of weekday
         #    time["yearday"]      -- day of year (0 - 365)
         #    time["timezone"]     -- abbreviation of timezone name
         #    time["ampm"]         -- AM or PM designation
         #    time["weeknum"]      -- week number, Sunday first day
         #    time["altweeknum"]   -- week number, Monday first day

         function gettimeofday(time,    ret, now, i)
         {
             # get time once, avoids unnecessary system calls
             now = systime()

             # return date(1)-style output
             ret = strftime("%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Z %Y", now)

             # clear out target array
             delete time

             # fill in values, force numeric values to be
             # numeric by adding 0
             time["second"]       = strftime("%S", now) + 0
             time["minute"]       = strftime("%M", now) + 0
             time["hour"]         = strftime("%H", now) + 0
             time["althour"]      = strftime("%I", now) + 0
             time["monthday"]     = strftime("%d", now) + 0
             time["month"]        = strftime("%m", now) + 0
             time["monthname"]    = strftime("%B", now)
             time["shortmonth"]   = strftime("%b", now)
             time["year"]         = strftime("%y", now) + 0
             time["fullyear"]     = strftime("%Y", now) + 0
             time["weekday"]      = strftime("%w", now) + 0
             time["altweekday"]   = strftime("%u", now) + 0
             time["dayname"]      = strftime("%A", now)
             time["shortdayname"] = strftime("%a", now)
             time["yearday"]      = strftime("%j", now) + 0
             time["timezone"]     = strftime("%Z", now)
             time["ampm"]         = strftime("%p", now)
             time["weeknum"]      = strftime("%U", now) + 0
             time["altweeknum"]   = strftime("%W", now) + 0

             return ret
         }

The string indices are easier to use and read than the various formats required by `strftime`. The `alarm` program presented in Alarm Program, uses this function. A more general design for the `gettimeofday` function would have allowed the user to supply an optional timestamp value to use instead of the current time.

Next: Getopt Function, Previous: General Functions, Up: Library Functions

### 12.3 Data File Management

This section presents functions that are useful for managing command-line data files.

Next: Rewind Function, Up: Data File Management

#### 12.3.1 Noting Data File Boundaries

The `BEGIN` and `END` rules are each executed exactly once at the beginning and end of your awk program, respectively (see BEGIN/END). We (the gawk authors) once had a user who mistakenly thought that the `BEGIN` rule is executed at the beginning of each data file and the `END` rule is executed at the end of each data file. When informed that this was not the case, the user requested that we add new special patterns to gawk, named `BEGIN_FILE` and `END_FILE`, that would have the desired behavior. He even supplied us the code to do so.

Adding these special patterns to gawk wasn't necessary; the job can be done cleanly in awk itself, as illustrated by the following library program. It arranges to call two user-supplied functions, `beginfile` and `endfile`, at the beginning and end of each data file. Besides solving the problem in only nine(!) lines of code, it does so portably; this works with any implementation of awk:

         # transfile.awk
         #
         # Give the user a hook for filename transitions
         #
         # The user must supply functions beginfile() and endfile()
         # that each take the name of the file being started or
         # finished, respectively.

         FILENAME != _oldfilename \
         {
             if (_oldfilename != "")
                 endfile(_oldfilename)
             _oldfilename = FILENAME
             beginfile(FILENAME)
         }

         END   { endfile(FILENAME) }

This file must be loaded before the user's “main” program, so that the rule it supplies is executed first.

This rule relies on awk's `FILENAME` variable that automatically changes for each new data file. The current file name is saved in a private variable, `_oldfilename`. If `FILENAME` does not equal `_oldfilename`, then a new data file is being processed and it is necessary to call `endfile` for the old file. Because `endfile` should only be called if a file has been processed, the program first checks to make sure that `_oldfilename` is not the null string. The program then assigns the current file name to `_oldfilename` and calls `beginfile` for the file. Because, like all awk variables, `_oldfilename` is initialized to the null string, this rule executes correctly even for the first data file.

The program also supplies an `END` rule to do the final processing for the last file. Because this `END` rule comes before any `END` rules supplied in the “main” program, `endfile` is called first. Once again the value of multiple `BEGIN` and `END` rules should be clear.

This version has same problem as the first version of `nextfile` (see Nextfile Function). If the same data file occurs twice in a row on the command line, then `endfile` and `beginfile` are not executed at the end of the first pass and at the beginning of the second pass. The following version solves the problem:

         # ftrans.awk --- handle data file transitions
         #
         # user supplies beginfile() and endfile() functions

         FNR == 1 {
             if (_filename_ != "")
                 endfile(_filename_)
             _filename_ = FILENAME
             beginfile(FILENAME)
         }

         END  { endfile(_filename_) }

Wc Program, shows how this library function can be used and how it simplifies writing the main program.

Next: File Checking, Previous: Filetrans Function, Up: Data File Management

#### 12.3.2 Rereading the Current File

Another request for a new built-in function was for a `rewind` function that would make it possible to reread the current file. The requesting user didn't want to have to use `getline` (see Getline) inside a loop.

However, as long as you are not in the `END` rule, it is quite easy to arrange to immediately close the current input file and then start over with it from the top. For lack of a better name, we'll call it `rewind`:

         # rewind.awk --- rewind the current file and start over

         function rewind(    i)
         {
             # shift remaining arguments up
             for (i = ARGC; i > ARGIND; i--)
                 ARGV[i] = ARGV[i-1]

             # make sure gawk knows to keep going
             ARGC++

             # make current file next to get done
             ARGV[ARGIND+1] = FILENAME

             # do it
             nextfile
         }

This code relies on the `ARGIND` variable (see Auto-set), which is specific to gawk. If you are not using gawk, you can use ideas presented in the previous section to either update `ARGIND` on your own or modify this code as appropriate.

The `rewind` function also relies on the `nextfile` keyword (see Nextfile Statement). See Nextfile Function, for a function version of `nextfile`.

Next: Empty Files, Previous: Rewind Function, Up: Data File Management

#### 12.3.3 Checking for Readable Data Files

Normally, if you give awk a data file that isn't readable, it stops with a fatal error. There are times when you might want to just ignore such files and keep going. You can do this by prepending the following program to your awk program:

         # readable.awk --- library file to skip over unreadable files

         BEGIN {
             for (i = 1; i < ARGC; i++) {
                 if (ARGV[i] ~ /^[A-Za-z_][A-Za-z0-9_]*=.*/ \
                     || ARGV[i] == "-")
                     continue    # assignment or standard input
                 else if ((getline junk < ARGV[i]) < 0) # unreadable
                     delete ARGV[i]
                 else
                     close(ARGV[i])
             }
         }

In gawk, the `getline` won't be fatal (unless --posix is in force). Removing the element from `ARGV` with `delete` skips the file (since it's no longer in the list).

Next: Ignoring Assigns, Previous: File Checking, Up: Data File Management

#### 12.3.4 Checking For Zero-length Files

All known awk implementations silently skip over zero-length files. This is a by-product of awk's implicit read-a-record-and-match-against-the-rules loop: when awk tries to read a record from an empty file, it immediately receives an end of file indication, closes the file, and proceeds on to the next command-line data file, without executing any user-level awk program code.

Using gawk's `ARGIND` variable (see Built-in Variables), it is possible to detect when an empty data file has been skipped. Similar to the library file presented in Filetrans Function, the following library file calls a function named `zerofile` that the user must provide. The arguments passed are the file name and the position in `ARGV` where it was found:

         # zerofile.awk --- library file to process empty input files

         BEGIN { Argind = 0 }

         ARGIND > Argind + 1 {
             for (Argind++; Argind < ARGIND; Argind++)
                 zerofile(ARGV[Argind], Argind)
         }

         ARGIND != Argind { Argind = ARGIND }

         END {
             if (ARGIND > Argind)
                 for (Argind++; Argind <= ARGIND; Argind++)
                     zerofile(ARGV[Argind], Argind)
         }

The user-level variable `Argind` allows the awk program to track its progress through `ARGV`. Whenever the program detects that `ARGIND` is greater than Argind + 1, it means that one or more empty files were skipped. The action then calls `zerofile` for each such file, incrementing `Argind` along the way.

The Argind != ARGIND rule simply keeps `Argind` up to date in the normal case.

Finally, the `END` rule catches the case of any empty files at the end of the command-line arguments. Note that the test in the condition of the `for` loop uses the <= operator, not `<`.

As an exercise, you might consider whether this same problem can be solved without relying on gawk's `ARGIND` variable.

As a second exercise, revise this code to handle the case where an intervening value in `ARGV` is a variable assignment.

Previous: Empty Files, Up: Data File Management

#### 12.3.5 Treating Assignments as File Names

Occasionally, you might not want awk to process command-line variable assignments (see Assignment Options). In particular, if you have file names that contain an = character, awk treats the file name as an assignment, and does not process it.

Some users have suggested an additional command-line option for gawk to disable command-line assignments. However, some simple programming with a library file does the trick:

         # noassign.awk --- library file to avoid the need for a
         # special option that disables command-line assignments

         function disable_assigns(argc, argv,    i)
         {
             for (i = 1; i < argc; i++)
                 if (argv[i] ~ /^[A-Za-z_][A-Za-z_0-9]*=.*/)
                     argv[i] = ("./" argv[i])
         }

         BEGIN {
             if (No_command_assign)
                 disable_assigns(ARGC, ARGV)
         }

You then run your program this way:

         awk -v No_command_assign=1 -f noassign.awk -f yourprog.awk *

The function works by looping through the arguments. It prepends ./ to any argument that matches the form of a variable assignment, turning that argument into a file name.

The use of `No_command_assign` allows you to disable command-line assignments at invocation time, by giving the variable a true value. When not set, it is initially zero (i.e., false), so the command-line arguments are left alone.

Next: Passwd Functions, Previous: Data File Management, Up: Library Functions

### 12.4 Processing Command-Line Options

Most utilities on POSIX compatible systems take options, or “switches,” on the command line that can be used to change the way a program behaves. awk is an example of such a program (see Options). Often, options take arguments; i.e., data that the program needs to correctly obey the command-line option. For example, awk's -F option requires a string to use as the field separator. The first occurrence on the command line of either -- or a string that does not begin with - ends the options.

Modern Unix systems provide a C function named `getopt` for processing command-line arguments. The programmer provides a string describing the one-letter options. If an option requires an argument, it is followed in the string with a colon. `getopt` is also passed the count and values of the command-line arguments and is called in a loop. `getopt` processes the command-line arguments for option letters. Each time around the loop, it returns a single character representing the next option letter that it finds, or ? if it finds an invalid option. When it returns −1, there are no options left on the command line.

When using `getopt`, options that do not take arguments can be grouped together. Furthermore, options that take arguments require that the argument is present. The argument can immediately follow the option letter, or it can be a separate command-line argument.

Given a hypothetical program that takes three command-line options, -a, -b, and -c, where -b requires an argument, all of the following are valid ways of invoking the program:

         prog -a -b foo -c data1 data2 data3
         prog -ac -bfoo -- data1 data2 data3
         prog -acbfoo data1 data2 data3

Notice that when the argument is grouped with its option, the rest of the argument is considered to be the option's argument. In this example, -acbfoo indicates that all of the -a, -b, and -c options were supplied, and that foo is the argument to the -b option.

`getopt` provides four external variables that the programmer can use:

`optind`
  The index in the argument value array (`argv`) where the first nonoption command-line argument can be found.
`optarg`
  The string value of the argument to an option.
`opterr`
  Usually `getopt` prints an error message when it finds an invalid option. Setting `opterr` to zero disables this feature. (An application might want to print its own error message.)
`optopt`
  The letter representing the command-line option.

The following C fragment shows how `getopt` might process command-line arguments for awk:

         int
         main(int argc, char *argv[])
         {
             ...
             /* print our own message */
             opterr = 0;
             while ((c = getopt(argc, argv, "v:f:F:W:")) != -1) {
                 switch (c) {
                 case 'f':    /* file */
                     ...
                     break;
                 case 'F':    /* field separator */
                     ...
                     break;
                 case 'v':    /* variable assignment */
                     ...
                     break;
                 case 'W':    /* extension */
                     ...
                     break;
                 case '?':
                 default:
                     usage();
                     break;
                 }
             }
             ...
         }

As a side point, gawk actually uses the GNU `getopt_long` function to process both normal and GNU-style long options (see Options).

The abstraction provided by `getopt` is very useful and is quite handy in awk programs as well. Following is an awk version of `getopt`. This function highlights one of the greatest weaknesses in awk, which is that it is very poor at manipulating single characters. Repeated calls to `substr` are necessary for accessing individual characters (see String Functions).59

The discussion that follows walks through the code a bit at a time:

         # getopt.awk --- do C library getopt(3) function in awk

         # External variables:
         #    Optind -- index in ARGV of first nonoption argument
         #    Optarg -- string value of argument to current option
         #    Opterr -- if nonzero, print our own diagnostic
         #    Optopt -- current option letter

         # Returns:
         #    -1     at end of options
         #    ?      for unrecognized option
         #    <c>    a character representing the current option

         # Private Data:
         #    _opti  -- index in multi-flag option, e.g., -abc

The function starts out with a list of the global variables it uses, what the return values are, what they mean, and any global variables that are “private” to this library function. Such documentation is essential for any program, and particularly for library functions.

The `getopt` function first checks that it was indeed called with a string of options (the `options` parameter). If `options` has a zero length, `getopt` immediately returns −1:

         function getopt(argc, argv, options,    thisopt, i)
         {
             if (length(options) == 0)    # no options given
                 return -1

             if (argv[Optind] == "--") {  # all done
                 Optind++
                 _opti = 0
                 return -1
             } else if (argv[Optind] !~ /^-[^: \t\n\f\r\v\b]/) {
                 _opti = 0
                 return -1
             }

The next thing to check for is the end of the options. A -- ends the command-line options, as does any command-line argument that does not begin with a -. `Optind` is used to step through the array of command-line arguments; it retains its value across calls to `getopt`, because it is a global variable.

The regular expression that is used, `/^-[^: \t\n\f\r\v\b]/`, is perhaps a bit of overkill; it checks for a - followed by anything that is not whitespace and not a colon. If the current command-line argument does not match this pattern, it is not an option, and it ends option processing:

             if (_opti == 0)
                 _opti = 2
             thisopt = substr(argv[Optind], _opti, 1)
             Optopt = thisopt
             i = index(options, thisopt)
             if (i == 0) {
                 if (Opterr)
                     printf("%c -- invalid option\n",
                                           thisopt) > "/dev/stderr"
                 if (_opti >= length(argv[Optind])) {
                     Optind++
                     _opti = 0
                 } else
                     _opti++
                 return "?"
             }

The `_opti` variable tracks the position in the current command-line argument (`argv[Optind]`). If multiple options are grouped together with one - (e.g., -abx), it is necessary to return them to the user one at a time.

If `_opti` is equal to zero, it is set to two, which is the index in the string of the next character to look at (we skip the -, which is at position one). The variable `thisopt` holds the character, obtained with `substr`. It is saved in `Optopt` for the main program to use.

If `thisopt` is not in the `options` string, then it is an invalid option. If `Opterr` is nonzero, `getopt` prints an error message on the standard error that is similar to the message from the C version of `getopt`.

Because the option is invalid, it is necessary to skip it and move on to the next option character. If `_opti` is greater than or equal to the length of the current command-line argument, it is necessary to move on to the next argument, so `Optind` is incremented and `_opti` is reset to zero. Otherwise, `Optind` is left alone and `_opti` is merely incremented.

In any case, because the option is invalid, `getopt` returns ?. The main program can examine `Optopt` if it needs to know what the invalid option letter actually is. Continuing on:

             if (substr(options, i + 1, 1) == ":") {
                 # get option argument
                 if (length(substr(argv[Optind], _opti + 1)) > 0)
                     Optarg = substr(argv[Optind], _opti + 1)
                 else
                     Optarg = argv[++Optind]
                 _opti = 0
             } else
                 Optarg = ""

If the option requires an argument, the option letter is followed by a colon in the `options` string. If there are remaining characters in the current command-line argument (`argv[Optind]`), then the rest of that string is assigned to `Optarg`. Otherwise, the next command-line argument is used (-xFOO versus -x FOO). In either case, `_opti` is reset to zero, because there are no more characters left to examine in the current command-line argument. Continuing:

             if (_opti == 0 || _opti >= length(argv[Optind])) {
                 Optind++
                 _opti = 0
             } else
                 _opti++
             return thisopt
         }

Finally, if `_opti` is either zero or greater than the length of the current command-line argument, it means this element in `argv` is through being processed, so `Optind` is incremented to point to the next element in `argv`. If neither condition is true, then only `_opti` is incremented, so that the next option letter can be processed on the next call to `getopt`.

The `BEGIN` rule initializes both `Opterr` and `Optind` to one. `Opterr` is set to one, since the default behavior is for `getopt` to print a diagnostic message upon seeing an invalid option. `Optind` is set to one, since there's no reason to look at the program name, which is in `ARGV[0]`:

         BEGIN {
             Opterr = 1    # default is to diagnose
             Optind = 1    # skip ARGV[0]

             # test program
             if (_getopt_test) {
                 while ((_go_c = getopt(ARGC, ARGV, "ab:cd")) != -1)
                     printf("c = <%c>, optarg = <%s>\n",
                                                _go_c, Optarg)
                 printf("non-option arguments:\n")
                 for (; Optind < ARGC; Optind++)
                     printf("\tARGV[%d] = <%s>\n",
                                             Optind, ARGV[Optind])
             }
         }

The rest of the `BEGIN` rule is a simple test program. Here is the result of two sample runs of the test program:

         $ awk -f getopt.awk -v _getopt_test=1 -- -a -cbARG bax -x
         -| c = <a>, optarg = <>
         -| c = <c>, optarg = <>
         -| c = <b>, optarg = <ARG>
         -| non-option arguments:
         -|         ARGV[3] = <bax>
         -|         ARGV[4] = <-x>

         $ awk -f getopt.awk -v _getopt_test=1 -- -a -x -- xyz abc
         -| c = <a>, optarg = <>
         error--> x -- invalid option
         -| c = <?>, optarg = <>
         -| non-option arguments:
         -|         ARGV[4] = <xyz>
         -|         ARGV[5] = <abc>

In both runs, the first -- terminates the arguments to awk, so that it does not try to interpret the -a, etc., as its own options. Several of the sample programs presented in Sample Programs, use `getopt` to process their arguments.

Next: Group Functions, Previous: Getopt Function, Up: Library Functions

### 12.5 Reading the User Database

The `PROCINFO` array (see Built-in Variables) provides access to the current user's real and effective user and group ID numbers, and if available, the user's supplementary group set. However, because these are numbers, they do not provide very useful information to the average user. There needs to be some way to find the user information associated with the user and group ID numbers. This section presents a suite of functions for retrieving information from the user database. See Group Functions, for a similar suite that retrieves information from the group database.

The POSIX standard does not define the file where user information is kept. Instead, it provides the `<pwd.h>` header file and several C language subroutines for obtaining user information. The primary function is `getpwent`, for “get password entry.” The “password” comes from the original user database file, /etc/passwd, which stores user information, along with the encrypted passwords (hence the name).

While an awk program could simply read /etc/passwd directly, this file may not contain complete information about the system's set of users.60 To be sure you are able to produce a readable and complete version of the user database, it is necessary to write a small C program that calls `getpwent`. `getpwent` is defined as returning a pointer to a `struct passwd`. Each time it is called, it returns the next entry in the database. When there are no more entries, it returns `NULL`, the null pointer. When this happens, the C program should call `endpwent` to close the database. Following is pwcat, a C program that “cats” the password database:

         /*
          * pwcat.c
          *
          * Generate a printable version of the password database
          */

         #include <stdio.h>
         #include <pwd.h>

         int
         main(argc, argv)
         int argc;
         char **argv;
         {
             struct passwd *p;

             while ((p = getpwent()) != NULL)
                 printf("%s:%s:%ld:%ld:%s:%s:%s\n",
                     p->pw_name, p->pw_passwd, (long) p->pw_uid,
                     (long) p->pw_gid, p->pw_gecos, p->pw_dir, p->pw_shell);

             endpwent();
             return 0;
         }

If you don't understand C, don't worry about it. The output from pwcat is the user database, in the traditional /etc/passwd format of colon-separated fields. The fields are:

Login name | The user's login name.
Encrypted password | The user's encrypted password. This may not be available on some systems.
User-ID | The user's numeric user ID number.
Group-ID | The user's numeric group ID number.
Full name | The user's full name, and perhaps other information associated with the user.
Home directory | The user's login (or “home”) directory (familiar to shell programmers as `$HOME`).
Login shell | The program that is run when the user logs in. This is usually a shell, such as bash.

A few lines representative of pwcat's output are as follows:

         $ pwcat
         -| root:3Ov02d5VaUPB6:0:1:Operator:/:/bin/sh
         -| nobody:*:65534:65534::/:
         -| daemon:*:1:1::/:
         -| sys:*:2:2::/:/bin/csh
         -| bin:*:3:3::/bin:
         -| arnold:xyzzy:2076:10:Arnold Robbins:/home/arnold:/bin/sh
         -| miriam:yxaay:112:10:Miriam Robbins:/home/miriam:/bin/sh
         -| andy:abcca2:113:10:Andy Jacobs:/home/andy:/bin/sh
         ...

With that introduction, following is a group of functions for getting user information. There are several functions here, corresponding to the C functions of the same names:

         # passwd.awk --- access password file information

         BEGIN {
             # tailor this to suit your system
             _pw_awklib = "/usr/local/libexec/awk/"
         }

         function _pw_init(    oldfs, oldrs, olddol0, pwcat, using_fw)
         {
             if (_pw_inited)
                 return

             oldfs = FS
             oldrs = RS
             olddol0 = $0
             using_fw = (PROCINFO["FS"] == "FIELDWIDTHS")
             FS = ":"
             RS = "\n"

             pwcat = _pw_awklib "pwcat"
             while ((pwcat | getline) > 0) {
                 _pw_byname[$1] = $0
                 _pw_byuid[$3] = $0
                 _pw_bycount[++_pw_total] = $0
             }
             close(pwcat)
             _pw_count = 0
             _pw_inited = 1
             FS = oldfs
             if (using_fw)
                 FIELDWIDTHS = FIELDWIDTHS
             RS = oldrs
             $0 = olddol0
         }

The `BEGIN` rule sets a private variable to the directory where pwcat is stored. Because it is used to help out an awk library routine, we have chosen to put it in /usr/local/libexec/awk; however, you might want it to be in a different directory on your system.

The function `_pw_init` keeps three copies of the user information in three associative arrays. The arrays are indexed by username (`_pw_byname`), by user ID number (`_pw_byuid`), and by order of occurrence (`_pw_bycount`). The variable `_pw_inited` is used for efficiency; `_pw_init` needs only to be called once.

Because this function uses `getline` to read information from pwcat, it first saves the values of `FS`, `RS`, and `$0`. It notes in the variable `using_fw` whether field splitting with `FIELDWIDTHS` is in effect or not. Doing so is necessary, since these functions could be called from anywhere within a user's program, and the user may have his or her own way of splitting records and fields.

The `using_fw` variable checks `PROCINFO["FS"]`, which is `"FIELDWIDTHS"` if field splitting is being done with `FIELDWIDTHS`. This makes it possible to restore the correct field-splitting mechanism later. The test can only be true for gawk. It is false if using `FS` or on some other awk implementation.

The main part of the function uses a loop to read database lines, split the line into fields, and then store the line into each array as necessary. When the loop is done, `_pw_init` cleans up by closing the pipeline, setting `_pw_inited` to one, and restoring `FS` (and `FIELDWIDTHS` if necessary), `RS`, and `$0`. The use of `_pw_count` is explained shortly.

The `getpwnam` function takes a username as a string argument. If that user is in the database, it returns the appropriate line. Otherwise, it returns the null string:

         function getpwnam(name)
         {
             _pw_init()
             if (name in _pw_byname)
                 return _pw_byname[name]
             return ""
         }

Similarly, the `getpwuid` function takes a user ID number argument. If that user number is in the database, it returns the appropriate line. Otherwise, it returns the null string:

         function getpwuid(uid)
         {
             _pw_init()
             if (uid in _pw_byuid)
                 return _pw_byuid[uid]
             return ""
         }

The `getpwent` function simply steps through the database, one entry at a time. It uses `_pw_count` to track its current position in the `_pw_bycount` array:

         function getpwent()
         {
             _pw_init()
             if (_pw_count < _pw_total)
                 return _pw_bycount[++_pw_count]
             return ""
         }

The `endpwent` function resets `_pw_count` to zero, so that subsequent calls to `getpwent` start over again:

         function endpwent()
         {
             _pw_count = 0
         }

A conscious design decision in this suite was made that each subroutine calls `_pw_init` to initialize the database arrays. The overhead of running a separate process to generate the user database, and the I/O to scan it, are only incurred if the user's main program actually calls one of these functions. If this library file is loaded along with a user's program, but none of the routines are ever called, then there is no extra runtime overhead. (The alternative is move the body of `_pw_init` into a `BEGIN` rule, which always runs pwcat. This simplifies the code but runs an extra process that may never be needed.)

In turn, calling `_pw_init` is not too expensive, because the `_pw_inited` variable keeps the program from reading the data more than once. If you are worried about squeezing every last cycle out of your awk program, the check of `_pw_inited` could be moved out of `_pw_init` and duplicated in all the other functions. In practice, this is not necessary, since most awk programs are I/O-bound, and it clutters up the code.

The id program in Id Program, uses these functions.

Previous: Passwd Functions, Up: Library Functions

### 12.6 Reading the Group Database

Much of the discussion presented in Passwd Functions, applies to the group database as well. Although there has traditionally been a well-known file (/etc/group) in a well-known format, the POSIX standard only provides a set of C library routines (`<grp.h>` and `getgrent`) for accessing the information. Even though this file may exist, it likely does not have complete information. Therefore, as with the user database, it is necessary to have a small C program that generates the group database as its output.

grcat, a C program that “cats” the group database, is as follows:

         /*
          * grcat.c
          *
          * Generate a printable version of the group database
          */

         #include <stdio.h>
         #include <grp.h>

         int
         main(argc, argv)
         int argc;
         char **argv;
         {
             struct group *g;
             int i;

             while ((g = getgrent()) != NULL) {
                 printf("%s:%s:%ld:", g->gr_name, g->gr_passwd,
                                              (long) g->gr_gid);
                 for (i = 0; g->gr_mem[i] != NULL; i++) {
                     printf("%s", g->gr_mem[i]);
                     if (g->gr_mem[i+1] != NULL)
                         putchar(',');
                 }
                 putchar('\n');
             }
             endgrent();
             return 0;
         }

Each line in the group database represents one group. The fields are separated with colons and represent the following information:

Group name | The group's name.
Group password | The group's encrypted password. In practice, this field is never used; it is usually empty or set to *.
Group-ID | The group's numeric group ID number; this number should be unique within the file.
Group member list | A comma-separated list of usernames. These users are members of the group. Modern Unix systems allow users to be members of several groups simultaneously. If your system does, then there are elements `"group1"` through `"group` N`"` in `PROCINFO` for those group ID numbers. (Note that `PROCINFO` is a gawk extension; see Built-in Variables.)

Here is what running grcat might produce:

         $ grcat
         -| wheel:*:0:arnold
         -| nogroup:*:65534:
         -| daemon:*:1:
         -| kmem:*:2:
         -| staff:*:10:arnold,miriam,andy
         -| other:*:20:
         ...

Here are the functions for obtaining information from the group database. There are several, modeled after the C library functions of the same names:

         # group.awk --- functions for dealing with the group file

         BEGIN    \
         {
             # Change to suit your system
             _gr_awklib = "/usr/local/libexec/awk/"
         }

         function _gr_init(    oldfs, oldrs, olddol0, grcat,
                                      using_fw, n, a, i)
         {
             if (_gr_inited)
                 return

             oldfs = FS
             oldrs = RS
             olddol0 = $0
             using_fw = (PROCINFO["FS"] == "FIELDWIDTHS")
             FS = ":"
             RS = "\n"

             grcat = _gr_awklib "grcat"
             while ((grcat | getline) > 0) {
                 if ($1 in _gr_byname)
                     _gr_byname[$1] = _gr_byname[$1] "," $4
                 else
                     _gr_byname[$1] = $0
                 if ($3 in _gr_bygid)
                     _gr_bygid[$3] = _gr_bygid[$3] "," $4
                 else
                     _gr_bygid[$3] = $0

                 n = split($4, a, "[ \t]*,[ \t]*")
                 for (i = 1; i <= n; i++)
                     if (a[i] in _gr_groupsbyuser)
                         _gr_groupsbyuser[a[i]] = \
                             _gr_groupsbyuser[a[i]] " " $1
                     else
                         _gr_groupsbyuser[a[i]] = $1

                 _gr_bycount[++_gr_count] = $0
             }
             close(grcat)
             _gr_count = 0
             _gr_inited++
             FS = oldfs
             if (using_fw)
                 FIELDWIDTHS = FIELDWIDTHS
             RS = oldrs
             $0 = olddol0
         }

The `BEGIN` rule sets a private variable to the directory where grcat is stored. Because it is used to help out an awk library routine, we have chosen to put it in /usr/local/libexec/awk. You might want it to be in a different directory on your system.

These routines follow the same general outline as the user database routines (see Passwd Functions). The `_gr_inited` variable is used to ensure that the database is scanned no more than once. The `_gr_init` function first saves `FS`, `FIELDWIDTHS`, `RS`, and `$0`, and then sets `FS` and `RS` to the correct values for scanning the group information.

The group information is stored is several associative arrays. The arrays are indexed by group name (`_gr_byname`), by group ID number (`_gr_bygid`), and by position in the database (`_gr_bycount`). There is an additional array indexed by username (`_gr_groupsbyuser`), which is a space-separated list of groups to which each user belongs.

Unlike the user database, it is possible to have multiple records in the database for the same group. This is common when a group has a large number of members. A pair of such entries might look like the following:

         tvpeople:*:101:johnny,jay,arsenio
         tvpeople:*:101:david,conan,tom,joan

For this reason, `_gr_init` looks to see if a group name or group ID number is already seen. If it is, then the usernames are simply concatenated onto the previous list of users. (There is actually a subtle problem with the code just presented. Suppose that the first time there were no names. This code adds the names with a leading comma. It also doesn't check that there is a `$4`.)

Finally, `_gr_init` closes the pipeline to grcat, restores `FS` (and `FIELDWIDTHS` if necessary), `RS`, and `$0`, initializes `_gr_count` to zero (it is used later), and makes `_gr_inited` nonzero.

The `getgrnam` function takes a group name as its argument, and if that group exists, it is returned. Otherwise, `getgrnam` returns the null string:

         function getgrnam(group)
         {
             _gr_init()
             if (group in _gr_byname)
                 return _gr_byname[group]
             return ""
         }

The `getgrgid` function is similar, it takes a numeric group ID and looks up the information associated with that group ID:

         function getgrgid(gid)
         {
             _gr_init()
             if (gid in _gr_bygid)
                 return _gr_bygid[gid]
             return ""
         }

The `getgruser` function does not have a C counterpart. It takes a username and returns the list of groups that have the user as a member:

         function getgruser(user)
         {
             _gr_init()
             if (user in _gr_groupsbyuser)
                 return _gr_groupsbyuser[user]
             return ""
         }

The `getgrent` function steps through the database one entry at a time. It uses `_gr_count` to track its position in the list:

         function getgrent()
         {
             _gr_init()
             if (++_gr_count in _gr_bycount)
                 return _gr_bycount[_gr_count]
             return ""
         }

The `endgrent` function resets `_gr_count` to zero so that `getgrent` can start over again:

         function endgrent()
         {
             _gr_count = 0
         }

As with the user database routines, each function calls `_gr_init` to initialize the arrays. Doing so only incurs the extra overhead of running grcat if these functions are used (as opposed to moving the body of `_gr_init` into a `BEGIN` rule).

Most of the work is in scanning the database and building the various associative arrays. The functions that the user calls are themselves very simple, relying on awk's associative arrays to do work.

The id program in Id Program, uses these functions.

Next: Language History, Previous: Library Functions, Up: Top

## 13 Practical awk Programs

Library Functions, presents the idea that reading programs in a language contributes to learning that language. This chapter continues that theme, presenting a potpourri of awk programs for your reading enjoyment. There are three sections. The first describes how to run the programs presented in this chapter.

The second presents awk versions of several common POSIX utilities. These are programs that you are hopefully already familiar with, and therefore, whose problems are understood. By reimplementing these programs in awk, you can focus on the awk-related aspects of solving the programming problem.

The third is a grab bag of interesting programs. These solve a number of different data-manipulation and management problems. Many of the programs are short, which emphasizes awk's ability to do a lot in just a few lines of code.

Many of these programs use the library functions presented in Library Functions.

Next: Clones, Up: Sample Programs

### 13.1 Running the Example Programs

To run a given program, you would typically do something like this:

         awk -f program -- options files

Here, program is the name of the awk program (such as cut.awk), options are any command-line options for the program that start with a -, and files are the actual data files.

If your system supports the #! executable interpreter mechanism (see Executable Scripts), you can instead run your program directly:

         cut.awk -c1-8 myfiles > results

If your awk is not gawk, you may instead need to use this:

         cut.awk -- -c1-8 myfiles > results

Next: Miscellaneous Programs, Previous: Running Examples, Up: Sample Programs

### 13.2 Reinventing Wheels for Fun and Profit

This section presents a number of POSIX utilities that are implemented in awk. Reinventing these programs in awk is often enjoyable, because the algorithms can be very clearly expressed, and the code is usually very concise and simple. This is true because awk does so much for you.

It should be noted that these programs are not necessarily intended to replace the installed versions on your system. Instead, their purpose is to illustrate awk language programming for “real world” tasks.

The programs are presented in alphabetical order.

Next: Egrep Program, Up: Clones

#### 13.2.1 Cutting out Fields and Columns

The cut utility selects, or “cuts,” characters or fields from its standard input and sends them to its standard output. Fields are separated by tabs by default, but you may supply a command-line option to change the field delimiter (i.e., the field-separator character). cut's definition of fields is less general than awk's.

A common use of cut might be to pull out just the login name of logged-on users from the output of who. For example, the following pipeline generates a sorted, unique list of the logged-on users:

         who | cut -c1-8 | sort | uniq

The options for cut are:

`-c` list
  Use list as the list of characters to cut out. Items within the list may be separated by commas, and ranges of characters can be separated with dashes. The list 1-8,15,22-35 specifies characters 1 through 8, 15, and 22 through 35.
`-f` list
  Use list as the list of fields to cut out.
`-d` delim
  Use delim as the field-separator character instead of the tab character.
`-s`
  Suppress printing of lines that do not contain the field delimiter.

The awk implementation of cut uses the `getopt` library function (see Getopt Function) and the `join` library function (see Join Function).

The program begins with a comment describing the options, the library functions needed, and a `usage` function that prints out a usage message and exits. `usage` is called if invalid arguments are supplied:

         # cut.awk --- implement cut in awk

         # Options:
         #    -f list     Cut fields
         #    -d c        Field delimiter character
         #    -c list     Cut characters
         #
         #    -s          Suppress lines without the delimiter
         #
         # Requires getopt and join library functions

         function usage(    e1, e2)
         {
             e1 = "usage: cut [-f list] [-d c] [-s] [files...]"
             e2 = "usage: cut [-c list] [files...]"
             print e1 > "/dev/stderr"
             print e2 > "/dev/stderr"
             exit 1
         }

The variables `e1` and `e2` are used so that the function fits nicely on the page. screen.

Next comes a `BEGIN` rule that parses the command-line options. It sets `FS` to a single TAB character, because that is cut's default field separator. The output field separator is also set to be the same as the input field separator. Then `getopt` is used to step through the command-line options. Exactly one of the variables `by_fields` or `by_chars` is set to true, to indicate that processing should be done by fields or by characters, respectively. When cutting by characters, the output field separator is set to the null string:

         BEGIN    \
         {
             FS = "\t"    # default
             OFS = FS
             while ((c = getopt(ARGC, ARGV, "sf:c:d:")) != -1) {
                 if (c == "f") {
                     by_fields = 1
                     fieldlist = Optarg
                 } else if (c == "c") {
                     by_chars = 1
                     fieldlist = Optarg
                     OFS = ""
                 } else if (c == "d") {
                     if (length(Optarg) > 1) {
                         printf("Using first character of %s" \
                         " for delimiter\n", Optarg) > "/dev/stderr"
                         Optarg = substr(Optarg, 1, 1)
                     }
                     FS = Optarg
                     OFS = FS
                     if (FS == " ")    # defeat awk semantics
                         FS = "[ ]"
                 } else if (c == "s")
                     suppress++
                 else
                     usage()
             }

             for (i = 1; i < Optind; i++)
                 ARGV[i] = ""

Special care is taken when the field delimiter is a space. Using a single space (`" "`) for the value of `FS` is incorrect—awk would separate fields with runs of spaces, tabs, and/or newlines, and we want them to be separated with individual spaces. Also, note that after `getopt` is through, we have to clear out all the elements of `ARGV` from 1 to `Optind`, so that awk does not try to process the command-line options as file names.

After dealing with the command-line options, the program verifies that the options make sense. Only one or the other of -c and -f should be used, and both require a field list. Then the program calls either `set_fieldlist` or `set_charlist` to pull apart the list of fields or characters:

             if (by_fields && by_chars)
                 usage()

             if (by_fields == 0 && by_chars == 0)
                 by_fields = 1    # default

             if (fieldlist == "") {
                 print "cut: needs list for -c or -f" > "/dev/stderr"
                 exit 1
             }

             if (by_fields)
                 set_fieldlist()
             else
                 set_charlist()
         }

`set_fieldlist` is used to split the field list apart at the commas and into an array. Then, for each element of the array, it looks to see if it is actually a range, and if so, splits it apart. The range is verified to make sure the first number is smaller than the second. Each number in the list is added to the `flist` array, which simply lists the fields that will be printed. Normal field splitting is used. The program lets awk handle the job of doing the field splitting:

         function set_fieldlist(        n, m, i, j, k, f, g)
         {
             n = split(fieldlist, f, ",")
             j = 1    # index in flist
             for (i = 1; i <= n; i++) {
                 if (index(f[i], "-") != 0) { # a range
                     m = split(f[i], g, "-")
                     if (m != 2 || g[1] >= g[2]) {
                         printf("bad field list: %s\n",
                                           f[i]) > "/dev/stderr"
                         exit 1
                     }
                     for (k = g[1]; k <= g[2]; k++)
                         flist[j++] = k
                 } else
                     flist[j++] = f[i]
             }
             nfields = j - 1
         }

The `set_charlist` function is more complicated than `set_fieldlist`. The idea here is to use gawk's `FIELDWIDTHS` variable (see Constant Size), which describes constant-width input. When using a character list, that is exactly what we have.

Setting up `FIELDWIDTHS` is more complicated than simply listing the fields that need to be printed. We have to keep track of the fields to print and also the intervening characters that have to be skipped. For example, suppose you wanted characters 1 through 8, 15, and 22 through 35. You would use -c 1-8,15,22-35. The necessary value for `FIELDWIDTHS` is `"8 6 1 6 14"`. This yields five fields, and the fields to print are `$1`, `$3`, and `$5`. The intermediate fields are filler, which is stuff in between the desired data. `flist` lists the fields to print, and `t` tracks the complete field list, including filler fields:

         function set_charlist(    field, i, j, f, g, t,
                                   filler, last, len)
         {
             field = 1   # count total fields
             n = split(fieldlist, f, ",")
             j = 1       # index in flist
             for (i = 1; i <= n; i++) {
                 if (index(f[i], "-") != 0) { # range
                     m = split(f[i], g, "-")
                     if (m != 2 || g[1] >= g[2]) {
                         printf("bad character list: %s\n",
                                        f[i]) > "/dev/stderr"
                         exit 1
                     }
                     len = g[2] - g[1] + 1
                     if (g[1] > 1)  # compute length of filler
                         filler = g[1] - last - 1
                     else
                         filler = 0
                     if (filler)
                         t[field++] = filler
                     t[field++] = len  # length of field
                     last = g[2]
                     flist[j++] = field - 1
                 } else {
                     if (f[i] > 1)
                         filler = f[i] - last - 1
                     else
                         filler = 0
                     if (filler)
                         t[field++] = filler
                     t[field++] = 1
                     last = f[i]
                     flist[j++] = field - 1
                 }
             }
             FIELDWIDTHS = join(t, 1, field - 1)
             nfields = j - 1
         }

Next is the rule that actually processes the data. If the -s option is given, then `suppress` is true. The first `if` statement makes sure that the input record does have the field separator. If cut is processing fields, `suppress` is true, and the field separator character is not in the record, then the record is skipped.

If the record is valid, then gawk has split the data into fields, either using the character in `FS` or using fixed-length fields and `FIELDWIDTHS`. The loop goes through the list of fields that should be printed. The corresponding field is printed if it contains data. If the next field also has data, then the separator character is written out between the fields:

         {
             if (by_fields && suppress && index($0, FS) != 0)
                 next

             for (i = 1; i <= nfields; i++) {
                 if ($flist[i] != "") {
                     printf "%s", $flist[i]
                     if (i < nfields && $flist[i+1] != "")
                         printf "%s", OFS
                 }
             }
             print ""
         }

This version of cut relies on gawk's `FIELDWIDTHS` variable to do the character-based cutting. While it is possible in other awk implementations to use `substr` (see String Functions), it is also extremely painful. The `FIELDWIDTHS` variable supplies an elegant solution to the problem of picking the input line apart by characters.

Next: Id Program, Previous: Cut Program, Up: Clones

#### 13.2.2 Searching for Regular Expressions in Files

The egrep utility searches files for patterns. It uses regular expressions that are almost identical to those available in awk (see Regexp). It is used in the following manner:

         egrep [ options ] 'pattern' files ...

The pattern is a regular expression. In typical usage, the regular expression is quoted to prevent the shell from expanding any of the special characters as file name wildcards. Normally, egrep prints the lines that matched. If multiple file names are provided on the command line, each output line is preceded by the name of the file and a colon.

The options to egrep are as follows:

`-c`
  Print out a count of the lines that matched the pattern, instead of the lines themselves.
`-s`
  Be silent. No output is produced and the exit value indicates whether the pattern was matched.
`-v`
  Invert the sense of the test. egrep prints the lines that do not match the pattern and exits successfully if the pattern is not matched.
`-i`
  Ignore case distinctions in both the pattern and the input data.
`-l`
  Only print (list) the names of the files that matched, not the lines that matched.
`-e` pattern
  Use pattern as the regexp to match. The purpose of the -e option is to allow patterns that start with a -.

This version uses the `getopt` library function (see Getopt Function) and the file transition library program (see Filetrans Function).

The program begins with a descriptive comment and then a `BEGIN` rule that processes the command-line arguments with `getopt`. The -i (ignore case) option is particularly easy with gawk; we just use the `IGNORECASE` built-in variable (see Built-in Variables):

         # egrep.awk --- simulate egrep in awk

         # Options:
         #    -c    count of lines
         #    -s    silent - use exit value
         #    -v    invert test, success if no match
         #    -i    ignore case
         #    -l    print filenames only
         #    -e    argument is pattern
         #
         # Requires getopt and file transition library functions

         BEGIN {
             while ((c = getopt(ARGC, ARGV, "ce:svil")) != -1) {
                 if (c == "c")
                     count_only++
                 else if (c == "s")
                     no_print++
                 else if (c == "v")
                     invert++
                 else if (c == "i")
                     IGNORECASE = 1
                 else if (c == "l")
                     filenames_only++
                 else if (c == "e")
                     pattern = Optarg
                 else
                     usage()
             }

Next comes the code that handles the egrep-specific behavior. If no pattern is supplied with -e, the first nonoption on the command line is used. The awk command-line arguments up to `ARGV[Optind]` are cleared, so that awk won't try to process them as files. If no files are specified, the standard input is used, and if multiple files are specified, we make sure to note this so that the file names can precede the matched lines in the output:

             if (pattern == "")
                 pattern = ARGV[Optind++]

             for (i = 1; i < Optind; i++)
                 ARGV[i] = ""
             if (Optind >= ARGC) {
                 ARGV[1] = "-"
                 ARGC = 2
             } else if (ARGC - Optind > 1)
                 do_filenames++

         #    if (IGNORECASE)
         #        pattern = tolower(pattern)
         }

The last two lines are commented out, since they are not needed in gawk. They should be uncommented if you have to use another version of awk.

The next set of lines should be uncommented if you are not using gawk. This rule translates all the characters in the input line into lowercase if the -i option is specified.61 The rule is commented out since it is not necessary with gawk:

         #{
         #    if (IGNORECASE)
         #        $0 = tolower($0)
         #}

The `beginfile` function is called by the rule in ftrans.awk when each new file is processed. In this case, it is very simple; all it does is initialize a variable `fcount` to zero. `fcount` tracks how many lines in the current file matched the pattern (naming the parameter `junk` shows we know that `beginfile` is called with a parameter, but that we're not interested in its value):

         function beginfile(junk)
         {
             fcount = 0
         }

The `endfile` function is called after each file has been processed. It affects the output only when the user wants a count of the number of lines that matched. `no_print` is true only if the exit status is desired. `count_only` is true if line counts are desired. egrep therefore only prints line counts if printing and counting are enabled. The output format must be adjusted depending upon the number of files to process. Finally, `fcount` is added to `total`, so that we know the total number of lines that matched the pattern:

         function endfile(file)
         {
             if (! no_print && count_only)
                 if (do_filenames)
                     print file ":" fcount
                 else
                     print fcount

             total += fcount
         }

The following rule does most of the work of matching lines. The variable `matches` is true if the line matched the pattern. If the user wants lines that did not match, the sense of `matches` is inverted using the ! operator. `fcount` is incremented with the value of `matches`, which is either one or zero, depending upon a successful or unsuccessful match. If the line does not match, the `next` statement just moves on to the next record.

A number of additional tests are made, but they are only done if we are not counting lines. First, if the user only wants exit status (`no_print` is true), then it is enough to know that one line in this file matched, and we can skip on to the next file with `nextfile`. Similarly, if we are only printing file names, we can print the file name, and then skip to the next file with `nextfile`. Finally, each line is printed, with a leading file name and colon if necessary:

         {
             matches = ($0 ~ pattern)
             if (invert)
                 matches = ! matches

             fcount += matches    # 1 or 0

             if (! matches)
                 next

             if (! count_only) {
                 if (no_print)
                     nextfile

                 if (filenames_only) {
                     print FILENAME
                     nextfile
                 }

                 if (do_filenames)
                     print FILENAME ":" $0
                 else
                     print
             }
         }

The `END` rule takes care of producing the correct exit status. If there are no matches, the exit status is one; otherwise it is zero:

         END    \
         {
             if (total == 0)
                 exit 1
             exit 0
         }

The `usage` function prints a usage message in case of invalid options, and then exits:

         function usage(    e)
         {
             e = "Usage: egrep [-csvil] [-e pat] [files ...]"
             e = e "\n\tegrep [-csvil] pat [files ...]"
             print e > "/dev/stderr"
             exit 1
         }

The variable `e` is used so that the function fits nicely on the printed page.

Just a note on programming style: you may have noticed that the `END` rule uses backslash continuation, with the open brace on a line by itself. This is so that it more closely resembles the way functions are written. Many of the examples in this chapter use this style. You can decide for yourself if you like writing your `BEGIN` and `END` rules this way or not.

Next: Split Program, Previous: Egrep Program, Up: Clones

#### 13.2.3 Printing out User Information

The id utility lists a user's real and effective user ID numbers, real and effective group ID numbers, and the user's group set, if any. id only prints the effective user ID and group ID if they are different from the real ones. If possible, id also supplies the corresponding user and group names. The output might look like this:

         $ id
         -| uid=2076(arnold) gid=10(staff) groups=10(staff),4(tty)

This information is part of what is provided by gawk's `PROCINFO` array (see Built-in Variables). However, the id utility provides a more palatable output than just individual numbers.

Here is a simple version of id written in awk. It uses the user database library functions (see Passwd Functions) and the group database library functions (see Group Functions):

The program is fairly straightforward. All the work is done in the `BEGIN` rule. The user and group ID numbers are obtained from `PROCINFO`. The code is repetitive. The entry in the user database for the real user ID number is split into parts at the :. The name is the first field. Similar code is used for the effective user ID number and the group numbers:

         # id.awk --- implement id in awk
         #
         # Requires user and group library functions

         # output is:
         # uid=12(foo) euid=34(bar) gid=3(baz) \
         #             egid=5(blat) groups=9(nine),2(two),1(one)

         BEGIN    \
         {
             uid = PROCINFO["uid"]
             euid = PROCINFO["euid"]
             gid = PROCINFO["gid"]
             egid = PROCINFO["egid"]

             printf("uid=%d", uid)
             pw = getpwuid(uid)
             if (pw != "") {
                 split(pw, a, ":")
                 printf("(%s)", a[1])
             }

             if (euid != uid) {
                 printf(" euid=%d", euid)
                 pw = getpwuid(euid)
                 if (pw != "") {
                     split(pw, a, ":")
                     printf("(%s)", a[1])
                 }
             }

             printf(" gid=%d", gid)
             pw = getgrgid(gid)
             if (pw != "") {
                 split(pw, a, ":")
                 printf("(%s)", a[1])
             }

             if (egid != gid) {
                 printf(" egid=%d", egid)
                 pw = getgrgid(egid)
                 if (pw != "") {
                     split(pw, a, ":")
                     printf("(%s)", a[1])
                 }
             }

             for (i = 1; ("group" i) in PROCINFO; i++) {
                 if (i == 1)
                     printf(" groups=")
                 group = PROCINFO["group" i]
                 printf("%d", group)
                 pw = getgrgid(group)
                 if (pw != "") {
                     split(pw, a, ":")
                     printf("(%s)", a[1])
                 }
                 if (("group" (i+1)) in PROCINFO)
                     printf(",")
             }

             print ""
         }

The test in the `for` loop is worth noting. Any supplementary groups in the `PROCINFO` array have the indices `"group1"` through `"group` N`"` for some N, i.e., the total number of supplementary groups. However, we don't know in advance how many of these groups there are.

This loop works by starting at one, concatenating the value with `"group"`, and then using `in` to see if that value is in the array. Eventually, `i` is incremented past the last group in the array and the loop exits.

The loop is also correct if there are no supplementary groups; then the condition is false the first time it's tested, and the loop body never executes.

Next: Tee Program, Previous: Id Program, Up: Clones

#### 13.2.4 Splitting a Large File into Pieces

The `split` program splits large text files into smaller pieces. Usage is as follows:

         split [-count] file [ prefix ]

By default, the output files are named xaa, xab, and so on. Each file has 1000 lines in it, with the likely exception of the last file. To change the number of lines in each file, supply a number on the command line preceded with a minus; e.g., -500 for files with 500 lines in them instead of 1000. To change the name of the output files to something like myfileaa, myfileab, and so on, supply an additional argument that specifies the file name prefix.

Here is a version of `split` in awk. It uses the `ord` and `chr` functions presented in Ordinal Functions.

The program first sets its defaults, and then tests to make sure there are not too many arguments. It then looks at each argument in turn. The first argument could be a minus sign followed by a number. If it is, this happens to look like a negative number, so it is made positive, and that is the count of lines. The data file name is skipped over and the final argument is used as the prefix for the output file names:

         # split.awk --- do split in awk
         #
         # Requires ord and chr library functions

         # usage: split [-num] [file] [outname]

         BEGIN {
             outfile = "x"    # default
             count = 1000
             if (ARGC > 4)
                 usage()

             i = 1
             if (ARGV[i] ~ /^-[0-9]+$/) {
                 count = -ARGV[i]
                 ARGV[i] = ""
                 i++
             }
             # test argv in case reading from stdin instead of file
             if (i in ARGV)
                 i++    # skip data file name
             if (i in ARGV) {
                 outfile = ARGV[i]
                 ARGV[i] = ""
             }

             s1 = s2 = "a"
             out = (outfile s1 s2)
         }

The next rule does most of the work. `tcount` (temporary count) tracks how many lines have been printed to the output file so far. If it is greater than `count`, it is time to close the current file and start a new one. `s1` and `s2` track the current suffixes for the file name. If they are both z, the file is just too big. Otherwise, `s1` moves to the next letter in the alphabet and `s2` starts over again at a:

         {
             if (++tcount > count) {
                 close(out)
                 if (s2 == "z") {
                     if (s1 == "z") {
                         printf("split: %s is too large to split\n",
                                FILENAME) > "/dev/stderr"
                         exit 1
                     }
                     s1 = chr(ord(s1) + 1)
                     s2 = "a"
                 }
                 else
                     s2 = chr(ord(s2) + 1)
                 out = (outfile s1 s2)
                 tcount = 1
             }
             print > out
         }

The `usage` function simply prints an error message and exits:

         function usage(   e)
         {
             e = "usage: split [-num] [file] [outname]"
             print e > "/dev/stderr"
             exit 1
         }

The variable `e` is used so that the function fits nicely on the page.

This program is a bit sloppy; it relies on awk to automatically close the last file instead of doing it in an `END` rule. It also assumes that letters are contiguous in the character set, which isn't true for EBCDIC systems.

Next: Uniq Program, Previous: Split Program, Up: Clones

#### 13.2.5 Duplicating Output into Multiple Files

The `tee` program is known as a “pipe fitting.” `tee` copies its standard input to its standard output and also duplicates it to the files named on the command line. Its usage is as follows:

         tee [-a] file ...

The -a option tells `tee` to append to the named files, instead of truncating them and starting over.

The `BEGIN` rule first makes a copy of all the command-line arguments into an array named `copy`. `ARGV[0]` is not copied, since it is not needed. `tee` cannot use `ARGV` directly, since awk attempts to process each file name in `ARGV` as input data.

If the first argument is -a, then the flag variable `append` is set to true, and both `ARGV[1]` and `copy[1]` are deleted. If `ARGC` is less than two, then no file names were supplied and `tee` prints a usage message and exits. Finally, awk is forced to read the standard input by setting `ARGV[1]` to `"-"` and `ARGC` to two:

         # tee.awk --- tee in awk

         BEGIN    \
         {
             for (i = 1; i < ARGC; i++)
                 copy[i] = ARGV[i]

             if (ARGV[1] == "-a") {
                 append = 1
                 delete ARGV[1]
                 delete copy[1]
                 ARGC--
             }
             if (ARGC < 2) {
                 print "usage: tee [-a] file ..." > "/dev/stderr"
                 exit 1
             }
             ARGV[1] = "-"
             ARGC = 2
         }

The single rule does all the work. Since there is no pattern, it is executed for each line of input. The body of the rule simply prints the line into each file on the command line, and then to the standard output:

         {
             # moving the if outside the loop makes it run faster
             if (append)
                 for (i in copy)
                     print >> copy[i]
             else
                 for (i in copy)
                     print > copy[i]
             print
         }

It is also possible to write the loop this way:

         for (i in copy)
             if (append)
                 print >> copy[i]
             else
                 print > copy[i]

This is more concise but it is also less efficient. The if is tested for each record and for each output file. By duplicating the loop body, the if is only tested once for each input record. If there are N input records and M output files, the first method only executes N if statements, while the second executes N`*`M if statements.

Finally, the `END` rule cleans up by closing all the output files:

         END    \
         {
             for (i in copy)
                 close(copy[i])
         }

Next: Wc Program, Previous: Tee Program, Up: Clones

#### 13.2.6 Printing Nonduplicated Lines of Text

The uniq utility reads sorted lines of data on its standard input, and by default removes duplicate lines. In other words, it only prints unique lines—hence the name. uniq has a number of options. The usage is as follows:

         uniq [-udc [-n]] [+n] [ input file [ output file ]]

The options for uniq are:

`-d`
  Pnly print only repeated lines.
`-u`
  Print only nonrepeated lines.
`-c`
  Count lines. This option overrides -d and -u. Both repeated and nonrepeated lines are counted.
`-`n
  Skip n fields before comparing lines. The definition of fields is similar to awk's default: nonwhitespace characters separated by runs of spaces and/or tabs.
`+`n
  Skip n characters before comparing lines. Any fields specified with -n are skipped first.
input file
  Data is read from the input file named on the command line, instead of from the standard input.
output file
  The generated output is sent to the named output file, instead of to the standard output.

Normally uniq behaves as if both the -d and -u options are provided.

uniq uses the `getopt` library function (see Getopt Function) and the `join` library function (see Join Function).

The program begins with a `usage` function and then a brief outline of the options and their meanings in a comment. The `BEGIN` rule deals with the command-line arguments and options. It uses a trick to get `getopt` to handle options of the form -25, treating such an option as the option letter 2 with an argument of 5. If indeed two or more digits are supplied (`Optarg` looks like a number), `Optarg` is concatenated with the option digit and then the result is added to zero to make it into a number. If there is only one digit in the option, then `Optarg` is not needed. In this case, `Optind` must be decremented so that `getopt` processes it next time. This code is admittedly a bit tricky.

If no options are supplied, then the default is taken, to print both repeated and nonrepeated lines. The output file, if provided, is assigned to `outputfile`. Early on, `outputfile` is initialized to the standard output, /dev/stdout:

         # uniq.awk --- do uniq in awk
         #
         # Requires getopt and join library functions

         function usage(    e)
         {
             e = "Usage: uniq [-udc [-n]] [+n] [ in [ out ]]"
             print e > "/dev/stderr"
             exit 1
         }

         # -c    count lines. overrides -d and -u
         # -d    only repeated lines
         # -u    only non-repeated lines
         # -n    skip n fields
         # +n    skip n characters, skip fields first

         BEGIN   \
         {
             count = 1
             outputfile = "/dev/stdout"
             opts = "udc0:1:2:3:4:5:6:7:8:9:"
             while ((c = getopt(ARGC, ARGV, opts)) != -1) {
                 if (c == "u")
                     non_repeated_only++
                 else if (c == "d")
                     repeated_only++
                 else if (c == "c")
                     do_count++
                 else if (index("0123456789", c) != 0) {
                     # getopt requires args to options
                     # this messes us up for things like -5
                     if (Optarg ~ /^[0-9]+$/)
                         fcount = (c Optarg) + 0
                     else {
                         fcount = c + 0
                         Optind--
                     }
                 } else
                     usage()
             }

             if (ARGV[Optind] ~ /^\+[0-9]+$/) {
                 charcount = substr(ARGV[Optind], 2) + 0
                 Optind++
             }

             for (i = 1; i < Optind; i++)
                 ARGV[i] = ""

             if (repeated_only == 0 && non_repeated_only == 0)
                 repeated_only = non_repeated_only = 1

             if (ARGC - Optind == 2) {
                 outputfile = ARGV[ARGC - 1]
                 ARGV[ARGC - 1] = ""
             }
         }

The following function, `are_equal`, compares the current line, `$0`, to the previous line, `last`. It handles skipping fields and characters. If no field count and no character count are specified, `are_equal` simply returns one or zero depending upon the result of a simple string comparison of `last` and `$0`. Otherwise, things get more complicated. If fields have to be skipped, each line is broken into an array using `split` (see String Functions); the desired fields are then joined back into a line using `join`. The joined lines are stored in `clast` and `cline`. If no fields are skipped, `clast` and `cline` are set to `last` and `$0`, respectively. Finally, if characters are skipped, `substr` is used to strip off the leading `charcount` characters in `clast` and `cline`. The two strings are then compared and `are_equal` returns the result:

         function are_equal(    n, m, clast, cline, alast, aline)
         {
             if (fcount == 0 && charcount == 0)
                 return (last == $0)

             if (fcount > 0) {
                 n = split(last, alast)
                 m = split($0, aline)
                 clast = join(alast, fcount+1, n)
                 cline = join(aline, fcount+1, m)
             } else {
                 clast = last
                 cline = $0
             }
             if (charcount) {
                 clast = substr(clast, charcount + 1)
                 cline = substr(cline, charcount + 1)
             }

             return (clast == cline)
         }

The following two rules are the body of the program. The first one is executed only for the very first line of data. It sets `last` equal to `$0`, so that subsequent lines of text have something to be compared to.

The second rule does the work. The variable `equal` is one or zero, depending upon the results of `are_equal`'s comparison. If uniq is counting repeated lines, and the lines are equal, then it increments the `count` variable. Otherwise, it prints the line and resets `count`, since the two lines are not equal.

If uniq is not counting, and if the lines are equal, `count` is incremented. Nothing is printed, since the point is to remove duplicates. Otherwise, if uniq is counting repeated lines and more than one line is seen, or if uniq is counting nonrepeated lines and only one line is seen, then the line is printed, and `count` is reset.

Finally, similar logic is used in the `END` rule to print the final line of input data:

         NR == 1 {
             last = $0
             next
         }

         {
             equal = are_equal()

             if (do_count) {    # overrides -d and -u
                 if (equal)
                     count++
                 else {
                     printf("%4d %s\n", count, last) > outputfile
                     last = $0
                     count = 1    # reset
                 }
                 next
             }

             if (equal)
                 count++
             else {
                 if ((repeated_only && count > 1) ||
                     (non_repeated_only && count == 1))
                         print last > outputfile
                 last = $0
                 count = 1
             }
         }

         END {
             if (do_count)
                 printf("%4d %s\n", count, last) > outputfile
             else if ((repeated_only && count > 1) ||
                     (non_repeated_only && count == 1))
                 print last > outputfile
         }

Previous: Uniq Program, Up: Clones

#### 13.2.7 Counting Things

The wc (word count) utility counts lines, words, and characters in one or more input files. Its usage is as follows:

         wc [-lwc] [ files ... ]

If no files are specified on the command line, wc reads its standard input. If there are multiple files, it also prints total counts for all the files. The options and their meanings are shown in the following list:

`-l`
  Count only lines.
`-w`
  Count only words. A “word” is a contiguous sequence of nonwhitespace characters, separated by spaces and/or tabs. Luckily, this is the normal way awk separates fields in its input data.
`-c`
  Count only characters.

Implementing wc in awk is particularly elegant, since awk does a lot of the work for us; it splits lines into words (i.e., fields) and counts them, it counts lines (i.e., records), and it can easily tell us how long a line is.

This uses the `getopt` library function (see Getopt Function) and the file-transition functions (see Filetrans Function).

This version has one notable difference from traditional versions of wc: it always prints the counts in the order lines, words, and characters. Traditional versions note the order of the -l, -w, and -c options on the command line, and print the counts in that order.

The `BEGIN` rule does the argument processing. The variable `print_total` is true if more than one file is named on the command line:

         # wc.awk --- count lines, words, characters

         # Options:
         #    -l    only count lines
         #    -w    only count words
         #    -c    only count characters
         #
         # Default is to count lines, words, characters
         #
         # Requires getopt and file transition library functions

         BEGIN {
             # let getopt print a message about
             # invalid options. we ignore them
             while ((c = getopt(ARGC, ARGV, "lwc")) != -1) {
                 if (c == "l")
                     do_lines = 1
                 else if (c == "w")
                     do_words = 1
                 else if (c == "c")
                     do_chars = 1
             }
             for (i = 1; i < Optind; i++)
                 ARGV[i] = ""

             # if no options, do all
             if (! do_lines && ! do_words && ! do_chars)
                 do_lines = do_words = do_chars = 1

             print_total = (ARGC - i > 2)
         }

The `beginfile` function is simple; it just resets the counts of lines, words, and characters to zero, and saves the current file name in `fname`:

         function beginfile(file)
         {
             chars = lines = words = 0
             fname = FILENAME
         }

The `endfile` function adds the current file's numbers to the running totals of lines, words, and characters.62 It then prints out those numbers for the file that was just read. It relies on `beginfile` to reset the numbers for the following data file:

         function endfile(file)
         {
             tchars += chars
             tlines += lines
             twords += words
             if (do_lines)
                 printf "\t%d", lines
             if (do_words)
                 printf "\t%d", words
             if (do_chars)
                 printf "\t%d", chars
             printf "\t%s\n", fname
         }

There is one rule that is executed for each line. It adds the length of the record, plus one, to `chars`. Adding one plus the record length is needed because the newline character separating records (the value of `RS`) is not part of the record itself, and thus not included in its length. Next, `lines` is incremented for each line read, and `words` is incremented by the value of `NF`, which is the number of “words” on this line:

         # do per line
         {
             chars += length($0) + 1    # get newline
             lines++
             words += NF
         }

Finally, the `END` rule simply prints the totals for all the files:

         END {
             if (print_total) {
                 if (do_lines)
                     printf "\t%d", tlines
                 if (do_words)
                     printf "\t%d", twords
                 if (do_chars)
                     printf "\t%d", tchars
                 print "\ttotal"
             }
         }

Previous: Clones, Up: Sample Programs

### 13.3 A Grab Bag of awk Programs

This section is a large “grab bag” of miscellaneous programs. We hope you find them both interesting and enjoyable.

Next: Alarm Program, Up: Miscellaneous Programs

#### 13.3.1 Finding Duplicated Words in a Document

A common error when writing large amounts of prose is to accidentally duplicate words. Typically you will see this in text as something like “the the program does the following...” When the text is online, often the duplicated words occur at the end of one line and the beginning of another, making them very difficult to spot.

This program, dupword.awk, scans through a file one line at a time and looks for adjacent occurrences of the same word. It also saves the last word on a line (in the variable `prev`) for comparison with the first word on the next line.

The first two statements make sure that the line is all lowercase, so that, for example, “The” and “the” compare equal to each other. The next statement replaces nonalphanumeric and nonwhitespace characters with spaces, so that punctuation does not affect the comparison either. The characters are replaced with spaces so that formatting controls don't create nonsense words (e.g., the Texinfo @code{NF} becomes codeNF if punctuation is simply deleted). The record is then resplit into fields, yielding just the actual words on the line, and ensuring that there are no empty fields.

If there are no fields left after removing all the punctuation, the current record is skipped. Otherwise, the program loops through each word, comparing it to the previous one:

         # dupword.awk --- find duplicate words in text

         {
             $0 = tolower($0)
             gsub(/[^[:alnum:][:blank:]]/, " ");
             $0 = $0         # re-split
             if (NF == 0)
                 next
             if ($1 == prev)
                 printf("%s:%d: duplicate %s\n",
                     FILENAME, FNR, $1)
             for (i = 2; i <= NF; i++)
                 if ($i == $(i-1))
                     printf("%s:%d: duplicate %s\n",
                         FILENAME, FNR, $i)
             prev = $NF
         }

Next: Translate Program, Previous: Dupword Program, Up: Miscellaneous Programs

#### 13.3.2 An Alarm Clock Program

> Nothing cures insomnia like a ringing alarm clock.
> Arnold Robbins

The following program is a simple “alarm clock” program. You give it a time of day and an optional message. At the specified time, it prints the message on the standard output. In addition, you can give it the number of times to repeat the message as well as a delay between repetitions.

This program uses the `gettimeofday` function from Gettimeofday Function.

All the work is done in the `BEGIN` rule. The first part is argument checking and setting of defaults: the delay, the count, and the message to print. If the user supplied a message without the ASCII BEL character (known as the “alert” character, `"\a"`), then it is added to the message. (On many systems, printing the ASCII BEL generates an audible alert. Thus when the alarm goes off, the system calls attention to itself in case the user is not looking at the computer or terminal.) Here is the program:

         # alarm.awk --- set an alarm
         #
         # Requires gettimeofday library function

         # usage: alarm time [ "message" [ count [ delay ] ] ]

         BEGIN    \
         {
             # Initial argument sanity checking
             usage1 = "usage: alarm time ['message' [count [delay]]]"
             usage2 = sprintf("\t(%s) time ::= hh:mm", ARGV[1])

             if (ARGC < 2) {
                 print usage1 > "/dev/stderr"
                 print usage2 > "/dev/stderr"
                 exit 1
             } else if (ARGC == 5) {
                 delay = ARGV[4] + 0
                 count = ARGV[3] + 0
                 message = ARGV[2]
             } else if (ARGC == 4) {
                 count = ARGV[3] + 0
                 message = ARGV[2]
             } else if (ARGC == 3) {
                 message = ARGV[2]
             } else if (ARGV[1] !~ /[0-9]?[0-9]:[0-9][0-9]/) {
                 print usage1 > "/dev/stderr"
                 print usage2 > "/dev/stderr"
                 exit 1
             }

             # set defaults for once we reach the desired time
             if (delay == 0)
                 delay = 180    # 3 minutes
             if (count == 0)
                 count = 5
             if (message == "")
                 message = sprintf("\aIt is now %s!\a", ARGV[1])
             else if (index(message, "\a") == 0)
                 message = "\a" message "\a"

The next section of code turns the alarm time into hours and minutes, converts it (if necessary) to a 24-hour clock, and then turns that time into a count of the seconds since midnight. Next it turns the current time into a count of seconds since midnight. The difference between the two is how long to wait before setting off the alarm:

             # split up alarm time
             split(ARGV[1], atime, ":")
             hour = atime[1] + 0    # force numeric
             minute = atime[2] + 0  # force numeric

             # get current broken down time
             gettimeofday(now)

             # if time given is 12-hour hours and it's after that
             # hour, e.g., `alarm 5:30' at 9 a.m. means 5:30 p.m.,
             # then add 12 to real hour
             if (hour < 12 && now["hour"] > hour)
                 hour += 12

             # set target time in seconds since midnight
             target = (hour * 60 * 60) + (minute * 60)

             # get current time in seconds since midnight
             current = (now["hour"] * 60 * 60) + \
                        (now["minute"] * 60) + now["second"]

             # how long to sleep for
             naptime = target - current
             if (naptime <= 0) {
                 print "time is in the past!" > "/dev/stderr"
                 exit 1
             }

Finally, the program uses the `system` function (see I/O Functions) to call the sleep utility. The sleep utility simply pauses for the given number of seconds. If the exit status is not zero, the program assumes that sleep was interrupted and exits. If sleep exited with an OK status (zero), then the program prints the message in a loop, again using sleep to delay for however many seconds are necessary:

             # zzzzzz..... go away if interrupted
             if (system(sprintf("sleep %d", naptime)) != 0)
                 exit 1

             # time to notify!
             command = sprintf("sleep %d", delay)
             for (i = 1; i <= count; i++) {
                 print message
                 # if sleep command interrupted, go away
                 if (system(command) != 0)
                     break
             }

             exit 0
         }

Next: Labels Program, Previous: Alarm Program, Up: Miscellaneous Programs

#### 13.3.3 Transliterating Characters

The system tr utility transliterates characters. For example, it is often used to map uppercase letters into lowercase for further processing:

         generate data | tr 'A-Z' 'a-z' | process data ...

tr requires two lists of characters.63 When processing the input, the first character in the first list is replaced with the first character in the second list, the second character in the first list is replaced with the second character in the second list, and so on. If there are more characters in the “from” list than in the “to” list, the last character of the “to” list is used for the remaining characters in the “from” list.

Some time ago, a user proposed that a transliteration function should be added to gawk. The following program was written to prove that character transliteration could be done with a user-level function. This program is not as complete as the system tr utility but it does most of the job.

The translate program demonstrates one of the few weaknesses of standard awk: dealing with individual characters is very painful, requiring repeated use of the `substr`, `index`, and `gsub` built-in functions (see String Functions).64 There are two functions. The first, `stranslate`, takes three arguments:

`from`
  A list of characters from which to translate.
`to`
  A list of characters to which to translate.
`target`
  The string on which to do the translation.

Associative arrays make the translation part fairly easy. `t_ar` holds the “to” characters, indexed by the “from” characters. Then a simple loop goes through `from`, one character at a time. For each character in `from`, if the character appears in `target`, `gsub` is used to change it to the corresponding `to` character.

The `translate` function simply calls `stranslate` using `$0` as the target. The main program sets two global variables, `FROM` and `TO`, from the command line, and then changes `ARGV` so that awk reads from the standard input.

Finally, the processing rule simply calls `translate` for each record:

         # translate.awk --- do tr-like stuff

         # Bugs: does not handle things like: tr A-Z a-z, it has
         # to be spelled out. However, if `to' is shorter than `from',
         # the last character in `to' is used for the rest of `from'.

         function stranslate(from, to, target,     lf, lt, t_ar, i, c)
         {
             lf = length(from)
             lt = length(to)
             for (i = 1; i <= lt; i++)
                 t_ar[substr(from, i, 1)] = substr(to, i, 1)
             if (lt < lf)
                 for (; i <= lf; i++)
                     t_ar[substr(from, i, 1)] = substr(to, lt, 1)
             for (i = 1; i <= lf; i++) {
                 c = substr(from, i, 1)
                 if (index(target, c) > 0)
                     gsub(c, t_ar[c], target)
             }
             return target
         }

         function translate(from, to)
         {
             return $0 = stranslate(from, to, $0)
         }

         # main program
         BEGIN {
             if (ARGC < 3) {
                 print "usage: translate from to" > "/dev/stderr"
                 exit
             }
             FROM = ARGV[1]
             TO = ARGV[2]
             ARGC = 2
             ARGV[1] = "-"
         }

         {
             translate(FROM, TO)
             print
         }

While it is possible to do character transliteration in a user-level function, it is not necessarily efficient, and we (the gawk authors) started to consider adding a built-in function. However, shortly after writing this program, we learned that the System V Release 4 awk had added the `toupper` and `tolower` functions (see String Functions). These functions handle the vast majority of the cases where character transliteration is necessary, and so we chose to simply add those functions to gawk as well and then leave well enough alone.

An obvious improvement to this program would be to set up the `t_ar` array only once, in a `BEGIN` rule. However, this assumes that the “from” and “to” lists will never change throughout the lifetime of the program.

Next: Word Sorting, Previous: Translate Program, Up: Miscellaneous Programs

#### 13.3.4 Printing Mailing Labels

Here is a “real world”65 program. This script reads lists of names and addresses and generates mailing labels. Each page of labels has 20 labels on it, 2 across and 10 down. The addresses are guaranteed to be no more than 5 lines of data. Each address is separated from the next by a blank line.

The basic idea is to read 20 labels worth of data. Each line of each label is stored in the `line` array. The single rule takes care of filling the `line` array and printing the page when 20 labels have been read.

The `BEGIN` rule simply sets `RS` to the empty string, so that awk splits records at blank lines (see Records). It sets `MAXLINES` to 100, since 100 is the maximum number of lines on the page (20 * 5 = 100).

Most of the work is done in the `printpage` function. The label lines are stored sequentially in the `line` array. But they have to print horizontally; `line[1]` next to `line[6]`, `line[2]` next to `line[7]`, and so on. Two loops are used to accomplish this. The outer loop, controlled by `i`, steps through every 10 lines of data; this is each row of labels. The inner loop, controlled by `j`, goes through the lines within the row. As `j` goes from 0 to 4, i+j is the `j`-th line in the row, and i+j+5 is the entry next to it. The output ends up looking something like this:

         line 1          line 6
         line 2          line 7
         line 3          line 8
         line 4          line 9
         line 5          line 10
         ...

As a final note, an extra blank line is printed at lines 21 and 61, to keep the output lined up on the labels. This is dependent on the particular brand of labels in use when the program was written. You will also note that there are 2 blank lines at the top and 2 blank lines at the bottom.

The `END` rule arranges to flush the final page of labels; there may not have been an even multiple of 20 labels in the data:

         # labels.awk --- print mailing labels

         # Each label is 5 lines of data that may have blank lines.
         # The label sheets have 2 blank lines at the top and 2 at
         # the bottom.

         BEGIN    { RS = "" ; MAXLINES = 100 }

         function printpage(    i, j)
         {
             if (Nlines <= 0)
                 return

             printf "\n\n"        # header

             for (i = 1; i <= Nlines; i += 10) {
                 if (i == 21 || i == 61)
                     print ""
                 for (j = 0; j < 5; j++) {
                     if (i + j > MAXLINES)
                         break
                     printf "   %-41s %s\n", line[i+j], line[i+j+5]
                 }
                 print ""
             }

             printf "\n\n"        # footer

             for (i in line)
                 line[i] = ""
         }

         # main rule
         {
             if (Count >= 20) {
                 printpage()
                 Count = 0
                 Nlines = 0
             }
             n = split($0, a, "\n")
             for (i = 1; i <= n; i++)
                 line[++Nlines] = a[i]
             for (; i <= 5; i++)
                 line[++Nlines] = ""
             Count++
         }

         END    \
         {
             printpage()
         }

Next: History Sorting, Previous: Labels Program, Up: Miscellaneous Programs

#### 13.3.5 Generating Word-Usage Counts

The following awk program prints the number of occurrences of each word in its input. It illustrates the associative nature of awk arrays by using strings as subscripts. It also demonstrates the for index in array mechanism. Finally, it shows how awk is used in conjunction with other utility programs to do a useful task of some complexity with a minimum of effort. Some explanations follow the program listing:

         # Print list of word frequencies
         {
             for (i = 1; i <= NF; i++)
                 freq[$i]++
         }

         END {
             for (word in freq)
                 printf "%s\t%d\n", word, freq[word]
         }

This program has two rules. The first rule, because it has an empty pattern, is executed for every input line. It uses awk's field-accessing mechanism (see Fields) to pick out the individual words from the line, and the built-in variable `NF` (see Built-in Variables) to know how many fields are available. For each input word, it increments an element of the array `freq` to reflect that the word has been seen an additional time.

The second rule, because it has the pattern `END`, is not executed until the input has been exhausted. It prints out the contents of the `freq` table that has been built up inside the first action. This program has several problems that would prevent it from being useful by itself on real text files:

- Words are detected using the awk convention that fields are separated just by whitespace. Other characters in the input (except newlines) don't have any special meaning to awk. This means that punctuation characters count as part of words.
- The awk language considers upper- and lowercase characters to be distinct. Therefore, “bartender” and “Bartender” are not treated as the same word. This is undesirable, since in normal text, words are capitalized if they begin sentences, and a frequency analyzer should not be sensitive to capitalization.
- The output does not come out in any useful order. You're more likely to be interested in which words occur most frequently or in having an alphabetized table of how frequently each word occurs.

The way to solve these problems is to use some of awk's more advanced features. First, we use `tolower` to remove case distinctions. Next, we use `gsub` to remove punctuation characters. Finally, we use the system sort utility to process the output of the awk script. Here is the new version of the program:

         # wordfreq.awk --- print list of word frequencies

         {
             $0 = tolower($0)    # remove case distinctions
             # remove punctuation
             gsub(/[^[:alnum:]_[:blank:]]/, "", $0)
             for (i = 1; i <= NF; i++)
                 freq[$i]++
         }

         END {
             for (word in freq)
                 printf "%s\t%d\n", word, freq[word]
         }

Assuming we have saved this program in a file named wordfreq.awk, and that the data is in file1, the following pipeline:

         awk -f wordfreq.awk file1 | sort -k 2nr

produces a table of the words appearing in file1 in order of decreasing frequency. The awk program suitably massages the data and produces a word frequency table, which is not ordered.

The awk script's output is then sorted by the sort utility and printed on the terminal. The options given to sort specify a sort that uses the second field of each input line (skipping one field), that the sort keys should be treated as numeric quantities (otherwise 15 would come before 5), and that the sorting should be done in descending (reverse) order.

The sort could even be done from within the program, by changing the `END` action to:

         END {
             sort = "sort -k 2nr"
             for (word in freq)
                 printf "%s\t%d\n", word, freq[word] | sort
             close(sort)
         }

This way of sorting must be used on systems that do not have true pipes at the command-line (or batch-file) level. See the general operating system documentation for more information on how to use the sort program.

Next: Extract Program, Previous: Word Sorting, Up: Miscellaneous Programs

#### 13.3.6 Removing Duplicates from Unsorted Text

The uniq program (see Uniq Program), removes duplicate lines from sorted data.

Suppose, however, you need to remove duplicate lines from a data file but that you want to preserve the order the lines are in. A good example of this might be a shell history file. The history file keeps a copy of all the commands you have entered, and it is not unusual to repeat a command several times in a row. Occasionally you might want to compact the history by removing duplicate entries. Yet it is desirable to maintain the order of the original commands.

This simple program does the job. It uses two arrays. The `data` array is indexed by the text of each line. For each line, `data[$0]` is incremented. If a particular line has not been seen before, then `data[$0]` is zero. In this case, the text of the line is stored in `lines[count]`. Each element of `lines` is a unique command, and the indices of `lines` indicate the order in which those lines are encountered. The `END` rule simply prints out the lines, in order:

         # histsort.awk --- compact a shell history file
         # Thanks to Byron Rakitzis for the general idea

         {
             if (data[$0]++ == 0)
                 lines[++count] = $0
         }

         END {
             for (i = 1; i <= count; i++)
                 print lines[i]
         }

This program also provides a foundation for generating other useful information. For example, using the following `print` statement in the `END` rule indicates how often a particular command is used:

         print data[lines[i]], lines[i]

This works because `data[$0]` is incremented each time a line is seen.

Next: Simple Sed, Previous: History Sorting, Up: Miscellaneous Programs

#### 13.3.7 Extracting Programs from Texinfo Source Files

Both this chapter and the previous chapter (Library Functions) present a large number of awk programs. If you want to experiment with these programs, it is tedious to have to type them in by hand. Here we present a program that can extract parts of a Texinfo input file into separate files.

This Web page is written in Texinfo, the GNU project's document formatting language. A single Texinfo source file can be used to produce both printed and online documentation. Texinfo is fully documented in the book Texinfo—The GNU Documentation Format, available from the Free Software Foundation.

For our purposes, it is enough to know three things about Texinfo input files:

- The “at” symbol (@) is special in Texinfo, much as the backslash (\) is in C or awk. Literal @ symbols are represented in Texinfo source files as @@.
- Comments start with either @c or @comment. The file-extraction program works by using special comments that start at the beginning of a line.
- Lines containing @group and @end group commands bracket example text that should not be split across a page boundary. (Unfortunately, TeX isn't always smart enough to do things exactly right, and we have to give it some help.)

The following program, extract.awk, reads through a Texinfo source file and does two things, based on the special comments. Upon seeing @c system ..., it runs a command, by extracting the command text from the control line and passing it on to the `system` function (see I/O Functions). Upon seeing @c file filename, each subsequent line is sent to the file filename, until @c endfile is encountered. The rules in extract.awk match either @c or @comment by letting the omment part be optional. Lines containing @group and @end group are simply removed. extract.awk uses the `join` library function (see Join Function).

The example programs in the online Texinfo source for GAWK: Effective AWK Programming (gawk.texi) have all been bracketed inside file and endfile lines. The gawk distribution uses a copy of extract.awk to extract the sample programs and install many of them in a standard directory where gawk can find them. The Texinfo file looks something like this:

         ...
         This program has a @code{BEGIN} rule,
         that prints a nice message:

         @example
         @c file examples/messages.awk
         BEGIN @{ print "Don't panic!" @}
         @c end file
         @end example

         It also prints some final advice:

         @example
         @c file examples/messages.awk
         END @{ print "Always avoid bored archeologists!" @}
         @c end file
         @end example
         ...

extract.awk begins by setting `IGNORECASE` to one, so that mixed upper- and lowercase letters in the directives won't matter.

The first rule handles calling `system`, checking that a command is given (`NF` is at least three) and also checking that the command exits with a zero exit status, signifying OK:

         # extract.awk --- extract files and run programs
         #                 from texinfo files

         BEGIN    { IGNORECASE = 1 }

         /^@c(omment)?[ \t]+system/    \
         {
             if (NF < 3) {
                 e = (FILENAME ":" FNR)
                 e = (e  ": badly formed `system' line")
                 print e > "/dev/stderr"
                 next
             }
             $1 = ""
             $2 = ""
             stat = system($0)
             if (stat != 0) {
                 e = (FILENAME ":" FNR)
                 e = (e ": warning: system returned " stat)
                 print e > "/dev/stderr"
             }
         }

The variable `e` is used so that the function fits nicely on the page. screen.

The second rule handles moving data into files. It verifies that a file name is given in the directive. If the file named is not the current file, then the current file is closed. Keeping the current file open until a new file is encountered allows the use of the > redirection for printing the contents, keeping open file management simple.

The for loop does the work. It reads lines using `getline` (see Getline). For an unexpected end of file, it calls the `unexpected_eof` function. If the line is an “endfile” line, then it breaks out of the loop. If the line is an @group or @end group line, then it ignores it and goes on to the next line. Similarly, comments within examples are also ignored.

Most of the work is in the following few lines. If the line has no @ symbols, the program can print it directly. Otherwise, each leading @ must be stripped off. To remove the @ symbols, the line is split into separate elements of the array `a`, using the `split` function (see String Functions). The @ symbol is used as the separator character. Each element of `a` that is empty indicates two successive @ symbols in the original line. For each two empty elements (@@ in the original file), we have to add a single @ symbol back in.

When the processing of the array is finished, `join` is called with the value of `SUBSEP`, to rejoin the pieces back into a single line. That line is then printed to the output file:

         /^@c(omment)?[ \t]+file/    \
         {
             if (NF != 3) {
                 e = (FILENAME ":" FNR ": badly formed `file' line")
                 print e > "/dev/stderr"
                 next
             }
             if ($3 != curfile) {
                 if (curfile != "")
                     close(curfile)
                 curfile = $3
             }

             for (;;) {
                 if ((getline line) <= 0)
                     unexpected_eof()
                 if (line ~ /^@c(omment)?[ \t]+endfile/)
                     break
                 else if (line ~ /^@(end[ \t]+)?group/)
                     continue
                 else if (line ~ /^@c(omment+)?[ \t]+/)
                     continue
                 if (index(line, "@") == 0) {
                     print line > curfile
                     continue
                 }
                 n = split(line, a, "@")
                 # if a[1] == "", means leading @,
                 # don't add one back in.
                 for (i = 2; i <= n; i++) {
                     if (a[i] == "") { # was an @@
                         a[i] = "@"
                         if (a[i+1] == "")
                             i++
                     }
                 }
                 print join(a, 1, n, SUBSEP) > curfile
             }
         }

An important thing to note is the use of the > redirection. Output done with > only opens the file once; it stays open and subsequent output is appended to the file (see Redirection). This makes it easy to mix program text and explanatory prose for the same sample source file (as has been done here!) without any hassle. The file is only closed when a new data file name is encountered or at the end of the input file.

Finally, the function `unexpected_eof` prints an appropriate error message and then exits. The `END` rule handles the final cleanup, closing the open file:

         function unexpected_eof() {
             printf("%s:%d: unexpected EOF or error\n",
                 FILENAME, FNR) > "/dev/stderr"
             exit 1
         }

         END {
             if (curfile)
                 close(curfile)
         }

Next: Igawk Program, Previous: Extract Program, Up: Miscellaneous Programs

#### 13.3.8 A Simple Stream Editor

The sed utility is a stream editor, a program that reads a stream of data, makes changes to it, and passes it on. It is often used to make global changes to a large file or to a stream of data generated by a pipeline of commands. While sed is a complicated program in its own right, its most common use is to perform global substitutions in the middle of a pipeline:

         command1 < orig.data | sed 's/old/new/g' | command2 > result

Here, s/old/new/g tells sed to look for the regexp old on each input line and globally replace it with the text new, i.e., all the occurrences on a line. This is similar to awk's `gsub` function (see String Functions).

The following program, awksed.awk, accepts at least two command-line arguments: the pattern to look for and the text to replace it with. Any additional arguments are treated as data file names to process. If none are provided, the standard input is used:

         # awksed.awk --- do s/foo/bar/g using just print
         #    Thanks to Michael Brennan for the idea

         function usage()
         {
             print "usage: awksed pat repl [files...]" > "/dev/stderr"
             exit 1
         }

         BEGIN {
             # validate arguments
             if (ARGC < 3)
                 usage()

             RS = ARGV[1]
             ORS = ARGV[2]

             # don't use arguments as files
             ARGV[1] = ARGV[2] = ""
         }

         # look ma, no hands!
         {
             if (RT == "")
                 printf "%s", $0
             else
                 print
         }

The program relies on gawk's ability to have `RS` be a regexp, as well as on the setting of `RT` to the actual text that terminates the record (see Records).

The idea is to have `RS` be the pattern to look for. gawk automatically sets `$0` to the text between matches of the pattern. This is text that we want to keep, unmodified. Then, by setting `ORS` to the replacement text, a simple `print` statement outputs the text we want to keep, followed by the replacement text.

There is one wrinkle to this scheme, which is what to do if the last record doesn't end with text that matches `RS`. Using a `print` statement unconditionally prints the replacement text, which is not correct. However, if the file did not end in text that matches `RS`, `RT` is set to the null string. In this case, we can print `$0` using `printf` (see Printf).

The `BEGIN` rule handles the setup, checking for the right number of arguments and calling `usage` if there is a problem. Then it sets `RS` and `ORS` from the command-line arguments and sets `ARGV[1]` and `ARGV[2]` to the null string, so that they are not treated as file names (see ARGC and ARGV).

The `usage` function prints an error message and exits. Finally, the single rule handles the printing scheme outlined above, using `print` or `printf` as appropriate, depending upon the value of `RT`.

Previous: Simple Sed, Up: Miscellaneous Programs

#### 13.3.9 An Easy Way to Use Library Functions

Using library functions in awk can be very beneficial. It encourages code reuse and the writing of general functions. Programs are smaller and therefore clearer. However, using library functions is only easy when writing awk programs; it is painful when running them, requiring multiple -f options. If gawk is unavailable, then so too is the AWKPATH environment variable and the ability to put awk functions into a library directory (see Options). It would be nice to be able to write programs in the following manner:

         # library functions
         @include getopt.awk
         @include join.awk
         ...

         # main program
         BEGIN {
             while ((c = getopt(ARGC, ARGV, "a:b:cde")) != -1)
                 ...
             ...
         }

The following program, igawk.sh, provides this service. It simulates gawk's searching of the AWKPATH variable and also allows nested includes; i.e., a file that is included with @include can contain further @include statements. igawk makes an effort to only include files once, so that nested includes don't accidentally include a library function twice.

igawk should behave just like gawk externally. This means it should accept all of gawk's command-line arguments, including the ability to have multiple source files specified via -f, and the ability to mix command-line and library source files.

The program is written using the POSIX Shell (sh) command language.66 It works as follows:

1. Loop through the arguments, saving anything that doesn't represent awk source code for later, when the expanded program is run.
2. For any arguments that do represent awk text, put the arguments into a shell variable that will be expanded. There are two cases:
   1. Literal text, provided with --source or --source=. This text is just appended directly.
   2. Source file names, provided with -f. We use a neat trick and append @include filename to the shell variable's contents. Since the file-inclusion program works the way gawk does, this gets the text of the file included into the program at the correct point.
3. Run an awk program (naturally) over the shell variable's contents to expand @include statements. The expanded program is placed in a second shell variable.
4. Run the expanded program with gawk and any other original command-line arguments that the user supplied (such as the data file names).

This program uses shell variables extensively; for storing command line arguments, the text of the awk program that will expand the user's program, for the user's original program, and for the expanded program. Doing so removes some potential problems that might arise were we to use temporary files instead, at the cost of making the script somewhat more complicated.

The initial part of the program turns on shell tracing if the first argument is debug.

The next part loops through all the command-line arguments. There are several cases of interest:

`--`
  This ends the arguments to igawk. Anything else should be passed on to the user's awk program without being evaluated.
`-W`
  This indicates that the next option is specific to gawk. To make argument processing easier, the -W is appended to the front of the remaining arguments and the loop continues. (This is an sh programming trick. Don't worry about it if you are not familiar with sh.)
`-v`,`-F`
  These are saved and passed on to gawk.
`-f`,`--file`,`--file=`,`-Wfile=`
  The file name is appended to the shell variable `program` with an @include statement. The expr utility is used to remove the leading option part of the argument (e.g., --file=). (Typical sh usage would be to use the echo and sed utilities to do this work. Unfortunately, some versions of echo evaluate escape sequences in their arguments, possibly mangling the program text. Using expr avoids this problem.)
`--source`,`--source=`,`-Wsource=`
  The source text is appended to `program`.
`--version`,`-Wversion`
  igawk prints its version number, runs gawk --version to get the gawk version information, and then exits.

If none of the -f, --file, -Wfile, --source, or -Wsource arguments are supplied, then the first nonoption argument should be the awk program. If there are no command-line arguments left, igawk prints an error message and exits. Otherwise, the first argument is appended to `program`. In any case, after the arguments have been processed, `program` contains the complete text of the original awk program.

The program is as follows:

         #! /bin/sh
         # igawk --- like gawk but do @include processing

         if [ "$1" = debug ]
         then
             set -x
             shift
         fi

         # A literal newline, so that program text is formmatted correctly
         n='
         '

         # Initialize variables to empty
         program=
         opts=

         while [ $# -ne 0 ] # loop over arguments
         do
             case $1 in
             --)     shift; break;;

             -W)     shift
                     # The ${x?'message here'} construct prints a
                     # diagnostic if $x is the null string
                     set -- -W"${@?'missing operand'}"
                     continue;;

             -[vF])  opts="$opts $1 '${2?'missing operand'}'"
                     shift;;

             -[vF]*) opts="$opts '$1'" ;;

             -f)     program="$program$n@include ${2?'missing operand'}"
                     shift;;

             -f*)    f=`expr "$1" : '-f\(.*\)'`
                     program="$program$n@include $f";;

             -[W-]file=*)
                     f=`expr "$1" : '-.file=\(.*\)'`
                     program="$program$n@include $f";;

             -[W-]file)
                     program="$program$n@include ${2?'missing operand'}"
                     shift;;

             -[W-]source=*)
                     t=`expr "$1" : '-.source=\(.*\)'`
                     program="$program$n$t";;

             -[W-]source)
                     program="$program$n${2?'missing operand'}"
                     shift;;

             -[W-]version)
                     echo igawk: version 2.0 1>&2
                     gawk --version
                     exit 0 ;;

             -[W-]*) opts="$opts '$1'" ;;

             *)      break;;
             esac
             shift
         done

         if [ -z "$program" ]
         then
              program=${1?'missing program'}
              shift
         fi

         # At this point, `program' has the program.

The awk program to process @include directives is stored in the shell variable `expand_prog`. Doing this keeps the shell script readable. The awk program reads through the user's program, one line at a time, using `getline` (see Getline). The input file names and @include statements are managed using a stack. As each @include is encountered, the current file name is “pushed” onto the stack and the file named in the @include directive becomes the current file name. As each file is finished, the stack is “popped,” and the previous input file becomes the current input file again. The process is started by making the original file the first one on the stack.

The `pathto` function does the work of finding the full path to a file. It simulates gawk's behavior when searching the AWKPATH environment variable (see AWKPATH Variable). If a file name has a / in it, no path search is done. Otherwise, the file name is concatenated with the name of each directory in the path, and an attempt is made to open the generated file name. The only way to test if a file can be read in awk is to go ahead and try to read it with `getline`; this is what `pathto` does.67 If the file can be read, it is closed and the file name is returned:

         expand_prog='

         function pathto(file,    i, t, junk)
         {
             if (index(file, "/") != 0)
                 return file

             for (i = 1; i <= ndirs; i++) {
                 t = (pathlist[i] "/" file)
                 if ((getline junk < t) > 0) {
                     # found it
                     close(t)
                     return t
                 }
             }
             return ""
         }

The main program is contained inside one `BEGIN` rule. The first thing it does is set up the `pathlist` array that `pathto` uses. After splitting the path on :, null elements are replaced with `"."`, which represents the current directory:

         BEGIN {
             path = ENVIRON["AWKPATH"]
             ndirs = split(path, pathlist, ":")
             for (i = 1; i <= ndirs; i++) {
                 if (pathlist[i] == "")
                     pathlist[i] = "."
             }

The stack is initialized with `ARGV[1]`, which will be /dev/stdin. The main loop comes next. Input lines are read in succession. Lines that do not start with @include are printed verbatim. If the line does start with @include, the file name is in `$2`. `pathto` is called to generate the full path. If it cannot, then we print an error message and continue.

The next thing to check is if the file is included already. The `processed` array is indexed by the full file name of each included file and it tracks this information for us. If the file is seen again, a warning message is printed. Otherwise, the new file name is pushed onto the stack and processing continues.

Finally, when `getline` encounters the end of the input file, the file is closed and the stack is popped. When `stackptr` is less than zero, the program is done:

             stackptr = 0
             input[stackptr] = ARGV[1] # ARGV[1] is first file

             for (; stackptr >= 0; stackptr--) {
                 while ((getline < input[stackptr]) > 0) {
                     if (tolower($1) != "@include") {
                         print
                         continue
                     }
                     fpath = pathto($2)
                     if (fpath == "") {
                         printf("igawk:%s:%d: cannot find %s\n",
                             input[stackptr], FNR, $2) > "/dev/stderr"
                         continue
                     }
                     if (! (fpath in processed)) {
                         processed[fpath] = input[stackptr]
                         input[++stackptr] = fpath  # push onto stack
                     } else
                         print $2, "included in", input[stackptr],
                             "already included in",
                             processed[fpath] > "/dev/stderr"
                 }
                 close(input[stackptr])
             }
         }'  # close quote ends `expand_prog' variable

         processed_program=`gawk -- "$expand_prog" /dev/stdin <<EOF
         $program
         EOF
         `

The shell construct command << marker is called a here document. Everything in the shell script up to the marker is fed to command as input. The shell processes the contents of the here document for variable and command substitution (and possibly other things as well, depending upon the shell).

The shell construct `...` is called command substitution. The output of the command between the two backquotes (grave accents) is substituted into the command line. It is saved as a single string, even if the results contain whitespace.

The expanded program is saved in the variable `processed_program`. It's done in these steps:

1. Run gawk with the @include-processing program (the value of the `expand_prog` shell variable) on standard input.
2. Standard input is the contents of the user's program, from the shell variable `program`. Its contents are fed to gawk via a here document.
3. The results of this processing are saved in the shell variable `processed_program` by using command substitution.

The last step is to call gawk with the expanded program, along with the original options and command-line arguments that the user supplied.

         eval gawk $opts -- '"$processed_program"' '"$@"'

The eval command is a shell construct that reruns the shell's parsing process. This keeps things properly quoted.

This version of igawk represents my fourth attempt at this program. There are four key simplifications that make the program work better:

- Using @include even for the files named with -f makes building the initial collected awk program much simpler; all the @include processing can be done once.
- Not trying to save the line read with `getline` in the `pathto` function when testing for the file's accessibility for use with the main program simplifies things considerably.
- Using a `getline` loop in the `BEGIN` rule does it all in one place. It is not necessary to call out to a separate loop for processing nested @include statements.
- Instead of saving the expanded program in a temporary file, putting it in a shell variable avoids some potential security problems. This has the disadvantage that the script relies upon more features of the sh language, making it harder to follow for those who aren't familiar with sh.

Also, this program illustrates that it is often worthwhile to combine sh and awk programming together. You can usually accomplish quite a lot, without having to resort to low-level programming in C or C++, and it is frequently easier to do certain kinds of string and argument manipulation using the shell than it is in awk.

Finally, igawk shows that it is not always necessary to add new features to a program; they can often be layered on top. With igawk, there is no real reason to build @include processing into gawk itself.

As an additional example of this, consider the idea of having two files in a directory in the search path:

default.awk
  This file contains a set of default library functions, such as `getopt` and `assert`.
site.awk
  This file contains library functions that are specific to a site or installation; i.e., locally developed functions. Having a separate file allows default.awk to change with new gawk releases, without requiring the system administrator to update it each time by adding the local functions.

One user suggested that gawk be modified to automatically read these files upon startup. Instead, it would be very simple to modify igawk to do this. Since igawk can process nested @include directives, default.awk could simply contain @include statements for the desired library functions.

Next: Installation, Previous: Sample Programs, Up: Top

## Appendix A The Evolution of the awk Language

This Web page describes the GNU implementation of awk, which follows the POSIX specification. Many long-time awk users learned awk programming with the original awk implementation in Version 7 Unix. (This implementation was the basis for awk in Berkeley Unix, through 4.3-Reno. Subsequent versions of Berkeley Unix, and systems derived from 4.4BSD-Lite, use various versions of gawk for their awk.) This chapter briefly describes the evolution of the awk language, with cross-references to other parts of the Web page where you can find more information.

Next: SVR4, Up: Language History

### A.1 Major Changes Between V7 and SVR3.1

The awk language evolved considerably between the release of Version 7 Unix (1978) and the new version that was first made generally available in System V Release 3.1 (1987). This section summarizes the changes, with cross-references to further details:

- The requirement for ; to separate rules on a line (see Statements/Lines).
- User-defined functions and the `return` statement (see User-defined).
- The `delete` statement (see Delete).
- The `do`-`while` statement (see Do Statement).
- The built-in functions `atan2`, `cos`, `sin`, `rand`, and `srand` (see Numeric Functions).
- The built-in functions `gsub`, `sub`, and `match` (see String Functions).
- The built-in functions `close` and `system` (see I/O Functions).
- The `ARGC`, `ARGV`, `FNR`, `RLENGTH`, `RSTART`, and `SUBSEP` built-in variables (see Built-in Variables).
- The conditional expression using the ternary operator ?: (see Conditional Exp).
- The exponentiation operator ^ (see Arithmetic Ops) and its assignment operator form ^= (see Assignment Ops).
- C-compatible operator precedence, which breaks some old awk programs (see Precedence).
- Regexps as the value of `FS` (see Field Separators) and as the third argument to the `split` function (see String Functions).
- Dynamic regexps as operands of the ~ and !~ operators (see Regexp Usage).
- The escape sequences \b, \f, and \r (see Escape Sequences). (Some vendors have updated their old versions of awk to recognize \b, \f, and \r, but this is not something you can rely on.)
- Redirection of input for the `getline` function (see Getline).
- Multiple `BEGIN` and `END` rules (see BEGIN/END).
- Multidimensional arrays (see Multi-dimensional).

Next: POSIX, Previous: V7/SVR3.1, Up: Language History

### A.2 Changes Between SVR3.1 and SVR4

The System V Release 4 (1989) version of Unix awk added these features (some of which originated in gawk):

- The `ENVIRON` variable (see Built-in Variables).
- Multiple -f options on the command line (see Options).
- The -v option for assigning variables before program execution begins (see Options).
- The -- option for terminating command-line options.
- The \a, \v, and \x escape sequences (see Escape Sequences).
- A defined return value for the `srand` built-in function (see Numeric Functions).
- The `toupper` and `tolower` built-in string functions for case translation (see String Functions).
- A cleaner specification for the %c format-control letter in the `printf` function (see Control Letters).
- The ability to dynamically pass the field width and precision (`"%*.*d"`) in the argument list of the `printf` function (see Control Letters).
- The use of regexp constants, such as `/foo/`, as expressions, where they are equivalent to using the matching operator, as in $0 ~ /foo/ (see Using Constant Regexps).
- Processing of escape sequences inside command-line variable assignments (see Assignment Options).

Next: BTL, Previous: SVR4, Up: Language History

### A.3 Changes Between SVR4 and POSIX awk

The POSIX Command Language and Utilities standard for awk (1992) introduced the following changes into the language:

- The use of -W for implementation-specific options (see Options).
- The use of `CONVFMT` for controlling the conversion of numbers to strings (see Conversion).
- The concept of a numeric string and tighter comparison rules to go with it (see Typing and Comparison).
- More complete documentation of many of the previously undocumented features of the language.

The following common extensions are not permitted by the POSIX standard:

- `\x` escape sequences are not recognized (see Escape Sequences).
- Newlines do not act as whitespace to separate fields when `FS` is equal to a single space (see Fields).
- Newlines are not allowed after ? or : (see Conditional Exp).
- The synonym `func` for the keyword `function` is not recognized (see Definition Syntax).
- The operators ** and **= cannot be used in place of ^ and ^= (see Arithmetic Ops, and Assignment Ops).
- Specifying -Ft on the command line does not set the value of `FS` to be a single TAB character (see Field Separators).
- The `fflush` built-in function is not supported (see I/O Functions).

Next: POSIX/GNU, Previous: POSIX, Up: Language History

### A.4 Extensions in the Bell Laboratories awk

Brian Kernighan, one of the original designers of Unix awk, has made his version available via his home page (see Other Versions). This section describes extensions in his version of awk that are not in POSIX awk:

- The -mf N and -mr N command-line options to set the maximum number of fields and the maximum record size, respectively (see Options). As a side note, his awk no longer needs these options; it continues to accept them to avoid breaking old programs.
- The `fflush` built-in function for flushing buffered output (see I/O Functions).
- The ** and **= operators (see Arithmetic Ops and Assignment Ops).
- The use of `func` as an abbreviation for `function` (see Definition Syntax).

The Bell Laboratories awk also incorporates the following extensions, originally developed for gawk:

- The \x escape sequence (see Escape Sequences).
- The /dev/stdin, /dev/stdout, and /dev/stderr special files (see Special Files).
- The ability for `FS` and for the third argument to `split` to be null strings (see Single Character Fields).
- The `nextfile` statement (see Nextfile Statement).
- The ability to delete all of an array at once with delete array (see Delete).

Next: Contributors, Previous: BTL, Up: Language History

### A.5 Extensions in gawk Not in POSIX awk

The GNU implementation, gawk, adds a large number of features. This section lists them in the order they were added to gawk. They can all be disabled with either the --traditional or --posix options (see Options).

Version 2.10 of gawk introduced the following features:

- The AWKPATH environment variable for specifying a path search for the -f command-line option (see Options).
- The `IGNORECASE` variable and its effects (see Case-sensitivity).
- The /dev/stdin, /dev/stdout, /dev/stderr and /dev/fd/N special file names (see Special Files).

Version 2.13 of gawk introduced the following features:

- The `FIELDWIDTHS` variable and its effects (see Constant Size).
- The `systime` and `strftime` built-in functions for obtaining and printing timestamps (see Time Functions).
- The -W lint option to provide error and portability checking for both the source code and at runtime (see Options).
- The -W compat option to turn off the GNU extensions (see Options).
- The -W posix option for full POSIX compliance (see Options).

Version 2.14 of gawk introduced the following feature:

- The `next file` statement for skipping to the next data file (see Nextfile Statement).

Version 2.15 of gawk introduced the following features:

- The `ARGIND` variable, which tracks the movement of `FILENAME` through `ARGV` (see Built-in Variables).
- The `ERRNO` variable, which contains the system error message when `getline` returns −1 or `close` fails (see Built-in Variables).
- The /dev/pid, /dev/ppid, /dev/pgrpid, and /dev/user file name interpretation (see Special Files).
- The ability to delete all of an array at once with delete array (see Delete).
- The ability to use GNU-style long-named options that start with -- (see Options).
- The --source option for mixing command-line and library-file source code (see Options).

Version 3.0 of gawk introduced the following features:

- `IGNORECASE` changed, now applying to string comparison as well as regexp operations (see Case-sensitivity).
- The `RT` variable that contains the input text that matched `RS` (see Records).
- Full support for both POSIX and GNU regexps (see Regexp).
- The `gensub` function for more powerful text manipulation (see String Functions).
- The `strftime` function acquired a default time format, allowing it to be called with no arguments (see Time Functions).
- The ability for `FS` and for the third argument to `split` to be null strings (see Single Character Fields).
- The ability for `RS` to be a regexp (see Records).
- The `next file` statement became `nextfile` (see Nextfile Statement).
- The --lint-old option to warn about constructs that are not available in the original Version 7 Unix version of awk (see V7/SVR3.1).
- The -m option and the `fflush` function from the Bell Laboratories research version of awk (see Options; also see I/O Functions).
- The --re-interval option to provide interval expressions in regexps (see Regexp Operators).
- The --traditional option was added as a better name for --compat (see Options).
- The use of GNU Autoconf to control the configuration process (see Quick Installation).
- Amiga support (see Amiga Installation).

Version 3.1 of gawk introduced the following features:

- The `BINMODE` special variable for non-POSIX systems, which allows binary I/O for input and/or output files (see PC Using).
- The `LINT` special variable, which dynamically controls lint warnings (see Built-in Variables).
- The `PROCINFO` array for providing process-related information (see Built-in Variables).
- The `TEXTDOMAIN` special variable for setting an application's internationalization text domain (see Built-in Variables, and Internationalization).
- The ability to use octal and hexadecimal constants in awk program source code (see Nondecimal-numbers).
- The |& operator for two-way I/O to a coprocess (see Two-way I/O).
- The /inet special files for TCP/IP networking using |& (see TCP/IP Networking).
- The optional second argument to `close` that allows closing one end of a two-way pipe to a coprocess (see Two-way I/O).
- The optional third argument to the `match` function for capturing text-matching subexpressions within a regexp (see String Functions).
- Positional specifiers in `printf` formats for making translations easier (see Printf Ordering).
- The `asort` and `asorti` functions for sorting arrays (see Array Sorting).
- The `bindtextdomain`, `dcgettext` and `dcngettext` functions for internationalization (see Programmer i18n).
- The `extension` built-in function and the ability to add new built-in functions dynamically (see Dynamic Extensions).
- The `mktime` built-in function for creating timestamps (see Time Functions).
- The `and`, `or`, `xor`, `compl`, `lshift`, `rshift`, and `strtonum` built-in functions (see Bitwise Functions).
- The support for next file as two words was removed completely (see Nextfile Statement).
- The --dump-variables option to print a list of all global variables (see Options).
- The --gen-po command-line option and the use of a leading underscore to mark strings that should be translated (see String Extraction).
- The --non-decimal-data option to allow non-decimal input data (see Nondecimal Data).
- The --profile option and pgawk, the profiling version of gawk, for producing execution profiles of awk programs (see Profiling).
- The --enable-portals configuration option to enable special treatment of pathnames that begin with /p as BSD portals (see Portal Files).
- The use of GNU Automake to help in standardizing the configuration process (see Quick Installation).
- The use of GNU `gettext` for gawk's own message output (see Gawk I18N).
- BeOS support (see BeOS Installation).
- Tandem support (see Tandem Installation).
- The Atari port became officially unsupported (see Atari Installation).
- The source code now uses new-style function definitions, with ansi2knr to convert the code on systems with old compilers.
- The --disable-lint configuration option to disable lint checking at compile time (see Additional Configuration Options).
- POSIX compliance for `sub` and `gsub` (see Gory Details).

Previous: POSIX/GNU, Up: Language History

### A.6 Major Contributors to gawk

> Always give credit where credit is due.
> Anonymous

This section names the major contributors to gawk and/or this Web page, in approximate chronological order:

- Dr. Alfred V. Aho, Dr. Peter J. Weinberger, and Dr. Brian W. Kernighan, all of Bell Laboratories, designed and implemented Unix awk, from which gawk gets the majority of its feature set.
- Paul Rubin did the initial design and implementation in 1986, and wrote the first draft (around 40 pages) of this Web page.
- Jay Fenlason finished the initial implementation.
- Diane Close revised the first draft of this Web page, bringing it to around 90 pages.
- Richard Stallman helped finish the implementation and the initial draft of this Web page. He is also the founder of the FSF and the GNU project.
- John Woods contributed parts of the code (mostly fixes) in the initial version of gawk.
- In 1988, David Trueman took over primary maintenance of gawk, making it compatible with “new” awk, and greatly improving its performance.
- Pat Rankin provided the VMS port and its documentation.
- Conrad Kwok, Scott Garfinkle, and Kent Williams did the initial ports to MS-DOS with various versions of MSC.
- Hal Peterson provided help in porting gawk to Cray systems.
- Kai Uwe Rommel provided the initial port to OS/2 and its documentation.
- Michal Jaegermann provided the port to Atari systems and its documentation. He continues to provide portability checking with DEC Alpha systems, and has done a lot of work to make sure gawk works on non-32-bit systems.
- Fred Fish provided the port to Amiga systems and its documentation.
- Scott Deifik currently maintains the MS-DOS port.
- Juan Grigera maintains the port to Windows32 systems.
- Dr. Darrel Hankerson acts as coordinator for the various ports to different PC platforms and creates binary distributions for various PC operating systems. He is also instrumental in keeping the documentation up to date for the various PC platforms.
- Christos Zoulas provided the `extension` built-in function for dynamically adding new modules.
- Jürgen Kahrs contributed the initial version of the TCP/IP networking code and documentation, and motivated the inclusion of the |& operator.
- Stephen Davies provided the port to Tandem systems and its documentation.
- Martin Brown provided the port to BeOS and its documentation.
- Arno Peters did the initial work to convert gawk to use GNU Automake and `gettext`.
- Alan J. Broder provided the initial version of the `asort` function as well as the code for the new optional third argument to the `match` function.
- Andreas Buening updated the gawk port for OS/2.

  Isamu Hasegawa, of IBM in Japan, contributed support for multibyte characters.

  Michael Benzinger contributed the initial code for `switch` statements.

  Patrick T.J. McPhee contributed the code for dynamic loading in Windows32 environments.

- Arnold Robbins has been working on gawk since 1988, at first helping David Trueman, and as the primary maintainer since around 1994.

Next: Notes, Previous: Language History, Up: Top

## Appendix B Installing gawk

This appendix provides instructions for installing gawk on the various platforms that are supported by the developers. The primary developer supports GNU/Linux (and Unix), whereas the other ports are contributed. See Bugs, for the electronic mail addresses of the people who did the respective ports.

Next: Unix Installation, Up: Installation

### B.1 The gawk Distribution

This section describes how to get the gawk distribution, how to extract it, and then what is in the various files and subdirectories.

Next: Extracting, Up: Gawk Distribution

#### B.1.1 Getting the gawk Distribution

There are three ways to get GNU software:

- Copy it from someone else who already has it.

- Order gawk directly from the Free Software Foundation. Software distributions are available for Gnu/Linux, Unix, and MS-Windows, in several CD packages. Their address is:

                Free Software Foundation
                59 Temple Place, Suite 330
                Boston, MA  02111-1307 USA
                Phone: +1-617-542-5942
                Fax (including Japan): +1-617-542-2652
                Email: gnu@gnu.org
                URL: http://www.gnu.org

  Ordering from the FSF directly contributes to the support of the foundation and to the production of more free software.

- Retrieve gawk by using anonymous ftp to the Internet host `ftp.gnu.org`, in the directory /gnu/gawk.

The GNU software archive is mirrored around the world. The up-to-date list of mirror sites is available from the main FSF web site. Try to use one of the mirrors; they will be less busy, and you can usually find one closer to your site.

Next: Distribution contents, Previous: Getting, Up: Gawk Distribution

#### B.1.2 Extracting the Distribution

gawk is distributed as a `tar` file compressed with the GNU Zip program, `gzip`.

Once you have the distribution (for example, gawk-3.1.4.tar.gz), use `gzip` to expand the file and then use `tar` to extract it. You can use the following pipeline to produce the gawk distribution:

         # Under System V, add 'o' to the tar options
         gzip -d -c gawk-3.1.4.tar.gz | tar -xvpf -

This creates a directory named gawk-3.1.4 in the current directory.

The distribution file name is of the form gawk-V.R.P.tar.gz. The V represents the major version of gawk, the R represents the current release of version V, and the P represents a patch level, meaning that minor bugs have been fixed in the release. The current patch level is 4, but when retrieving distributions, you should get the version with the highest version, release, and patch level. (Note, however, that patch levels greater than or equal to 80 denote “beta” or nonproduction software; you might not want to retrieve such a version unless you don't mind experimenting.) If you are not on a Unix system, you need to make other arrangements for getting and extracting the gawk distribution. You should consult a local expert.

Previous: Extracting, Up: Gawk Distribution

#### B.1.3 Contents of the gawk Distribution

The gawk distribution has a number of C source files, documentation files, subdirectories, and files related to the configuration process (see Unix Installation), as well as several subdirectories related to different non-Unix operating systems:

Various .c, .y, and .h files
  The actual gawk source code.

README
README_d/README.*
  Descriptive files: README for gawk under Unix and the rest for the various hardware and software combinations.
INSTALL
  A file providing an overview of the configuration and installation process.
ChangeLog
  A detailed list of source code changes as bugs are fixed or improvements made.
NEWS
  A list of changes to gawk since the last release or patch.
COPYING
  The GNU General Public License.
FUTURES
  A brief list of features and changes being contemplated for future releases, with some indication of the time frame for the feature, based on its difficulty.
LIMITATIONS
  A list of those factors that limit gawk's performance. Most of these depend on the hardware or operating system software and are not limits in gawk itself.
POSIX.STD
  A description of one area in which the POSIX standard for awk is incorrect as well as how gawk handles the problem.

doc/awkforai.txt
  A short article describing why gawk is a good language for AI (Artificial Intelligence) programming.
doc/README.card
doc/ad.block
doc/awkcard.in
doc/cardfonts
doc/colors
doc/macros
doc/no.colors
doc/setter.outline
  The troff source for a five-color awk reference card. A modern version of troff such as GNU troff (groff) is needed to produce the color version. See the file README.card for instructions if you have an older troff.
doc/gawk.1
  The troff source for a manual page describing gawk. This is distributed for the convenience of Unix users.

doc/gawk.texi
  The Texinfo source file for this Web page. It should be processed with TeX to produce a printed document, and with makeinfo to produce an Info or HTML file.
doc/gawk.info
  The generated Info file for this Web page.
doc/gawkinet.texi
  The Texinfo source file for TCP/IP Internetworking with gawk. It should be processed with TeX to produce a printed document and with makeinfo to produce an Info or HTML file.
doc/gawkinet.info
  The generated Info file for TCP/IP Internetworking with gawk.
doc/igawk.1
  The troff source for a manual page describing the igawk program presented in Igawk Program.
doc/Makefile.in
  The input file used during the configuration process to generate the actual Makefile for creating the documentation.
Makefile.am
*/Makefile.am
  Files used by the GNU automake software for generating the Makefile.in files used by autoconf and configure.
Makefile.in
acconfig.h
acinclude.m4
aclocal.m4
configh.in
configure.in
configure
custom.h
missing_d/*
m4/*
  These files and subdirectories are used when configuring gawk for various Unix systems. They are explained in Unix Installation.
intl/*
po/*
  The intl directory provides the GNU `gettext` library, which implements gawk's internationalization features, while the po library contains message translations.
awklib/extract.awk
awklib/Makefile.am
awklib/Makefile.in
awklib/eg/*
  The awklib directory contains a copy of extract.awk (see Extract Program), which can be used to extract the sample programs from the Texinfo source file for this Web page. It also contains a Makefile.in file, which configure uses to generate a Makefile. Makefile.am is used by GNU Automake to create Makefile.in. The library functions from Library Functions, and the igawk program from Igawk Program, are included as ready-to-use files in the gawk distribution. They are installed as part of the installation process. The rest of the programs in this Web page are available in appropriate subdirectories of awklib/eg.
unsupported/atari/*
  Files needed for building gawk on an Atari ST (see Atari Installation, for details).
unsupported/tandem/*
  Files needed for building gawk on a Tandem (see Tandem Installation, for details).
posix/*
  Files needed for building gawk on POSIX-compliant systems.
pc/*
  Files needed for building gawk under MS-DOS, MS Windows and OS/2 (see PC Installation, for details).
vms/*
  Files needed for building gawk under VMS (see VMS Installation, for details).
test/*
  A test suite for gawk. You can use make check from the top-level gawk directory to run your version of gawk against the test suite. If gawk successfully passes make check, then you can be confident of a successful port.

Next: Non-Unix Installation, Previous: Gawk Distribution, Up: Installation

### B.2 Compiling and Installing gawk on Unix

Usually, you can compile and install gawk by typing only two commands. However, if you use an unusual system, you may need to configure gawk for your system yourself.

Next: Additional Configuration Options, Up: Unix Installation

#### B.2.1 Compiling gawk for Unix

After you have extracted the gawk distribution, cd to gawk-3.1.4. Like most GNU software, gawk is configured automatically for your Unix system by running the configure program. This program is a Bourne shell script that is generated automatically using GNU autoconf. (The autoconf software is described fully in Autoconf—Generating Automatic Configuration Scripts, which is available from the Free Software Foundation.)

To configure gawk, simply run configure:

         sh ./configure

This produces a Makefile and config.h tailored to your system. The config.h file describes various facts about your system. You might want to edit the Makefile to change the `CFLAGS` variable, which controls the command-line options that are passed to the C compiler (such as optimization levels or compiling for debugging).

Alternatively, you can add your own values for most make variables on the command line, such as `CC` and `CFLAGS`, when running configure:

         CC=cc CFLAGS=-g sh ./configure

See the file INSTALL in the gawk distribution for all the details.

After you have run configure and possibly edited the Makefile, type:

         make

Shortly thereafter, you should have an executable version of gawk. That's all there is to it! To verify that gawk is working properly, run make check. All of the tests should succeed. If these steps do not work, or if any of the tests fail, check the files in the README_d directory to see if you've found a known problem. If the failure is not described there, please send in a bug report (see Bugs.)

Next: Configuration Philosophy, Previous: Quick Installation, Up: Unix Installation

#### B.2.2 Additional Configuration Options

There are several additional options you may use on the configure command line when compiling gawk from scratch, including:

`--enable-portals`
  Treat pathnames that begin with /p as BSD portal files when doing two-way I/O with the |& operator (see Portal Files).

`--enable-switch`
  Enable the recognition and execution of C-style `switch` statements in awk programs (see Switch Statement.)

`--with-included-gettext`
  Use the version of the `gettext` library that comes with gawk. This option should be used on systems that do not use version 2 (or later) of the GNU C library. All known modern GNU/Linux systems use Glibc 2. Use this option on any other system.

`--disable-lint`
  This option disables all lint checking within `gawk`. The --lint and --lint-old options (see Options) are accepted, but silently do nothing. Similarly, setting the `LINT` variable (see User-modified) has no effect on the running awk program.

  When used with GCC's automatic dead-code-elimination, this option cuts almost 200K bytes off the size of the gawk executable on GNU/Linux x86 systems. Results on other systems and with other compilers are likely to vary. Using this option may bring you some slight performance improvement.

  Using this option will cause some of the tests in the test suite to fail. This option may be removed at a later date.

`--disable-nls`
  Disable all message-translation facilities. This is usually not desirable, but it may bring you some slight performance improvement. You should also use this option if --with-included-gettext doesn't work on your system.

Previous: Additional Configuration Options, Up: Unix Installation

#### B.2.3 The Configuration Process

This section is of interest only if you know something about using the C language and the Unix operating system.

The source code for gawk generally attempts to adhere to formal standards wherever possible. This means that gawk uses library routines that are specified by the ISO C standard and by the POSIX operating system interface standard. When using an ISO C compiler, function prototypes are used to help improve the compile-time checking.

Many Unix systems do not support all of either the ISO or the POSIX standards. The missing_d subdirectory in the gawk distribution contains replacement versions of those functions that are most likely to be missing.

The config.h file that configure creates contains definitions that describe features of the particular operating system where you are attempting to compile gawk. The three things described by this file are: what header files are available, so that they can be correctly included, what (supposedly) standard functions are actually available in your C libraries, and various miscellaneous facts about your variant of Unix. For example, there may not be an `st_blksize` element in the `stat` structure. In this case, HAVE_ST_BLKSIZE is undefined.

It is possible for your C compiler to lie to configure. It may do so by not exiting with an error when a library function is not available. To get around this, edit the file custom.h. Use an #ifdef that is appropriate for your system, and either `#define` any constants that configure should have defined but didn't, or `#undef` any constants that configure defined and should not have. custom.h is automatically included by config.h.

It is also possible that the configure program generated by autoconf will not work on your system in some other fashion. If you do have a problem, the file configure.in is the input for autoconf. You may be able to change this file and generate a new version of configure that works on your system (see Bugs, for information on how to report problems in configuring gawk). The same mechanism may be used to send in updates to configure.in and/or custom.h.

Next: Unsupported, Previous: Unix Installation, Up: Installation

### B.3 Installation on Other Operating Systems

This section describes how to install gawk on various non-Unix systems.

Next: BeOS Installation, Up: Non-Unix Installation

#### B.3.1 Installing gawk on an Amiga

You can install gawk on an Amiga system using a Unix emulation environment, available via anonymous ftp from `ftp.ninemoons.com` in the directory pub/ade/current. This includes a shell based on pdksh. The primary component of this environment is a Unix emulation library, ixemul.lib.

A more complete distribution for the Amiga is available on the Geek Gadgets CD-ROM, available from:

         CRONUS
         1840 E. Warner Road #105-265
         Tempe, AZ 85284  USA
         US Toll Free: (800) 804-0833
         Phone: +1-602-491-0442
         FAX: +1-602-491-0048
         Email: info@ninemoons.com
         WWW: http://www.ninemoons.com
         Anonymous ftp site: ftp.ninemoons.com

Once you have the distribution, you can configure gawk simply by running configure:

         configure -v m68k-amigaos

Then run make and you should be all set! If these steps do not work, please send in a bug report (see Bugs).

Next: PC Installation, Previous: Amiga Installation, Up: Non-Unix Installation

#### B.3.2 Installing gawk on BeOS

Since BeOS DR9, all the tools that you should need to build `gawk` are included with BeOS. The process is basically identical to the Unix process of running configure and then make. Full instructions are given below.

You can compile gawk under BeOS by extracting the standard sources and running configure. You must specify the location prefix for the installation directory. For BeOS DR9 and beyond, the best directory to use is /boot/home/config, so the configure command is:

         configure --prefix=/boot/home/config

This installs the compiled application into /boot/home/config/bin, which is already specified in the standard PATH.

Once the configuration process is completed, you can run make, and then make install:

         $ make
         ...
         $ make install

BeOS uses bash as its shell; thus, you use gawk the same way you would under Unix. If these steps do not work, please send in a bug report (see Bugs).

Next: VMS Installation, Previous: BeOS Installation, Up: Non-Unix Installation

#### B.3.3 Installation on PC Operating Systems

This section covers installation and usage of gawk on x86 machines running DOS, any version of Windows, or OS/2. In this section, the term “Windows32” refers to any of Windows-95/98/ME/NT/2000.

The limitations of DOS (and DOS shells under Windows or OS/2) has meant that various “DOS extenders” are often used with programs such as gawk. The varying capabilities of Microsoft Windows 3.1 and Windows32 can add to the confusion. For an overview of the considerations, please refer to README_d/README.pc in the distribution.

Next: PC Compiling, Up: PC Installation

##### B.3.3.1 Installing a Prepared Distribution for PC Systems

If you have received a binary distribution prepared by the DOS maintainers, then gawk and the necessary support files appear under the gnu directory, with executables in gnu/bin, libraries in gnu/lib/awk, and manual pages under gnu/man. This is designed for easy installation to a /gnu directory on your drive—however, the files can be installed anywhere provided AWKPATH is set properly. Regardless of the installation directory, the first line of igawk.cmd and igawk.bat (in gnu/bin) may need to be edited.

The binary distribution contains a separate file describing the contents. In particular, it may include more than one version of the gawk executable.

OS/2 (32 bit, EMX) binary distributions are prepared for the /usr directory of your preferred drive. Set UNIXROOT to your installation drive (e.g., e:) if you want to install gawk onto another drive than the hardcoded default c:. Executables appear in /usr/bin, libraries under /usr/share/awk, manual pages under /usr/man, Texinfo documentation under /usr/info and NLS files under /usr/share/locale. If you already have a file /usr/info/dir from another package do not overwrite it! Instead enter the following commands at your prompt (replace x: by your installation drive):

         install-info --info-dir=x:/usr/info x:/usr/info/gawk.info
         install-info --info-dir=x:/usr/info x:/usr/info/gawkinet.info

However, the files can be installed anywhere provided AWKPATH is set properly.

The binary distribution may contain a separate file containing additional or more detailed installation instructions.

Next: PC Dynamic, Previous: PC Binary Installation, Up: PC Installation

##### B.3.3.2 Compiling gawk for PC Operating Systems

gawk can be compiled for MS-DOS, Windows32, and OS/2 using the GNU development tools from DJ Delorie (DJGPP; MS-DOS only) or Eberhard Mattes (EMX; MS-DOS, Windows32 and OS/2). Microsoft Visual C/C++ can be used to build a Windows32 version, and Microsoft C/C++ can be used to build 16-bit versions for MS-DOS and OS/2. (As of gawk 3.1.2, the MSC version doesn't work. However, the maintainer is working on fixing it.) The file README_d/README.pc in the gawk distribution contains additional notes, and pc/Makefile contains important information on compilation options.

To build gawk for MS-DOS, Windows32, and OS/2 (16 bit only; for 32 bit (EMX) you can use the configure script and skip the following paragraphs; for details see below), copy the files in the pc directory (except for ChangeLog) to the directory with the rest of the gawk sources. The Makefile contains a configuration section with comments and may need to be edited in order to work with your make utility.

The Makefile contains a number of targets for building various MS-DOS, Windows32, and OS/2 versions. A list of targets is printed if the make command is given without a target. As an example, to build gawk using the DJGPP tools, enter make djgpp. (The DJGPP tools may be found at ftp://ftp.delorie.com/pub/djgpp/current/v2gnu/.)

Using make to run the standard tests and to install gawk requires additional Unix-like tools, including sh, sed, and cp. In order to run the tests, the test/*.ok files may need to be converted so that they have the usual DOS-style end-of-line markers. Most of the tests work properly with Stewartson's shell along with the companion utilities or appropriate GNU utilities. However, some editing of test/Makefile is required. It is recommended that you copy the file pc/Makefile.tst over the file test/Makefile as a replacement. Details can be found in README_d/README.pc and in the file pc/Makefile.tst.

The 32 bit EMX version of gawk works “out of the box” under OS/2. In principle, it is possible to compile gawk the following way:

         $ ./configure
         $ make

This is not recommended, though. To get an OMF executable you should use the following commands at your sh prompt:

         $ CPPFLAGS="-D__ST_MT_ERRNO__"
         $ export CPPFLAGS
         $ CFLAGS="-O2 -Zomf -Zmt"
         $ export CFLAGS
         $ LDFLAGS="-s -Zcrtdll -Zlinker /exepack:2 -Zlinker /pm:vio -Zstack 0x8000"
         $ export LDFLAGS
         $ RANLIB="echo"
         $ export RANLIB
         $ ./configure --prefix=c:/usr --without-included-gettext
         $ make AR=emxomfar

These are just suggestions. You may use any other set of (self-consistent) environment variables and compiler flags.

To get an FHS-compliant file hierarchy it is recommended to use the additional configure options --infodir=c:/usr/share/info, --mandir=c:/usr/share/man and --libexecdir=c:/usr/lib.

The internal `gettext` library tends to be problematic. It is therefore recommended to use either an external one (--without-included-gettext) or to disable NLS entirely (--disable-nls).

If you use GCC 2.95 or newer it is recommended to use also:

         $ LIBS="-lgcc"
         $ export LIBS

You can also get an `a.out` executable if you prefer:

         $ CPPFLAGS="-D__ST_MT_ERRNO__"
         $ export CPPFLAGS
         $ CFLAGS="-O2 -Zmt"
         $ export CFLAGS
         $ LDFLAGS="-s -Zstack 0x8000"
         $ LIBS="-lgcc"
         $ unset RANLIB
         $ ./configure --prefix=c:/usr --without-included-gettext
         $ make

> NOTE: Even if the compiled gawk.exe (`a.out`) executable contains a DOS header, it does not work under DOS. To compile an executable that runs under DOS, `"-DPIPES_SIMULATED"` must be added to CPPFLAGS. But then some nonstandard extensions of gawk (e.g., |&) do not work!

After compilation the internal tests can be performed. Enter make check CMP="diff -a" at your command prompt. All tests but the `pid` test are expected to work properly. The `pid` test fails because child processes are not started by `fork()`.

make install works as expected.

> NOTE: Most OS/2 ports of GNU make are not able to handle the Makefiles of this package. If you encounter any problems with make try GNU Make 3.79.1 or later versions. You should find the latest version on http://www.unixos2.org/sw/pub/binary/make/ or on ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/.

Next: PC Using, Previous: PC Compiling, Up: PC Installation

##### B.3.3.3 Compiling gawk For Dynamic Libraries

To compile gawk with dynamic extension support, uncomment the definitions of `DYN_FLAGS`, `DYN_EXP`, `DYN_OBJ`, and `DYN_MAKEXP` in the configuration section of the Makefile. There are two definitions for `DYN_MAKEXP`: pick the one that matches your target.

To build some of the example extension libraries, cd to the extension directory and copy Makefile.pc to Makefile. You can then build using the same two targets. To run the example awk scripts, you'll need to either change the call to the `extension` function to match the name of the library (for instance, change `"./ordchr.so"` to `"ordchr.dll"` or simply `"ordchr"`), or rename the library to match the call (for instance, rename ordchr.dll to ordchr.so).

If you build gawk.exe with one compiler but want to build an extension library with the other, you need to copy the import library. Visual C uses a library called gawk.lib, while MinGW uses a library called libgawk.a. These files are equivalent and will interoperate if you give them the correct name. The resulting shared libraries are also interoperable.

To create your own extension library, you can use the examples as models, but you're essentially on your own. Post to `comp.lang.awk` or send electronic mail to ptjm@interlog.com if you have problems getting started. If you need to access functions or variables which are not exported by gawk.exe, add them to gawkw32.def and rebuild. You should also add `ATTRIBUTE_EXPORTED` to the declaration in awk.h of any variables you add to gawkw32.def.

Note that extension libraries have the name of the awk executable embedded in them at link time, so they will work only with gawk.exe. In particular, they won't work if you rename gawk.exe to awk.exe or if you try to use pgawk.exe. You can perform profiling by temporarily renaming pgawk.exe to gawk.exe. You can resolve this problem by changing the program name in the definition of `DYN_MAKEXP` for your compiler.

On Windows32, libraries are sought first in the current directory, then in the directory containing gawk.exe, and finally through the PATH environment variable.

Next: Cygwin, Previous: PC Dynamic, Up: PC Installation

##### B.3.3.4 Using gawk on PC Operating Systems

With the exception of the Cygwin environment, the |& operator and TCP/IP networking (see TCP/IP Networking) are not supported for MS-DOS or MS-Windows. EMX (OS/2 only) does support at least the |& operator.

The OS/2 and MS-DOS versions of gawk search for program files as described in AWKPATH Variable. However, semicolons (rather than colons) separate elements in the AWKPATH variable. If AWKPATH is not set or is empty, then the default search path for OS/2 (16 bit) and MS-DOS versions is `".;c:/lib/awk;c:/gnu/lib/awk"`.

The search path for OS/2 (32 bit, EMX) is determined by the prefix directory (most likely /usr or c:/usr) that has been specified as an option of the configure script like it is the case for the Unix versions. If c:/usr is the prefix directory then the default search path contains . and c:/usr/share/awk. Additionally, to support binary distributions of gawk for OS/2 systems whose drive c: might not support long file names or might not exist at all, there is a special environment variable. If UNIXROOT specifies a drive then this specific drive is also searched for program files. E.g., if UNIXROOT is set to e: the complete default search path is `".;c:/usr/share/awk;e:/usr/share/awk"`.

An sh-like shell (as opposed to command.com under MS-DOS or cmd.exe under OS/2) may be useful for awk programming. Ian Stewartson has written an excellent shell for MS-DOS and OS/2, Daisuke Aoyama has ported GNU bash to MS-DOS using the DJGPP tools, and several shells are available for OS/2, including ksh. The file README_d/README.pc in the gawk distribution contains information on these shells. Users of Stewartson's shell on DOS should examine its documentation for handling command lines; in particular, the setting for gawk in the shell configuration may need to be changed and the `ignoretype` option may also be of interest.

Under OS/2 and DOS, gawk (and many other text programs) silently translate end-of-line `"\r\n"` to `"\n"` on input and `"\n"` to `"\r\n"` on output. A special `BINMODE` variable allows control over these translations and is interpreted as follows:

- If `BINMODE` is "r", or `(BINMODE & 1)` is nonzero, then binary mode is set on read (i.e., no translations on reads).
- If `BINMODE` is `"w"`, or `(BINMODE & 2)` is nonzero, then binary mode is set on write (i.e., no translations on writes).
- If `BINMODE` is `"rw"` or `"wr"`, binary mode is set for both read and write (same as `(BINMODE & 3)`).
- `BINMODE=`non-null-string is the same as BINMODE=3 (i.e., no translations on reads or writes). However, gawk issues a warning message if the string is not one of `"rw"` or `"wr"`.

The modes for standard input and standard output are set one time only (after the command line is read, but before processing any of the awk program). Setting `BINMODE` for standard input or standard output is accomplished by using an appropriate -v BINMODE=N option on the command line. `BINMODE` is set at the time a file or pipe is opened and cannot be changed mid-stream.

The name `BINMODE` was chosen to match mawk (see Other Versions). Both mawk and gawk handle `BINMODE` similarly; however, mawk adds a -W BINMODE=N option and an environment variable that can set `BINMODE`, `RS`, and `ORS`. The files binmode[1-3].awk (under gnu/lib/awk in some of the prepared distributions) have been chosen to match mawk's -W BINMODE=N option. These can be changed or discarded; in particular, the setting of `RS` giving the fewest “surprises” is open to debate. mawk uses RS = "\r\n" if binary mode is set on read, which is appropriate for files with the DOS-style end-of-line.

To illustrate, the following examples set binary mode on writes for standard output and other files, and set `ORS` as the “usual” DOS-style end-of-line:

         gawk -v BINMODE=2 -v ORS="\r\n" ...

or:

         gawk -v BINMODE=w -f binmode2.awk ...

These give the same result as the -W BINMODE=2 option in mawk. The following changes the record separator to `"\r\n"` and sets binary mode on reads, but does not affect the mode on standard input:

         gawk -v RS="\r\n" --source "BEGIN { BINMODE = 1 }" ...

or:

         gawk -f binmode1.awk ...

With proper quoting, in the first example the setting of `RS` can be moved into the `BEGIN` rule.

Previous: PC Using, Up: PC Installation

##### B.3.3.5 Using gawk In The Cygwin Environment

gawk can be used “out of the box” under Windows if you are using the Cygwin environment.68 This environment provides an excellent simulation of Unix, using the GNU tools, such as bash, the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), GNU Make, and other GNU tools. Compilation and installation for Cygwin is the same as for a Unix system:

         tar -xvpzf gawk-3.1.4.tar.gz
         cd gawk-3.1.4
         ./configure
         make

When compared to GNU/Linux on the same system, the configure step on Cygwin takes considerably longer. However, it does finish, and then the make proceeds as usual.

> NOTE: The |& operator and TCP/IP networking (see TCP/IP Networking) are fully supported in the Cygwin environment. This is not true for any other environment for MS-DOS or MS-Windows.

Previous: PC Installation, Up: Non-Unix Installation

#### B.3.4 How to Compile and Install gawk on VMS

This subsection describes how to compile and install gawk under VMS.

Next: VMS Installation Details, Up: VMS Installation

##### B.3.4.1 Compiling gawk on VMS

To compile gawk under VMS, there is a `DCL` command procedure that issues all the necessary `CC` and `LINK` commands. There is also a Makefile for use with the `MMS` utility. From the source directory, use either:

         $ @[.VMS]VMSBUILD.COM

or:

         $ MMS/DESCRIPTION=[.VMS]DESCRIP.MMS GAWK

Depending upon which C compiler you are using, follow one of the sets of instructions in this table:

VAX C V3.x
  Use either vmsbuild.com or descrip.mms as is. These use `CC/OPTIMIZE=NOLINE`, which is essential for Version 3.0.
VAX C V2.x
  You must have Version 2.3 or 2.4; older ones won't work. Edit either vmsbuild.com or descrip.mms according to the comments in them. For vmsbuild.com, this just entails removing two ! delimiters. Also edit config.h (which is a copy of file [.config]vms-conf.h) and comment out or delete the two lines #define __STDC__ 0 and #define VAXC_BUILTINS near the end.
GNU C
  Edit vmsbuild.com or descrip.mms; the changes are different from those for VAX C V2.x but equally straightforward. No changes to config.h are needed.
DEC C
  Edit vmsbuild.com or descrip.mms according to their comments. No changes to config.h are needed.

gawk has been tested under VAX/VMS 5.5-1 using VAX C V3.2, and GNU C 1.40 and 2.3. It should work without modifications for VMS V4.6 and up.

Next: VMS Running, Previous: VMS Compilation, Up: VMS Installation

##### B.3.4.2 Installing gawk on VMS

To install gawk, all you need is a “foreign” command, which is a `DCL` symbol whose value begins with a dollar sign. For example:

         $ GAWK :== $disk1:[gnubin]GAWK

Substitute the actual location of gawk.exe for $disk1:[gnubin]. The symbol should be placed in the login.com of any user who wants to run gawk, so that it is defined every time the user logs on. Alternatively, the symbol may be placed in the system-wide sylogin.com procedure, which allows all users to run gawk.

Optionally, the help entry can be loaded into a VMS help library:

         $ LIBRARY/HELP SYS$HELP:HELPLIB [.VMS]GAWK.HLP

(You may want to substitute a site-specific help library rather than the standard VMS library HELPLIB.) After loading the help text, the command:

         $ HELP GAWK

provides information about both the gawk implementation and the awk programming language.

The logical name AWK_LIBRARY can designate a default location for awk program files. For the -f option, if the specified file name has no device or directory path information in it, gawk looks in the current directory first, then in the directory specified by the translation of AWK_LIBRARY if the file is not found. If, after searching in both directories, the file still is not found, gawk appends the suffix .awk to the filename and retries the file search. If AWK_LIBRARY is not defined, that portion of the file search fails benignly.

Next: VMS POSIX, Previous: VMS Installation Details, Up: VMS Installation

##### B.3.4.3 Running gawk on VMS

Command-line parsing and quoting conventions are significantly different on VMS, so examples in this Web page or from other sources often need minor changes. They are minor though, and all awk programs should run correctly.

Here are a couple of trivial tests:

         $ gawk -- "BEGIN {print ""Hello, World!""}"
         $ gawk -"W" version
         ! could also be -"W version" or "-W version"

Note that uppercase and mixed-case text must be quoted.

The VMS port of gawk includes a `DCL`-style interface in addition to the original shell-style interface (see the help entry for details). One side effect of dual command-line parsing is that if there is only a single parameter (as in the quoted string program above), the command becomes ambiguous. To work around this, the normally optional -- flag is required to force Unix style rather than `DCL` parsing. If any other dash-type options (or multiple parameters such as data files to process) are present, there is no ambiguity and -- can be omitted.

The default search path, when looking for awk program files specified by the -f option, is `"SYS$DISK:[],AWK_LIBRARY:"`. The logical name AWKPATH can be used to override this default. The format of AWKPATH is a comma-separated list of directory specifications. When defining it, the value should be quoted so that it retains a single translation and not a multitranslation `RMS` searchlist.

Previous: VMS Running, Up: VMS Installation

##### B.3.4.4 Building and Using gawk on VMS POSIX

Ignore the instructions above, although vms/gawk.hlp should still be made available in a help library. The source tree should be unpacked into a container file subsystem rather than into the ordinary VMS filesystem. Make sure that the two scripts, configure and vms/posix-cc.sh, are executable; use chmod +x on them if necessary. Then execute the following two commands:

         psx> CC=vms/posix-cc.sh configure
         psx> make CC=c89 gawk

The first command constructs files config.h and Makefile out of templates, using a script to make the C compiler fit configure's expectations. The second command compiles and links gawk using the C compiler directly; ignore any warnings from make about being unable to redefine `CC`. configure takes a very long time to execute, but at least it provides incremental feedback as it runs.

This has been tested with VAX/VMS V6.2, VMS POSIX V2.0, and DEC C V5.2.

Once built, gawk works like any other shell utility. Unlike the normal VMS port of gawk, no special command-line manipulation is needed in the VMS POSIX environment.

Next: Bugs, Previous: Non-Unix Installation, Up: Installation

### B.4 Unsupported Operating System Ports

This sections describes systems for which the gawk port is no longer supported.

Next: Tandem Installation, Up: Unsupported

#### B.4.1 Installing gawk on the Atari ST

The Atari port is no longer supported. It is included for those who might want to use it but it is no longer being actively maintained.

There are no substantial differences when installing gawk on various Atari models. Compiled gawk executables do not require a large amount of memory with most awk programs, and should run on all Motorola processor-based models (called further ST, even if that is not exactly right).

In order to use gawk, you need to have a shell, either text or graphics, that does not map all the characters of a command line to uppercase. Maintaining case distinction in option flags is very important (see Options). These days this is the default and it may only be a problem for some very old machines. If your system does not preserve the case of option flags, you need to upgrade your tools. Support for I/O redirection is necessary to make it easy to import awk programs from other environments. Pipes are nice to have but not vital.

Next: Atari Using, Up: Atari Installation

##### B.4.1.1 Compiling gawk on the Atari ST

A proper compilation of gawk sources when `sizeof(int)` differs from `sizeof(void *)` requires an ISO C compiler. An initial port was done with gcc. You may actually prefer executables where `int`s are four bytes wide but the other variant works as well.

You may need quite a bit of memory when trying to recompile the gawk sources, as some source files (regex.c in particular) are quite big. If you run out of memory compiling such a file, try reducing the optimization level for this particular file, which may help.

With a reasonable shell (bash will do), you have a pretty good chance that the configure utility will succeed, and in particular if you run GNU/Linux, MiNT or a similar operating system. Otherwise sample versions of config.h and Makefile.st are given in the atari subdirectory and can be edited and copied to the corresponding files in the main source directory. Even if configure produces something, it might be advisable to compare its results with the sample versions and possibly make adjustments.

Some gawk source code fragments depend on a preprocessor define atarist. This basically assumes the TOS environment with gcc. Modify these sections as appropriate if they are not right for your environment. Also see the remarks about AWKPATH and `envsep` in Atari Using.

As shipped, the sample config.h claims that the `system` function is missing from the libraries, which is not true, and an alternative implementation of this function is provided in unsupported/atari/system.c. Depending upon your particular combination of shell and operating system, you might want to change the file to indicate that `system` is available.

Previous: Atari Compiling, Up: Atari Installation

##### B.4.1.2 Running gawk on the Atari ST

An executable version of gawk should be placed, as usual, anywhere in your PATH where your shell can find it.

While executing, the Atari version of gawk creates a number of temporary files. When using gcc libraries for TOS, gawk looks for either of the environment variables, TEMP or TMPDIR, in that order. If either one is found, its value is assumed to be a directory for temporary files. This directory must exist, and if you can spare the memory, it is a good idea to put it on a RAM drive. If neither TEMP nor TMPDIR are found, then gawk uses the current directory for its temporary files.

The ST version of gawk searches for its program files, as described in AWKPATH Variable. The default value for the AWKPATH variable is taken from `DEFPATH` defined in Makefile. The sample gcc/TOS Makefile for the ST in the distribution sets `DEFPATH` to `".,c:\lib\awk,c:\gnu\lib\awk"`. The search path can be modified by explicitly setting AWKPATH to whatever you want. Note that colons cannot be used on the ST to separate elements in the AWKPATH variable, since they have another reserved meaning. Instead, you must use a comma to separate elements in the path. When recompiling, the separating character can be modified by initializing the `envsep` variable in unsupported/atari/gawkmisc.atr to another value.

Although awk allows great flexibility in doing I/O redirections from within a program, this facility should be used with care on the ST running under TOS. In some circumstances, the OS routines for file-handle pool processing lose track of certain events, causing the computer to crash and requiring a reboot. Often a warm reboot is sufficient. Fortunately, this happens infrequently and in rather esoteric situations. In particular, avoid having one part of an awk program using `print` statements explicitly redirected to /dev/stdout, while other `print` statements use the default standard output, and a calling shell has redirected standard output to a file.

When gawk is compiled with the ST version of gcc and its usual libraries, it accepts both / and \ as path separators. While this is convenient, it should be remembered that this removes one technically valid character (/) from your file name. It may also create problems for external programs called via the `system` function, which may not support this convention. Whenever it is possible that a file created by gawk will be used by some other program, use only backslashes. Also remember that in awk, backslashes in strings have to be doubled in order to get literal backslashes (see Escape Sequences).

Previous: Atari Installation, Up: Unsupported

#### B.4.2 Installing gawk on a Tandem

The Tandem port is only minimally supported. The port's contributor no longer has access to a Tandem system.

The Tandem port was done on a Cyclone machine running D20. The port is pretty clean and all facilities seem to work except for the I/O piping facilities (see Getline/Pipe, Getline/Variable/Pipe, and Redirection), which is just too foreign a concept for Tandem.

To build a Tandem executable from source, download all of the files so that the file names on the Tandem box conform to the restrictions of D20. For example, array.c becomes ARRAYC, and awk.h becomes AWKH. The totally Tandem-specific files are in the tandem “subvolume” (unsupported/tandem in the gawk distribution) and should be copied to the main source directory before building gawk.

The file compit can then be used to compile and bind an executable. Alas, there is no configure or make.

Usage is the same as for Unix, except that D20 requires all { and } characters to be escaped with ~ on the command line (but not in script files). Also, the standard Tandem syntax for /in filename,out filename/ must be used instead of the usual Unix < and > for file redirection. (Redirection options on `getline`, `print` etc., are supported.)

The -mr val option (see Options) has been “stolen” to enable Tandem users to process fixed-length records with no “end-of-line” character. That is, -mr 74 tells gawk to read the input file as fixed 74-byte records.

Next: Other Versions, Previous: Unsupported, Up: Installation

### B.5 Reporting Problems and Bugs

> There is nothing more dangerous than a bored archeologist.
> The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

If you have problems with gawk or think that you have found a bug, please report it to the developers; we cannot promise to do anything but we might well want to fix it.

Before reporting a bug, make sure you have actually found a real bug. Carefully reread the documentation and see if it really says you can do what you're trying to do. If it's not clear whether you should be able to do something or not, report that too; it's a bug in the documentation!

Before reporting a bug or trying to fix it yourself, try to isolate it to the smallest possible awk program and input data file that reproduces the problem. Then send us the program and data file, some idea of what kind of Unix system you're using, the compiler you used to compile gawk, and the exact results gawk gave you. Also say what you expected to occur; this helps us decide whether the problem is really in the documentation.

Once you have a precise problem, send email to bug-gawk@gnu.org.

Please include the version number of gawk you are using. You can get this information with the command gawk --version. Using this address automatically sends a carbon copy of your mail to me. If necessary, I can be reached directly at arnold@gnu.org. The bug reporting address is preferred since the email list is archived at the GNU Project. All email should be in English, since that is my native language.

Caution: Do not try to report bugs in gawk by posting to the Usenet/Internet newsgroup `comp.lang.awk`. While the gawk developers do occasionally read this newsgroup, there is no guarantee that we will see your posting. The steps described above are the official recognized ways for reporting bugs.

Non-bug suggestions are always welcome as well. If you have questions about things that are unclear in the documentation or are just obscure features, ask me; I will try to help you out, although I may not have the time to fix the problem. You can send me electronic mail at the Internet address noted previously.

If you find bugs in one of the non-Unix ports of gawk, please send an electronic mail message to the person who maintains that port. They are named in the following list, as well as in the README file in the gawk distribution. Information in the README file should be considered authoritative if it conflicts with this Web page.

The people maintaining the non-Unix ports of gawk are as follows:

Amiga | Fred Fish, fnf@ninemoons.com.
BeOS | Martin Brown, mc@whoever.com.
MS-DOS | Scott Deifik, scottd@amgen.com and Darrel Hankerson, hankedr@mail.auburn.edu.
MS-Windows | Juan Grigera, juan@biophnet.unlp.edu.ar.
OS/2 | The Unix for OS/2 team, gawk-maintainer@unixos2.org.
Tandem | Stephen Davies, scldad@sdc.com.au.
VMS | Pat Rankin, rankin@pactechdata.com.

If your bug is also reproducible under Unix, please send a copy of your report to the bug-gawk@gnu.org email list as well.

Previous: Bugs, Up: Installation

### B.6 Other Freely Available awk Implementations

> It's kind of fun to put comments like this in your awk code.
> `// Do C++ comments work? answer: yes! of course`
> Michael Brennan

There are three other freely available awk implementations. This section briefly describes where to get them:

Unix awk
  Brian Kernighan has made his implementation of awk freely available. You can retrieve this version via the World Wide Web from his home page.69 It is available in several archive formats:
  Shell archive
    http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/bwk/awk.shar
  Compressed tar file
    http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/bwk/awk.tar.gz
  Zip file
    http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/bwk/awk.zip

  This version requires an ISO C (1990 standard) compiler; the C compiler from GCC (the GNU Compiler Collection) works quite nicely.

  See BTL, for a list of extensions in this awk that are not in POSIX awk.

mawk
  Michael Brennan has written an independent implementation of awk, called mawk. It is available under the GPL (see Copying), just as gawk is.

  You can get it via anonymous ftp to the host `ftp.whidbey.net`. Change directory to /pub/brennan. Use “binary” or “image” mode, and retrieve mawk1.3.3.tar.gz (or the latest version that is there).

  gunzip may be used to decompress this file. Installation is similar to gawk's (see Unix Installation).

  mawk has the following extensions that are not in POSIX awk:

  - The `fflush` built-in function for flushing buffered output (see I/O Functions).
  - The ** and **= operators (see Arithmetic Ops and also see Assignment Ops).
  - The use of `func` as an abbreviation for `function` (see Definition Syntax).
  - The \x escape sequence (see Escape Sequences).
  - The /dev/stdout, and /dev/stderr special files (see Special Files). Use `"-"` instead of `"/dev/stdin"` with mawk.
  - The ability for `FS` and for the third argument to `split` to be null strings (see Single Character Fields).
  - The ability to delete all of an array at once with delete array (see Delete).
  - The ability for `RS` to be a regexp (see Records).
  - The `BINMODE` special variable for non-Unix operating systems (see PC Using).

  The next version of mawk will support `nextfile`.

awka
  Written by Andrew Sumner, awka translates awk programs into C, compiles them, and links them with a library of functions that provides the core awk functionality. It also has a number of extensions.

  The awk translator is released under the GPL, and the library is under the LGPL.

  To get awka, go to http://awka.sourceforge.net. You can reach Andrew Sumner at andrew@zbcom.net.

pawk
  Nelson H.F. Beebe at the University of Utah has modified the Bell Labs awk to provide timing and profiling information. It is different from pgawk (see Profiling), in that it uses CPU-based profiling, not line-count profiling. You may find it at either ftp://ftp.math.utah.edu/pub/pawk/pawk-20020210.tar.gz or http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/pawk/pawk-20020210.tar.gz.

Next: Basic Concepts, Previous: Installation, Up: Top

## Appendix C Implementation Notes

This appendix contains information mainly of interest to implementors and maintainers of gawk. Everything in it applies specifically to gawk and not to other implementations.

Next: Additions, Up: Notes

### C.1 Downward Compatibility and Debugging

See POSIX/GNU, for a summary of the GNU extensions to the awk language and program. All of these features can be turned off by invoking gawk with the --traditional option or with the --posix option.

If gawk is compiled for debugging with -DDEBUG, then there is one more option available on the command line:

`-W parsedebug`
`--parsedebug`
  Prints out the parse stack information as the program is being parsed.

This option is intended only for serious gawk developers and not for the casual user. It probably has not even been compiled into your version of gawk, since it slows down execution.

Next: Dynamic Extensions, Previous: Compatibility Mode, Up: Notes

### C.2 Making Additions to gawk

If you find that you want to enhance gawk in a significant fashion, you are perfectly free to do so. That is the point of having free software; the source code is available and you are free to change it as you want (see Copying).

This section discusses the ways you might want to change gawk as well as any considerations you should bear in mind.

Next: New Ports, Up: Additions

#### C.2.1 Adding New Features

You are free to add any new features you like to gawk. However, if you want your changes to be incorporated into the gawk distribution, there are several steps that you need to take in order to make it possible for me to include your changes:

1. Before building the new feature into gawk itself, consider writing it as an extension module (see Dynamic Extensions). If that's not possible, continue with the rest of the steps in this list.
2. Get the latest version. It is much easier for me to integrate changes if they are relative to the most recent distributed version of gawk. If your version of gawk is very old, I may not be able to integrate them at all. (See Getting, for information on getting the latest version of gawk.)
3. Follow the GNU Coding Standards. This document describes how GNU software should be written. If you haven't read it, please do so, preferably before starting to modify gawk. (The GNU Coding Standards are available from the GNU Project's ftp site, at ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/GNUinfo/standards.text. An HTML version, suitable for reading with a WWW browser, is available at http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards_toc.html. Texinfo, Info, and DVI versions are also available.)

4. Use the gawk coding style. The C code for gawk follows the instructions in the GNU Coding Standards, with minor exceptions. The code is formatted using the traditional “K&R” style, particularly as regards to the placement of braces and the use of tabs. In brief, the coding rules for gawk are as follows:
   - Use ANSI/ISO style (prototype) function headers when defining functions.
   - Put the name of the function at the beginning of its own line.
   - Put the return type of the function, even if it is `int`, on the line above the line with the name and arguments of the function.
   - Put spaces around parentheses used in control structures (`if`, `while`, `for`, `do`, `switch`, and `return`).
   - Do not put spaces in front of parentheses used in function calls.
   - Put spaces around all C operators and after commas in function calls.
   - Do not use the comma operator to produce multiple side effects, except in `for` loop initialization and increment parts, and in macro bodies.
   - Use real tabs for indenting, not spaces.
   - Use the “K&R” brace layout style.
   - Use comparisons against `NULL` and `'\0'` in the conditions of `if`, `while`, and `for` statements, as well as in the `case`s of `switch` statements, instead of just the plain pointer or character value.
   - Use the `TRUE`, `FALSE` and `NULL` symbolic constants and the character constant `'\0'` where appropriate, instead of `1` and `0`.
   - Use the `ISALPHA`, `ISDIGIT`, etc. macros, instead of the traditional lowercase versions; these macros are better behaved for non-ASCII character sets.
   - Provide one-line descriptive comments for each function.
   - Do not use #elif. Many older Unix C compilers cannot handle it.
   - Do not use the `alloca` function for allocating memory off the stack. Its use causes more portability trouble than is worth the minor benefit of not having to free the storage. Instead, use `malloc` and `free`.

   > NOTE: If I have to reformat your code to follow the coding style used in gawk, I may not bother to integrate your changes at all.

5. Be prepared to sign the appropriate paperwork. In order for the FSF to distribute your changes, you must either place those changes in the public domain and submit a signed statement to that effect, or assign the copyright in your changes to the FSF. Both of these actions are easy to do and many people have done so already. If you have questions, please contact me (see Bugs), or gnu@gnu.org.

6. Update the documentation. Along with your new code, please supply new sections and/or chapters for this Web page. If at all possible, please use real Texinfo, instead of just supplying unformatted ASCII text (although even that is better than no documentation at all). Conventions to be followed in GAWK: Effective AWK Programming are provided after the @bye at the end of the Texinfo source file. If possible, please update the man page as well.

   You will also have to sign paperwork for your documentation changes.

7. Submit changes as context diffs or unified diffs. Use diff -c -r -N or diff -u -r -N to compare the original gawk source tree with your version. (I find context diffs to be more readable but unified diffs are more compact.) I recommend using the GNU version of diff. Send the output produced by either run of diff to me when you submit your changes. (See Bugs, for the electronic mail information.)

   Using this format makes it easy for me to apply your changes to the master version of the gawk source code (using `patch`). If I have to apply the changes manually, using a text editor, I may not do so, particularly if there are lots of changes.

8. Include an entry for the ChangeLog file with your submission. This helps further minimize the amount of work I have to do, making it easier for me to accept patches.

Although this sounds like a lot of work, please remember that while you may write the new code, I have to maintain it and support it. If it isn't possible for me to do that with a minimum of extra work, then I probably will not.

Previous: Adding Code, Up: Additions

#### C.2.2 Porting gawk to a New Operating System

If you want to port gawk to a new operating system, there are several steps:

1. Follow the guidelines in the previous section concerning coding style, submission of diffs, and so on.
2. When doing a port, bear in mind that your code must coexist peacefully with the rest of gawk and the other ports. Avoid gratuitous changes to the system-independent parts of the code. If at all possible, avoid sprinkling #ifdefs just for your port throughout the code.

   If the changes needed for a particular system affect too much of the code, I probably will not accept them. In such a case, you can, of course, distribute your changes on your own, as long as you comply with the GPL (see Copying).

3. A number of the files that come with gawk are maintained by other people at the Free Software Foundation. Thus, you should not change them unless it is for a very good reason; i.e., changes are not out of the question, but changes to these files are scrutinized extra carefully. The files are getopt.h, getopt.c, getopt1.c, regex.h, regex.c, dfa.h, dfa.c, install-sh, and mkinstalldirs.
4. Be willing to continue to maintain the port. Non-Unix operating systems are supported by volunteers who maintain the code needed to compile and run gawk on their systems. If noone volunteers to maintain a port, it becomes unsupported and it may be necessary to remove it from the distribution.
5. Supply an appropriate gawkmisc.??? file. Each port has its own gawkmisc.??? that implements certain operating system specific functions. This is cleaner than a plethora of #ifdefs scattered throughout the code. The gawkmisc.c in the main source directory includes the appropriate gawkmisc.??? file from each subdirectory. Be sure to update it as well.

   Each port's gawkmisc.??? file has a suffix reminiscent of the machine or operating system for the port—for example, pc/gawkmisc.pc and vms/gawkmisc.vms. The use of separate suffixes, instead of plain gawkmisc.c, makes it possible to move files from a port's subdirectory into the main subdirectory, without accidentally destroying the real gawkmisc.c file. (Currently, this is only an issue for the PC operating system ports.)

6. Supply a Makefile as well as any other C source and header files that are necessary for your operating system. All your code should be in a separate subdirectory, with a name that is the same as, or reminiscent of, either your operating system or the computer system. If possible, try to structure things so that it is not necessary to move files out of the subdirectory into the main source directory. If that is not possible, then be sure to avoid using names for your files that duplicate the names of files in the main source directory.
7. Update the documentation. Please write a section (or sections) for this Web page describing the installation and compilation steps needed to compile and/or install gawk for your system.
8. Be prepared to sign the appropriate paperwork. In order for the FSF to distribute your code, you must either place your code in the public domain and submit a signed statement to that effect, or assign the copyright in your code to the FSF.

Following these steps makes it much easier to integrate your changes into gawk and have them coexist happily with other operating systems' code that is already there.

In the code that you supply and maintain, feel free to use a coding style and brace layout that suits your taste.

Next: Future Extensions, Previous: Additions, Up: Notes

### C.3 Adding New Built-in Functions to gawk

> Danger Will Robinson! Danger!!
> Warning! Warning!
> The Robot

Beginning with gawk 3.1, it is possible to add new built-in functions to gawk using dynamically loaded libraries. This facility is available on systems (such as GNU/Linux) that support the `dlopen` and `dlsym` functions. This section describes how to write and use dynamically loaded extensions for gawk. Experience with programming in C or C++ is necessary when reading this section.

Caution: The facilities described in this section are very much subject to change in a future gawk release. Be aware that you may have to re-do everything, perhaps from scratch, at some future time.

Next: Sample Library, Up: Dynamic Extensions

#### C.3.1 A Minimal Introduction to gawk Internals

The truth is that gawk was not designed for simple extensibility. The facilities for adding functions using shared libraries work, but are something of a “bag on the side.” Thus, this tour is brief and simplistic; would-be gawk hackers are encouraged to spend some time reading the source code before trying to write extensions based on the material presented here. Of particular note are the files awk.h, builtin.c, and eval.c. Reading awk.y in order to see how the parse tree is built would also be of use.

With the disclaimers out of the way, the following types, structure members, functions, and macros are declared in awk.h and are of use when writing extensions. The next section shows how they are used:

`AWKNUM`
  An `AWKNUM` is the internal type of awk floating-point numbers. Typically, it is a C `double`.

`NODE`
  Just about everything is done using objects of type `NODE`. These contain both strings and numbers, as well as variables and arrays.

`AWKNUM force_number(NODE *n)`
  This macro forces a value to be numeric. It returns the actual numeric value contained in the node. It may end up calling an internal gawk function.

`void force_string(NODE *n)`
  This macro guarantees that a `NODE`'s string value is current. It may end up calling an internal gawk function. It also guarantees that the string is zero-terminated.

`size_t get_curfunc_arg_count(void)`
  This function returns the actual number of parameters passed to the current function. Inside the code of an extension this can be used to determine the maximum index which is safe to use with `stack_ptr`. If this value is greater than `tree->param_cnt`, the function was called incorrectly from the awk program.

  Caution: This function is new as of gawk 3.1.4.

`n->param_cnt`
  Inside an extension function, this is the maximum number of expected parameters, as set by the `make_builtin` function.

`n->stptr`
`n->stlen`
  The data and length of a `NODE`'s string value, respectively. The string is not guaranteed to be zero-terminated. If you need to pass the string value to a C library function, save the value in `n->stptr[n->stlen]`, assign `'\0'` to it, call the routine, and then restore the value.

`n->type`
  The type of the `NODE`. This is a C `enum`. Values should be either `Node_var` or `Node_var_array` for function parameters.

`n->vname`
  The “variable name” of a node. This is not of much use inside externally written extensions.

`void assoc_clear(NODE *n)`
  Clears the associative array pointed to by `n`. Make sure that n->type == Node_var_array first.

`NODE **assoc_lookup(NODE *symbol, NODE *subs, int reference)`
  Finds, and installs if necessary, array elements. `symbol` is the array, `subs` is the subscript. This is usually a value created with `tmp_string` (see below). `reference` should be `TRUE` if it is an error to use the value before it is created. Typically, `FALSE` is the correct value to use from extension functions.

`NODE *make_string(char *s, size_t len)`
  Take a C string and turn it into a pointer to a `NODE` that can be stored appropriately. This is permanent storage; understanding of gawk memory management is helpful.

`NODE *make_number(AWKNUM val)`
  Take an `AWKNUM` and turn it into a pointer to a `NODE` that can be stored appropriately. This is permanent storage; understanding of gawk memory management is helpful.

`NODE *tmp_string(char *s, size_t len);`
  Take a C string and turn it into a pointer to a `NODE` that can be stored appropriately. This is temporary storage; understanding of gawk memory management is helpful.

`NODE *tmp_number(AWKNUM val)`
  Take an `AWKNUM` and turn it into a pointer to a `NODE` that can be stored appropriately. This is temporary storage; understanding of gawk memory management is helpful.

`NODE *dupnode(NODE *n)`
  Duplicate a node. In most cases, this increments an internal reference count instead of actually duplicating the entire `NODE`; understanding of gawk memory management is helpful.

`void free_temp(NODE *n)`
  This macro releases the memory associated with a `NODE` allocated with `tmp_string` or `tmp_number`. Understanding of gawk memory management is helpful.

`void make_builtin(char *name, NODE *(*func)(NODE *), int count)`
  Register a C function pointed to by `func` as new built-in function `name`. `name` is a regular C string. `count` is the maximum number of arguments that the function takes. The function should be written in the following manner:

                /* do_xxx --- do xxx function for gawk */

                NODE *
                do_xxx(NODE *tree)
                {
                    ...
                }

`NODE *get_argument(NODE *tree, int i)`
  This function is called from within a C extension function to get the `i`-th argument from the function call. The first argument is argument zero.

`NODE *get_actual_argument(NODE *tree, unsigned int i,`
`int optional, int wantarray);`
  This function retrieves a particular argument `i`. `wantarray` is `TRUE` if the argument should be an array, `FALSE` otherwise. If `optional` is `TRUE`, the argument need not have been supplied. If it wasn't, the return value is `NULL`. It is a fatal error if `optional` is `TRUE` but the argument was not provided.

  Caution: This function is new as of gawk 3.1.4.

`get_scalar_argument(t, i, opt)`
  This is a convenience macro that calls `get_actual_argument`.

  Caution: This macro is new as of gawk 3.1.4.

`get_array_argument(t, i, opt)`
  This is a convenience macro that calls `get_actual_argument`.

  Caution: This macro is new as of gawk 3.1.4.

`void set_value(NODE *tree)`
  This function is called from within a C extension function to set the return value from the extension function. This value is what the awk program sees as the return value from the new awk function.

`void update_ERRNO(void)`
  This function is called from within a C extension function to set the value of gawk's `ERRNO` variable, based on the current value of the C `errno` variable. It is provided as a convenience.

An argument that is supposed to be an array needs to be handled with some extra code, in case the array being passed in is actually from a function parameter.

In versions of gawk up to and including 3.1.2, the following boilerplate code shows how to do this:

         NODE *the_arg;

         the_arg = get_argument(tree, 2); /* assume need 3rd arg, 0-based */

         /* if a parameter, get it off the stack */
         if (the_arg->type == Node_param_list)
             the_arg = stack_ptr[the_arg->param_cnt];

         /* parameter referenced an array, get it */
         if (the_arg->type == Node_array_ref)
             the_arg = the_arg->orig_array;

         /* check type */
         if (the_arg->type != Node_var && the_arg->type != Node_var_array)
             fatal("newfunc: third argument is not an array");

         /* force it to be an array, if necessary, clear it */
         the_arg->type = Node_var_array;
         assoc_clear(the_arg);

For versions 3.1.3 and later, the internals changed. In particular, the interface was actually simplified drastically. The following boilerplate code now suffices:

         NODE *the_arg;

         the_arg = get_argument(tree, 2); /* assume need 3rd arg, 0-based */

         /* force it to be an array: */
         the_arg = get_array(the_arg);

         /* if necessary, clear it: */
         assoc_clear(the_arg);

As of version 3.1.4, the internals improved again, and became even simpler:

         NODE *the_arg;

         the_arg = get_array_argument(tree, 2, FALSE); /* assume need 3rd arg, 0-based */

Again, you should spend time studying the gawk internals; don't just blindly copy this code.

Previous: Internals, Up: Dynamic Extensions

#### C.3.2 Directory and File Operation Built-ins

Two useful functions that are not in awk are `chdir` (so that an awk program can change its directory) and `stat` (so that an awk program can gather information about a file). This section implements these functions for gawk in an external extension library.

Next: Internal File Ops, Up: Sample Library

##### C.3.2.1 Using `chdir` and `stat`

This section shows how to use the new functions at the awk level once they've been integrated into the running gawk interpreter. Using `chdir` is very straightforward. It takes one argument, the new directory to change to:

         ...
         newdir = "/home/arnold/funstuff"
         ret = chdir(newdir)
         if (ret < 0) {
             printf("could not change to %s: %s\n",
                            newdir, ERRNO) > "/dev/stderr"
             exit 1
         }
         ...

The return value is negative if the `chdir` failed, and `ERRNO` (see Built-in Variables) is set to a string indicating the error.

Using `stat` is a bit more complicated. The C `stat` function fills in a structure that has a fair amount of information. The right way to model this in awk is to fill in an associative array with the appropriate information:

         file = "/home/arnold/.profile"
         fdata[1] = "x"    # force `fdata' to be an array
         ret = stat(file, fdata)
         if (ret < 0) {
             printf("could not stat %s: %s\n",
                      file, ERRNO) > "/dev/stderr"
             exit 1
         }
         printf("size of %s is %d bytes\n", file, fdata["size"])

The `stat` function always clears the data array, even if the `stat` fails. It fills in the following elements:

`"name"`
  The name of the file that was `stat`'ed.
`"dev"`
`"ino"`
  The file's device and inode numbers, respectively.
`"mode"`
  The file's mode, as a numeric value. This includes both the file's type and its permissions.
`"nlink"`
  The number of hard links (directory entries) the file has.
`"uid"`
`"gid"`
  The numeric user and group ID numbers of the file's owner.
`"size"`
  The size in bytes of the file.
`"blocks"`
  The number of disk blocks the file actually occupies. This may not be a function of the file's size if the file has holes.
`"atime"`
`"mtime"`
`"ctime"`
  The file's last access, modification, and inode update times, respectively. These are numeric timestamps, suitable for formatting with `strftime` (see Built-in).
`"pmode"`
  The file's “printable mode.” This is a string representation of the file's type and permissions, such as what is produced by ls -l—for example, `"drwxr-xr-x"`.
`"type"`
  A printable string representation of the file's type. The value is one of the following:
  `"blockdev"`
  `"chardev"`
    The file is a block or character device (“special file”).
  `"directory"`
    The file is a directory.
  `"fifo"`
    The file is a named-pipe (also known as a FIFO).
  `"file"`
    The file is just a regular file.
  `"socket"`
    The file is an `AF_UNIX` (“Unix domain”) socket in the filesystem.
  `"symlink"`
    The file is a symbolic link.

Several additional elements may be present depending upon the operating system and the type of the file. You can test for them in your awk program by using the `in` operator (see Reference to Elements):

`"blksize"`
  The preferred block size for I/O to the file. This field is not present on all POSIX-like systems in the C `stat` structure.
`"linkval"`
  If the file is a symbolic link, this element is the name of the file the link points to (i.e., the value of the link).
`"rdev"`
`"major"`
`"minor"`
  If the file is a block or character device file, then these values represent the numeric device number and the major and minor components of that number, respectively.

Next: Using Internal File Ops, Previous: Internal File Description, Up: Sample Library

##### C.3.2.2 C Code for `chdir` and `stat`

Here is the C code for these extensions. They were written for GNU/Linux. The code needs some more work for complete portability to other POSIX-compliant systems:70

         #include "awk.h"

         #include <sys/sysmacros.h>

         /*  do_chdir --- provide dynamically loaded
                          chdir() builtin for gawk */

         static NODE *
         do_chdir(tree)
         NODE *tree;
         {
             NODE *newdir;
             int ret = -1;

             if (do_lint && get_curfunc_arg_count() != 1)
                 lintwarn("chdir: called with incorrect number of arguments");

             newdir = get_scalar_argument(tree, 0);

The file includes the `"awk.h"` header file for definitions for the gawk internals. It includes `<sys/sysmacros.h>` for access to the `major` and `minor` macros.

By convention, for an awk function `foo`, the function that implements it is called do_foo. The function should take a NODE * argument, usually called `tree`, that represents the argument list to the function. The `newdir` variable represents the new directory to change to, retrieved with `get_argument`. Note that the first argument is numbered zero.

This code actually accomplishes the `chdir`. It first forces the argument to be a string and passes the string value to the `chdir` system call. If the `chdir` fails, `ERRNO` is updated. The result of `force_string` has to be freed with `free_temp`:

             (void) force_string(newdir);
             ret = chdir(newdir->stptr);
             if (ret < 0)
                 update_ERRNO();
             free_temp(newdir);

Finally, the function returns the return value to the awk level, using `set_value`. Then it must return a value from the call to the new built-in (this value ignored by the interpreter):

             /* Set the return value */
             set_value(tmp_number((AWKNUM) ret));

             /* Just to make the interpreter happy */
             return tmp_number((AWKNUM) 0);
         }

The `stat` built-in is more involved. First comes a function that turns a numeric mode into a printable representation (e.g., 644 becomes -rw-r--r--). This is omitted here for brevity:

         /* format_mode --- turn a stat mode field
                            into something readable */

         static char *
         format_mode(fmode)
         unsigned long fmode;
         {
             ...
         }

Next comes the actual `do_stat` function itself. First come the variable declarations and argument checking:

         /* do_stat --- provide a stat() function for gawk */

         static NODE *
         do_stat(tree)
         NODE *tree;
         {
             NODE *file, *array;
             struct stat sbuf;
             int ret;
             NODE **aptr;
             char *pmode;    /* printable mode */
             char *type = "unknown";

             if (do_lint && get_curfunc_arg_count() > 2)
                 lintwarn("stat: called with too many arguments");

Then comes the actual work. First, we get the arguments. Then, we always clear the array. To get the file information, we use `lstat`, in case the file is a symbolic link. If there's an error, we set `ERRNO` and return:

             /* directory is first arg, array to hold results is second */
             file = get_scalar_argument(tree, 0, FALSE);
             array = get_array_argument(tree, 1, FALSE);

             /* empty out the array */
             assoc_clear(array);

             /* lstat the file, if error, set ERRNO and return */
             (void) force_string(file);
             ret = lstat(file->stptr, & sbuf);
             if (ret < 0) {
                 update_ERRNO();

                 set_value(tmp_number((AWKNUM) ret));

                 free_temp(file);
                 return tmp_number((AWKNUM) 0);
             }

Now comes the tedious part: filling in the array. Only a few of the calls are shown here, since they all follow the same pattern:

             /* fill in the array */
             aptr = assoc_lookup(array, tmp_string("name", 4), FALSE);
             *aptr = dupnode(file);

             aptr = assoc_lookup(array, tmp_string("mode", 4), FALSE);
             *aptr = make_number((AWKNUM) sbuf.st_mode);

             aptr = assoc_lookup(array, tmp_string("pmode", 5), FALSE);
             pmode = format_mode(sbuf.st_mode);
             *aptr = make_string(pmode, strlen(pmode));

When done, we free the temporary value containing the file name, set the return value, and return:

             free_temp(file);

             /* Set the return value */
             set_value(tmp_number((AWKNUM) ret));

             /* Just to make the interpreter happy */
             return tmp_number((AWKNUM) 0);
         }

Finally, it's necessary to provide the “glue” that loads the new function(s) into gawk. By convention, each library has a routine named `dlload` that does the job:

         /* dlload --- load new builtins in this library */

         NODE *
         dlload(tree, dl)
         NODE *tree;
         void *dl;
         {
             make_builtin("chdir", do_chdir, 1);
             make_builtin("stat", do_stat, 2);
             return tmp_number((AWKNUM) 0);
         }

And that's it! As an exercise, consider adding functions to implement system calls such as `chown`, `chmod`, and `umask`.

Previous: Internal File Ops, Up: Sample Library

##### C.3.2.3 Integrating the Extensions

Now that the code is written, it must be possible to add it at runtime to the running gawk interpreter. First, the code must be compiled. Assuming that the functions are in a file named filefuncs.c, and idir is the location of the gawk include files, the following steps create a GNU/Linux shared library:

         $ gcc -shared -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -c -O -g -Iidir filefuncs.c
         $ ld -o filefuncs.so -shared filefuncs.o

Once the library exists, it is loaded by calling the `extension` built-in function. This function takes two arguments: the name of the library to load and the name of a function to call when the library is first loaded. This function adds the new functions to gawk. It returns the value returned by the initialization function within the shared library:

         # file testff.awk
         BEGIN {
             extension("./filefuncs.so", "dlload")

             chdir(".")  # no-op

             data[1] = 1 # force `data' to be an array
             print "Info for testff.awk"
             ret = stat("testff.awk", data)
             print "ret =", ret
             for (i in data)
                 printf "data[\"%s\"] = %s\n", i, data[i]
             print "testff.awk modified:",
                 strftime("%m %d %y %H:%M:%S", data["mtime"])
         }

Here are the results of running the program:

         $ gawk -f testff.awk
         -| Info for testff.awk
         -| ret = 0
         -| data["blksize"] = 4096
         -| data["mtime"] = 932361936
         -| data["mode"] = 33188
         -| data["type"] = file
         -| data["dev"] = 2065
         -| data["gid"] = 10
         -| data["ino"] = 878597
         -| data["ctime"] = 971431797
         -| data["blocks"] = 2
         -| data["nlink"] = 1
         -| data["name"] = testff.awk
         -| data["atime"] = 971608519
         -| data["pmode"] = -rw-r--r--
         -| data["size"] = 607
         -| data["uid"] = 2076
         -| testff.awk modified: 07 19 99 08:25:36

Previous: Dynamic Extensions, Up: Notes

### C.4 Probable Future Extensions

> AWK is a language similar to PERL, only considerably more elegant.
> Arnold Robbins

> Hey!
> Larry Wall

This section briefly lists extensions and possible improvements that indicate the directions we are currently considering for gawk. The file FUTURES in the gawk distribution lists these extensions as well.

Following is a list of probable future changes visible at the awk language level:

Loadable module interface
  It is not clear that the awk-level interface to the modules facility is as good as it should be. The interface needs to be redesigned, particularly taking namespace issues into account, as well as possibly including issues such as library search path order and versioning.
`RECLEN` variable for fixed-length records
  Along with `FIELDWIDTHS`, this would speed up the processing of fixed-length records. `PROCINFO["RS"]` would be `"RS"` or `"RECLEN"`, depending upon which kind of record processing is in effect.
Additional `printf` specifiers
  The 1999 ISO C standard added a number of additional `printf` format specifiers. These should be evaluated for possible inclusion in gawk.
Databases
  It may be possible to map a GDBM/NDBM/SDBM file into an awk array.
Large character sets
  It would be nice if gawk could handle UTF-8 and other character sets that are larger than eight bits. (gawk currently has partial multi-byte support, but it needs an expert to really think out the multi-byte issues and consult with the maintainer on the appropriate changes.)
More `lint` warnings
  There are more things that could be checked for portability.

Following is a list of probable improvements that will make gawk's source code easier to work with:

Loadable module mechanics
  The current extension mechanism works (see Dynamic Extensions), but is rather primitive. It requires a fair amount of manual work to create and integrate a loadable module. Nor is the current mechanism as portable as might be desired. The GNU libtool package provides a number of features that would make using loadable modules much easier. gawk should be changed to use libtool.
Loadable module internals
  The API to its internals that gawk “exports” should be revised. Too many things are needlessly exposed. A new API should be designed and implemented to make module writing easier.
Better array subscript management
  gawk's management of array subscript storage could use revamping, so that using the same value to index multiple arrays only stores one copy of the index value.
Integrating the DBUG library
  Integrating Fred Fish's DBUG library would be helpful during development, but it's a lot of work to do.

Following is a list of probable improvements that will make gawk perform better:

Compilation of awk programs
  gawk uses a Bison (YACC-like) parser to convert the script given it into a syntax tree; the syntax tree is then executed by a simple recursive evaluator. This method incurs a lot of overhead, since the recursive evaluator performs many procedure calls to do even the simplest things.

  It should be possible for gawk to convert the script's parse tree into a C program which the user would then compile, using the normal C compiler and a special gawk library to provide all the needed functions (regexps, fields, associative arrays, type coercion, and so on).

  An easier possibility might be for an intermediate phase of gawk to convert the parse tree into a linear byte code form like the one used in GNU Emacs Lisp. The recursive evaluator would then be replaced by a straight line byte code interpreter that would be intermediate in speed between running a compiled program and doing what gawk does now.

Finally, the programs in the test suite could use documenting in this Web page.

See Additions, if you are interested in tackling any of these projects.

Next: Glossary, Previous: Notes, Up: Top

## Appendix D Basic Programming Concepts

This appendix attempts to define some of the basic concepts and terms that are used throughout the rest of this Web page. As this Web page is specifically about awk, and not about computer programming in general, the coverage here is by necessity fairly cursory and simplistic. (If you need more background, there are many other introductory texts that you should refer to instead.)

Next: Basic Data Typing, Up: Basic Concepts

### D.1 What a Program Does

At the most basic level, the job of a program is to process some input data and produce results.

                           _______
         +------+         /       \         +---------+
         | Data | -----> < Program > -----> | Results |
         +------+         \_______/         +---------+

The “program” in the figure can be either a compiled program71 (such as ls), or it may be interpreted. In the latter case, a machine-executable program such as awk reads your program, and then uses the instructions in your program to process the data.

When you write a program, it usually consists of the following, very basic set of steps:

                                       ______
         +----------------+           / More \  No       +----------+
         | Initialization | -------> <  Data  > -------> | Clean Up |
         +----------------+    ^      \   ?  /           +----------+
                               |       +--+-+
                               |          | Yes
                               |          |
                               |          V
                               |     +---------+
                               +-----+ Process |
                                     +---------+

Initialization
  These are the things you do before actually starting to process data, such as checking arguments, initializing any data you need to work with, and so on. This step corresponds to awk's `BEGIN` rule (see BEGIN/END).

  If you were baking a cake, this might consist of laying out all the mixing bowls and the baking pan, and making sure you have all the ingredients that you need.

Processing
  This is where the actual work is done. Your program reads data, one logical chunk at a time, and processes it as appropriate.

  In most programming languages, you have to manually manage the reading of data, checking to see if there is more each time you read a chunk. awk's pattern-action paradigm (see Getting Started) handles the mechanics of this for you.

  In baking a cake, the processing corresponds to the actual labor: breaking eggs, mixing the flour, water, and other ingredients, and then putting the cake into the oven.

Clean Up
  Once you've processed all the data, you may have things you need to do before exiting. This step corresponds to awk's `END` rule (see BEGIN/END).

  After the cake comes out of the oven, you still have to wrap it in plastic wrap to keep anyone from tasting it, as well as wash the mixing bowls and utensils.

An algorithm is a detailed set of instructions necessary to accomplish a task, or process data. It is much the same as a recipe for baking a cake. Programs implement algorithms. Often, it is up to you to design the algorithm and implement it, simultaneously.

The “logical chunks” we talked about previously are called records, similar to the records a company keeps on employees, a school keeps for students, or a doctor keeps for patients. Each record has many component parts, such as first and last names, date of birth, address, and so on. The component parts are referred to as the fields of the record.

The act of reading data is termed input, and that of generating results, not too surprisingly, is termed output. They are often referred to together as “input/output,” and even more often, as “I/O” for short. (You will also see “input” and “output” used as verbs.)

awk manages the reading of data for you, as well as the breaking it up into records and fields. Your program's job is to tell awk what to with the data. You do this by describing patterns in the data to look for, and actions to execute when those patterns are seen. This data-driven nature of awk programs usually makes them both easier to write and easier to read.

Next: Floating Point Issues, Previous: Basic High Level, Up: Basic Concepts

### D.2 Data Values in a Computer

In a program, you keep track of information and values in things called variables. A variable is just a name for a given value, such as `first_name`, `last_name`, `address`, and so on. awk has several predefined variables, and it has special names to refer to the current input record and the fields of the record. You may also group multiple associated values under one name, as an array.

Data, particularly in awk, consists of either numeric values, such as 42 or 3.1415927, or string values. String values are essentially anything that's not a number, such as a name. Strings are sometimes referred to as character data, since they store the individual characters that comprise them. Individual variables, as well as numeric and string variables, are referred to as scalar values. Groups of values, such as arrays, are not scalars.

Within computers, there are two kinds of numeric values: integers and floating-point. In school, integer values were referred to as “whole” numbers—that is, numbers without any fractional part, such as 1, 42, or −17. The advantage to integer numbers is that they represent values exactly. The disadvantage is that their range is limited. On most modern systems, this range is −2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647.

Integer values come in two flavors: signed and unsigned. Signed values may be negative or positive, with the range of values just described. Unsigned values are always positive. On most modern systems, the range is from 0 to 4,294,967,295.

Floating-point numbers represent what are called “real” numbers; i.e., those that do have a fractional part, such as 3.1415927. The advantage to floating-point numbers is that they can represent a much larger range of values. The disadvantage is that there are numbers that they cannot represent exactly. awk uses double-precision floating-point numbers, which can hold more digits than single-precision floating-point numbers. Floating-point issues are discussed more fully in Floating Point Issues.

At the very lowest level, computers store values as groups of binary digits, or bits. Modern computers group bits into groups of eight, called bytes. Advanced applications sometimes have to manipulate bits directly, and gawk provides functions for doing so.

While you are probably used to the idea of a number without a value (i.e., zero), it takes a bit more getting used to the idea of zero-length character data. Nevertheless, such a thing exists. It is called the null string. The null string is character data that has no value. In other words, it is empty. It is written in awk programs like this: `""`.

Humans are used to working in decimal; i.e., base 10. In base 10, numbers go from 0 to 9, and then “roll over” into the next column. (Remember grade school? 42 is 4 times 10 plus 2.)

There are other number bases though. Computers commonly use base 2 or binary, base 8 or octal, and base 16 or hexadecimal. In binary, each column represents two times the value in the column to its right. Each column may contain either a 0 or a 1. Thus, binary 1010 represents 1 times 8, plus 0 times 4, plus 1 times 2, plus 0 times 1, or decimal 10. Octal and hexadecimal are discussed more in Nondecimal-numbers.

Programs are written in programming languages. Hundreds, if not thousands, of programming languages exist. One of the most popular is the C programming language. The C language had a very strong influence on the design of the awk language.

There have been several versions of C. The first is often referred to as “K&R” C, after the initials of Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, the authors of the first book on C. (Dennis Ritchie created the language, and Brian Kernighan was one of the creators of awk.)

In the mid-1980s, an effort began to produce an international standard for C. This work culminated in 1989, with the production of the ANSI standard for C. This standard became an ISO standard in 1990. Where it makes sense, POSIX awk is compatible with 1990 ISO C.

In 1999, a revised ISO C standard was approved and released. Future versions of gawk will be as compatible as possible with this standard.

Previous: Basic Data Typing, Up: Basic Concepts

### D.3 Floating-Point Number Caveats

As mentioned earlier, floating-point numbers represent what are called “real” numbers, i.e., those that have a fractional part. awk uses double-precision floating-point numbers to represent all numeric values. This section describes some of the issues involved in using floating-point numbers.

There is a very nice paper on floating-point arithmetic by David Goldberg, “What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-point Arithmetic,” ACM Computing Surveys 23, 1 (1991-03), 5-48.72 This is worth reading if you are interested in the details, but it does require a background in computer science.

Internally, awk keeps both the numeric value (double-precision floating-point) and the string value for a variable. Separately, awk keeps track of what type the variable has (see Typing and Comparison), which plays a role in how variables are used in comparisons.

It is important to note that the string value for a number may not reflect the full value (all the digits) that the numeric value actually contains. The following program (values.awk) illustrates this:

         {
            $1 = $2 + $3
            # see it for what it is
            printf("$1 = %.12g\n", $1)
            # use CONVFMT
            a = "<" $1 ">"
            print "a =", a
            # use OFMT
            print "$1 =", $1
         }

This program shows the full value of the sum of `$2` and `$3` using `printf`, and then prints the string values obtained from both automatic conversion (via `CONVFMT`) and from printing (via `OFMT`).

Here is what happens when the program is run:

         $ echo 2 3.654321 1.2345678 | awk -f values.awk
         -| $1 = 4.8888888
         -| a = <4.88889>
         -| $1 = 4.88889

This makes it clear that the full numeric value is different from what the default string representations show.

`CONVFMT`'s default value is `"%.6g"`, which yields a value with at least six significant digits. For some applications, you might want to change it to specify more precision. On most modern machines, most of the time, 17 digits is enough to capture a floating-point number's value exactly.73

Unlike numbers in the abstract sense (such as what you studied in high school or college math), numbers stored in computers are limited in certain ways. They cannot represent an infinite number of digits, nor can they always represent things exactly. In particular, floating-point numbers cannot always represent values exactly. Here is an example:

         $ awk '{ printf("%010d\n", $1 * 100) }'
         515.79
         -| 0000051579
         515.80
         -| 0000051579
         515.81
         -| 0000051580
         515.82
         -| 0000051582
         Ctrl-d

This shows that some values can be represented exactly, whereas others are only approximated. This is not a “bug” in awk, but simply an artifact of how computers represent numbers.

Another peculiarity of floating-point numbers on modern systems is that they often have more than one representation for the number zero! In particular, it is possible to represent “minus zero” as well as regular, or “positive” zero.

This example shows that negative and positive zero are distinct values when stored internally, but that they are in fact equal to each other, as well as to “regular” zero:

         $ gawk 'BEGIN { mz = -0 ; pz = 0
         > printf "-0 = %g, +0 = %g, (-0 == +0) -> %d\n", mz, pz, mz == pz
         > printf "mz == 0 -> %d, pz == 0 -> %d\n", mz == 0, pz == 0
         > }'
         -| -0 = -0, +0 = 0, (-0 == +0) -> 1
         -| mz == 0 -> 1, pz == 0 -> 1

It helps to keep this in mind should you process numeric data that contains negative zero values; the fact that the zero is negative is noted and can affect comparisons.

Next: Copying, Previous: Basic Concepts, Up: Top

## Glossary

Action
  A series of awk statements attached to a rule. If the rule's pattern matches an input record, awk executes the rule's action. Actions are always enclosed in curly braces. (See Action Overview.)

Amazing awk Assembler
  Henry Spencer at the University of Toronto wrote a retargetable assembler completely as sed and awk scripts. It is thousands of lines long, including machine descriptions for several eight-bit microcomputers. It is a good example of a program that would have been better written in another language. You can get it from ftp://ftp.freefriends.org/arnold/Awkstuff/aaa.tgz.

Amazingly Workable Formatter (awf)
  Henry Spencer at the University of Toronto wrote a formatter that accepts a large subset of the nroff -ms and nroff -man formatting commands, using awk and sh. It is available over the Internet from ftp://ftp.freefriends.org/arnold/Awkstuff/awf.tgz.
Anchor
  The regexp metacharacters ^ and $, which force the match to the beginning or end of the string, respectively.

ANSI
  The American National Standards Institute. This organization produces many standards, among them the standards for the C and C++ programming languages. These standards often become international standards as well. See also “ISO.”
Array
  A grouping of multiple values under the same name. Most languages just provide sequential arrays. awk provides associative arrays.
Assertion
  A statement in a program that a condition is true at this point in the program. Useful for reasoning about how a program is supposed to behave.
Assignment
  An awk expression that changes the value of some awk variable or data object. An object that you can assign to is called an lvalue. The assigned values are called rvalues. See Assignment Ops.
Associative Array
  Arrays in which the indices may be numbers or strings, not just sequential integers in a fixed range.
awk Language
  The language in which awk programs are written.
awk Program
  An awk program consists of a series of patterns and actions, collectively known as rules. For each input record given to the program, the program's rules are all processed in turn. awk programs may also contain function definitions.
awk Script
  Another name for an awk program.
Bash
  The GNU version of the standard shell (the Bourne-Again SHell). See also “Bourne Shell.”
BBS
  See “Bulletin Board System.”
Bit
  Short for “Binary Digit.” All values in computer memory ultimately reduce to binary digits: values that are either zero or one. Groups of bits may be interpreted differently—as integers, floating-point numbers, character data, addresses of other memory objects, or other data. awk lets you work with floating-point numbers and strings. gawk lets you manipulate bit values with the built-in functions described in Bitwise Functions.

  Computers are often defined by how many bits they use to represent integer values. Typical systems are 32-bit systems, but 64-bit systems are becoming increasingly popular, and 16-bit systems are waning in popularity.

Boolean Expression
  Named after the English mathematician Boole. See also “Logical Expression.”
Bourne Shell
  The standard shell (/bin/sh) on Unix and Unix-like systems, originally written by Steven R. Bourne. Many shells (bash, ksh, pdksh, zsh) are generally upwardly compatible with the Bourne shell.
Built-in Function
  The awk language provides built-in functions that perform various numerical, I/O-related, and string computations. Examples are `sqrt` (for the square root of a number) and `substr` (for a substring of a string). gawk provides functions for timestamp management, bit manipulation, and runtime string translation. (See Built-in.)
Built-in Variable
  `ARGC`, `ARGV`, `CONVFMT`, `ENVIRON`, `FILENAME`, `FNR`, `FS`, `NF`, `NR`, `OFMT`, `OFS`, `ORS`, `RLENGTH`, `RSTART`, `RS`, and `SUBSEP` are the variables that have special meaning to awk. In addition, `ARGIND`, `BINMODE`, `ERRNO`, `FIELDWIDTHS`, `IGNORECASE`, `LINT`, `PROCINFO`, `RT`, and `TEXTDOMAIN` are the variables that have special meaning to gawk. Changing some of them affects awk's running environment. (See Built-in Variables.)
Braces
  See “Curly Braces.”
Bulletin Board System
  A computer system allowing users to log in and read and/or leave messages for other users of the system, much like leaving paper notes on a bulletin board.
C
  The system programming language that most GNU software is written in. The awk programming language has C-like syntax, and this Web page points out similarities between awk and C when appropriate.

  In general, gawk attempts to be as similar to the 1990 version of ISO C as makes sense. Future versions of gawk may adopt features from the newer 1999 standard, as appropriate.

C++
  A popular object-oriented programming language derived from C.

Character Set
  The set of numeric codes used by a computer system to represent the characters (letters, numbers, punctuation, etc.) of a particular country or place. The most common character set in use today is ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). Many European countries use an extension of ASCII known as ISO-8859-1 (ISO Latin-1).

CHEM
  A preprocessor for pic that reads descriptions of molecules and produces pic input for drawing them. It was written in awk by Brian Kernighan and Jon Bentley, and is available from http://cm.bell-labs.com/netlib/typesetting/chem.gz.
Coprocess
  A subordinate program with which two-way communications is possible.

Compiler
  A program that translates human-readable source code into machine-executable object code. The object code is then executed directly by the computer. See also “Interpreter.”
Compound Statement
  A series of awk statements, enclosed in curly braces. Compound statements may be nested. (See Statements.)
Concatenation
  Concatenating two strings means sticking them together, one after another, producing a new string. For example, the string foo concatenated with the string bar gives the string foobar. (See Concatenation.)
Conditional Expression
  An expression using the ?: ternary operator, such as expr1 ? expr2 : expr3. The expression expr1 is evaluated; if the result is true, the value of the whole expression is the value of expr2; otherwise the value is expr3. In either case, only one of expr2 and expr3 is evaluated. (See Conditional Exp.)
Comparison Expression
  A relation that is either true or false, such as (a < b). Comparison expressions are used in `if`, `while`, `do`, and `for` statements, and in patterns to select which input records to process. (See Typing and Comparison.)
Curly Braces
  The characters { and }. Curly braces are used in awk for delimiting actions, compound statements, and function bodies.

Dark Corner
  An area in the language where specifications often were (or still are) not clear, leading to unexpected or undesirable behavior. Such areas are marked in this Web page with “(d.c.)” in the text and are indexed under the heading “dark corner.”
Data Driven
  A description of awk programs, where you specify the data you are interested in processing, and what to do when that data is seen.
Data Objects
  These are numbers and strings of characters. Numbers are converted into strings and vice versa, as needed. (See Conversion.)
Deadlock
  The situation in which two communicating processes are each waiting for the other to perform an action.
Double-Precision
  An internal representation of numbers that can have fractional parts. Double-precision numbers keep track of more digits than do single-precision numbers, but operations on them are sometimes more expensive. This is the way awk stores numeric values. It is the C type `double`.
Dynamic Regular Expression
  A dynamic regular expression is a regular expression written as an ordinary expression. It could be a string constant, such as `"foo"`, but it may also be an expression whose value can vary. (See Computed Regexps.)
Environment
  A collection of strings, of the form name`=`val, that each program has available to it. Users generally place values into the environment in order to provide information to various programs. Typical examples are the environment variables HOME and PATH.
Empty String
  See “Null String.”

Epoch
  The date used as the “beginning of time” for timestamps. Time values in Unix systems are represented as seconds since the epoch, with library functions available for converting these values into standard date and time formats.

  The epoch on Unix and POSIX systems is 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC. See also “GMT” and “UTC.”

Escape Sequences
  A special sequence of characters used for describing nonprinting characters, such as \n for newline or \033 for the ASCII ESC (Escape) character. (See Escape Sequences.)
FDL
  See “Free Documentation License.”
Field
  When awk reads an input record, it splits the record into pieces separated by whitespace (or by a separator regexp that you can change by setting the built-in variable `FS`). Such pieces are called fields. If the pieces are of fixed length, you can use the built-in variable `FIELDWIDTHS` to describe their lengths. (See Field Separators, and Constant Size.)
Flag
  A variable whose truth value indicates the existence or nonexistence of some condition.
Floating-Point Number
  Often referred to in mathematical terms as a “rational” or real number, this is just a number that can have a fractional part. See also “Double-Precision” and “Single-Precision.”
Format
  Format strings are used to control the appearance of output in the `strftime` and `sprintf` functions, and are used in the `printf` statement as well. Also, data conversions from numbers to strings are controlled by the format string contained in the built-in variable `CONVFMT`. (See Control Letters.)
Free Documentation License
  This document describes the terms under which this Web page is published and may be copied. (See GNU Free Documentation License.)
Function
  A specialized group of statements used to encapsulate general or program-specific tasks. awk has a number of built-in functions, and also allows you to define your own. (See Functions.)
FSF
  See “Free Software Foundation.”

Free Software Foundation
  A nonprofit organization dedicated to the production and distribution of freely distributable software. It was founded by Richard M. Stallman, the author of the original Emacs editor. GNU Emacs is the most widely used version of Emacs today.
gawk
  The GNU implementation of awk.

General Public License
  This document describes the terms under which gawk and its source code may be distributed. (See Copying.)
GMT
  “Greenwich Mean Time.” This is the old term for UTC. It is the time of day used as the epoch for Unix and POSIX systems. See also “Epoch” and “UTC.”

GNU
  “GNU's not Unix”. An on-going project of the Free Software Foundation to create a complete, freely distributable, POSIX-compliant computing environment.
GNU/Linux
  A variant of the GNU system using the Linux kernel, instead of the Free Software Foundation's Hurd kernel. Linux is a stable, efficient, full-featured clone of Unix that has been ported to a variety of architectures. It is most popular on PC-class systems, but runs well on a variety of other systems too. The Linux kernel source code is available under the terms of the GNU General Public License, which is perhaps its most important aspect.
GPL
  See “General Public License.”
Hexadecimal
  Base 16 notation, where the digits are `0`–`9` and `A`–`F`, with A representing 10, B representing 11, and so on, up to F for 15. Hexadecimal numbers are written in C using a leading 0x, to indicate their base. Thus, `0x12` is 18 (1 times 16 plus 2).
I/O
  Abbreviation for “Input/Output,” the act of moving data into and/or out of a running program.
Input Record
  A single chunk of data that is read in by awk. Usually, an awk input record consists of one line of text. (See Records.)
Integer
  A whole number, i.e., a number that does not have a fractional part.
Internationalization
  The process of writing or modifying a program so that it can use multiple languages without requiring further source code changes.

Interpreter
  A program that reads human-readable source code directly, and uses the instructions in it to process data and produce results. awk is typically (but not always) implemented as an interpreter. See also “Compiler.”
Interval Expression
  A component of a regular expression that lets you specify repeated matches of some part of the regexp. Interval expressions were not traditionally available in awk programs.

ISO
  The International Standards Organization. This organization produces international standards for many things, including programming languages, such as C and C++. In the computer arena, important standards like those for C, C++, and POSIX become both American national and ISO international standards simultaneously. This Web page refers to Standard C as “ISO C” throughout.
Keyword
  In the awk language, a keyword is a word that has special meaning. Keywords are reserved and may not be used as variable names.

  gawk's keywords are: `BEGIN`, `END`, `if`, `else`, `while`, `do...while`, `for`, `for...in`, `break`, `continue`, `delete`, `next`, `nextfile`, `function`, `func`, and `exit`.

Lesser General Public License
  This document describes the terms under which binary library archives or shared objects, and their source code may be distributed.
Linux
  See “GNU/Linux.”
LGPL
  See “Lesser General Public License.”
Localization
  The process of providing the data necessary for an internationalized program to work in a particular language.
Logical Expression
  An expression using the operators for logic, AND, OR, and NOT, written &&, ||, and ! in awk. Often called Boolean expressions, after the mathematician who pioneered this kind of mathematical logic.
Lvalue
  An expression that can appear on the left side of an assignment operator. In most languages, lvalues can be variables or array elements. In awk, a field designator can also be used as an lvalue.
Matching
  The act of testing a string against a regular expression. If the regexp describes the contents of the string, it is said to match it.
Metacharacters
  Characters used within a regexp that do not stand for themselves. Instead, they denote regular expression operations, such as repetition, grouping, or alternation.
Null String
  A string with no characters in it. It is represented explicitly in awk programs by placing two double quote characters next to each other (`""`). It can appear in input data by having two successive occurrences of the field separator appear next to each other.
Number
  A numeric-valued data object. Modern awk implementations use double-precision floating-point to represent numbers. Very old awk implementations use single-precision floating-point.
Octal
  Base-eight notation, where the digits are `0`–`7`. Octal numbers are written in C using a leading 0, to indicate their base. Thus, `013` is 11 (one times 8 plus 3).

P1003.2
  See “POSIX.”
Pattern
  Patterns tell awk which input records are interesting to which rules.

  A pattern is an arbitrary conditional expression against which input is tested. If the condition is satisfied, the pattern is said to match the input record. A typical pattern might compare the input record against a regular expression. (See Pattern Overview.)

POSIX
  The name for a series of standards that specify a Portable Operating System interface. The “IX” denotes the Unix heritage of these standards. The main standard of interest for awk users is IEEE Standard for Information Technology, Standard 1003.2-1992, Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) Part 2: Shell and Utilities. Informally, this standard is often referred to as simply “P1003.2.”
Precedence
  The order in which operations are performed when operators are used without explicit parentheses.
Private
  Variables and/or functions that are meant for use exclusively by library functions and not for the main awk program. Special care must be taken when naming such variables and functions. (See Library Names.)
Range (of input lines)
  A sequence of consecutive lines from the input file(s). A pattern can specify ranges of input lines for awk to process or it can specify single lines. (See Pattern Overview.)
Recursion
  When a function calls itself, either directly or indirectly. If this isn't clear, refer to the entry for “recursion.”
Redirection
  Redirection means performing input from something other than the standard input stream, or performing output to something other than the standard output stream.

  You can redirect the output of the `print` and `printf` statements to a file or a system command, using the >, >>, |, and |& operators. You can redirect input to the `getline` statement using the <, |, and |& operators. (See Redirection, and Getline.)

Regexp
  Short for regular expression. A regexp is a pattern that denotes a set of strings, possibly an infinite set. For example, the regexp R.*xp matches any string starting with the letter R and ending with the letters xp. In awk, regexps are used in patterns and in conditional expressions. Regexps may contain escape sequences. (See Regexp.)
Regular Expression
  See “regexp.”
Regular Expression Constant
  A regular expression constant is a regular expression written within slashes, such as `/foo/`. This regular expression is chosen when you write the awk program and cannot be changed during its execution. (See Regexp Usage.)
Rule
  A segment of an awk program that specifies how to process single input records. A rule consists of a pattern and an action. awk reads an input record; then, for each rule, if the input record satisfies the rule's pattern, awk executes the rule's action. Otherwise, the rule does nothing for that input record.
Rvalue
  A value that can appear on the right side of an assignment operator. In awk, essentially every expression has a value. These values are rvalues.
Scalar
  A single value, be it a number or a string. Regular variables are scalars; arrays and functions are not.
Search Path
  In gawk, a list of directories to search for awk program source files. In the shell, a list of directories to search for executable programs.
Seed
  The initial value, or starting point, for a sequence of random numbers.
sed
  See “Stream Editor.”
Shell
  The command interpreter for Unix and POSIX-compliant systems. The shell works both interactively, and as a programming language for batch files, or shell scripts.
Short-Circuit
  The nature of the awk logical operators && and ||. If the value of the entire expression is determinable from evaluating just the lefthand side of these operators, the righthand side is not evaluated. (See Boolean Ops.)
Side Effect
  A side effect occurs when an expression has an effect aside from merely producing a value. Assignment expressions, increment and decrement expressions, and function calls have side effects. (See Assignment Ops.)
Single-Precision
  An internal representation of numbers that can have fractional parts. Single-precision numbers keep track of fewer digits than do double-precision numbers, but operations on them are sometimes less expensive in terms of CPU time. This is the type used by some very old versions of awk to store numeric values. It is the C type `float`.
Space
  The character generated by hitting the space bar on the keyboard.
Special File
  A file name interpreted internally by gawk, instead of being handed directly to the underlying operating system—for example, /dev/stderr. (See Special Files.)
Stream Editor
  A program that reads records from an input stream and processes them one or more at a time. This is in contrast with batch programs, which may expect to read their input files in entirety before starting to do anything, as well as with interactive programs which require input from the user.
String
  A datum consisting of a sequence of characters, such as I am a string. Constant strings are written with double quotes in the awk language and may contain escape sequences. (See Escape Sequences.)
Tab
  The character generated by hitting the `TAB` key on the keyboard. It usually expands to up to eight spaces upon output.
Text Domain
  A unique name that identifies an application. Used for grouping messages that are translated at runtime into the local language.
Timestamp
  A value in the “seconds since the epoch” format used by Unix and POSIX systems. Used for the gawk functions `mktime`, `strftime`, and `systime`. See also “Epoch” and “UTC.”

Unix
  A computer operating system originally developed in the early 1970's at AT&T Bell Laboratories. It initially became popular in universities around the world and later moved into commercial environments as a software development system and network server system. There are many commercial versions of Unix, as well as several work-alike systems whose source code is freely available (such as GNU/Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD).
UTC
  The accepted abbreviation for “Universal Coordinated Time.” This is standard time in Greenwich, England, which is used as a reference time for day and date calculations. See also “Epoch” and “GMT.”
Whitespace
  A sequence of space, TAB, or newline characters occurring inside an input record or a string.

Next: GNU Free Documentation License, Previous: Glossary, Up: Top

## GNU General Public License

Version 2, June 1991

         Copyright © 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
         59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA

         Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
         of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

### Preamble

The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software—to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too.

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.

To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.

For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.

We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software.

Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors' reputations.

Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.

The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.

### Terms and Conditions for Copying, Distribution and Modification

0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The “Program”, below, refers to any such program or work, and a “work based on the Program” means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in the term “modification”.) Each licensee is addressed as “you”.

   Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.

1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.

   You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.

2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
   1. You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
   2. You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
   3. If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not required to print an announcement.)

   These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.

   Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program.

   In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.

3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
   1. Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
   2. Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
   3. Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

   The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

   If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.

4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

   If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other circumstances.

   It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the integrity of the free software distribution system, which is implemented by public license practices. Many people have made generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance on consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot impose that choice.

   This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence of the rest of this License.

8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who places the Program under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.

   Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and “any later version”, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.

10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.

    ### NO WARRANTY

11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

### END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS

### How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs

If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.

To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least the “copyright” line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.

         one line to give the program's name and an idea of what it does.
         Copyright (C) year  name of author

         This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
         modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
         as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
         of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

         This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
         but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
         MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
         GNU General Public License for more details.

         You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
         along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
         Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA.

Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.

If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in an interactive mode:

         Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year name of author
         Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details
         type `show w'.  This is free software, and you are welcome
         to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c'
         for details.

The hypothetical commands show w and show c should show the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the commands you use may be called something other than show w and show c; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items—whatever suits your program.

You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your school, if any, to sign a “copyright disclaimer” for the program, if necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:

         Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright
         interest in the program `Gnomovision'
         (which makes passes at compilers) written
         by James Hacker.

         signature of Ty Coon, 1 April 1989
         Ty Coon, President of Vice

This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Lesser General Public License instead of this License.

Next: Index, Previous: Copying, Up: Top

## GNU Free Documentation License

Version 1.2, November 2002

         Copyright © 2000,2001,2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
         59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307, USA

         Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
         of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

0. PREAMBLE

   The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other functional and useful document free in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made by others.

   This License is a kind of “copyleft”, which means that derivative works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license designed for free software.

   We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.

1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS

   This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License. Such a notice grants a world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration, to use that work under the conditions stated herein. The “Document”, below, refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed as “you”. You accept the license if you copy, modify or distribute the work in a way requiring permission under copyright law.

   A “Modified Version” of the Document means any work containing the Document or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or with modifications and/or translated into another language.

   A “Secondary Section” is a named appendix or a front-matter section of the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the publishers or authors of the Document to the Document's overall subject (or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall directly within that overall subject. (Thus, if the Document is in part a textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain any mathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of historical connection with the subject or with related matters, or of legal, commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position regarding them.

   The “Invariant Sections” are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are designated, as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. If a section does not fit the above definition of Secondary then it is not allowed to be designated as Invariant. The Document may contain zero Invariant Sections. If the Document does not identify any Invariant Sections then there are none.

   The “Cover Texts” are certain short passages of text that are listed, as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. A Front-Cover Text may be at most 5 words, and a Back-Cover Text may be at most 25 words.

   A “Transparent” copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy, represented in a format whose specification is available to the general public, that is suitable for revising the document straightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images composed of pixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely available drawing editor, and that is suitable for input to text formatters or for automatic translation to a variety of formats suitable for input to text formatters. A copy made in an otherwise Transparent file format whose markup, or absence of markup, has been arranged to thwart or discourage subsequent modification by readers is not Transparent. An image format is not Transparent if used for any substantial amount of text. A copy that is not “Transparent” is called “Opaque”.

   Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain ascii without markup, Texinfo input format, LaTeX input format, SGML or XML using a publicly available DTD, and standard-conforming simple HTML, PostScript or PDF designed for human modification. Examples of transparent image formats include PNG, XCF and JPG. Opaque formats include proprietary formats that can be read and edited only by proprietary word processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD and/or processing tools are not generally available, and the machine-generated HTML, PostScript or PDF produced by some word processors for output purposes only.

   The “Title Page” means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in formats which do not have any title page as such, “Title Page” means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text.

   A section “Entitled XYZ” means a named subunit of the Document whose title either is precisely XYZ or contains XYZ in parentheses following text that translates XYZ in another language. (Here XYZ stands for a specific section name mentioned below, such as “Acknowledgements”, “Dedications”, “Endorsements”, or “History”.) To “Preserve the Title” of such a section when you modify the Document means that it remains a section “Entitled XYZ” according to this definition.

   The Document may include Warranty Disclaimers next to the notice which states that this License applies to the Document. These Warranty Disclaimers are considered to be included by reference in this License, but only as regards disclaiming warranties: any other implication that these Warranty Disclaimers may have is void and has no effect on the meaning of this License.

2. VERBATIM COPYING

   You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough number of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3.

   You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may publicly display copies.

3. COPYING IN QUANTITY

   If you publish printed copies (or copies in media that commonly have printed covers) of the Document, numbering more than 100, and the Document's license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as the publisher of these copies. The front cover must present the full title with all words of the title equally prominent and visible. You may add other material on the covers in addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve the title of the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other respects.

   If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put the first ones listed (as many as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent pages.

   If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering more than 100, you must either include a machine-readable Transparent copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque copy a computer-network location from which the general network-using public has access to download using public-standard network protocols a complete Transparent copy of the Document, free of added material. If you use the latter option, you must take reasonably prudent steps, when you begin distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to ensure that this Transparent copy will remain thus accessible at the stated location until at least one year after the last time you distribute an Opaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that edition to the public.

   It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the Document well before redistributing any large number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document.

4. MODIFICATIONS

   You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:

   1. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document, and from those of previous versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section of the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version if the original publisher of that version gives permission.
   2. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this requirement.
   3. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher.
   4. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.
   5. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices.
   6. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permission to use the Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.
   7. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover Texts given in the Document's license notice.
   8. Include an unaltered copy of this License.
   9. Preserve the section Entitled “History”, Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no section Entitled “History” in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence.
   10. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise the network locations given in the Document for previous versions it was based on. These may be placed in the “History” section. You may omit a network location for a work that was published at least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of the version it refers to gives permission.
   11. For any section Entitled “Acknowledgements” or “Dedications”, Preserve the Title of the section, and preserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgements and/or dedications given therein.
   12. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.
   13. Delete any section Entitled “Endorsements”. Such a section may not be included in the Modified Version.
   14. Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled “Endorsements” or to conflict in title with any Invariant Section.
   15. Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers.

   If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version's license notice. These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.

   You may add a section Entitled “Endorsements”, provided it contains nothing but endorsements of your Modified Version by various parties—for example, statements of peer review or that the text has been approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a standard.

   You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document already includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or by arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicit permission from the previous publisher that added the old one.

   The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permission to use their names for publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any Modified Version.

5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS

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   The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but different contents, make the title of each such section unique by adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the original author or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number. Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined work.

   In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled “History” in the various original documents, forming one section Entitled “History”; likewise combine any sections Entitled “Acknowledgements”, and any sections Entitled “Dedications”. You must delete all sections Entitled “Endorsements.”

6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS

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8. TRANSLATION

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   If a section in the Document is Entitled “Acknowledgements”, “Dedications”, or “History”, the requirement (section 4) to Preserve its Title (section 1) will typically require changing the actual title.

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10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE

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### ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

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           with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
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If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit their use in free software.

Previous: GNU Free Documentation License, Up: Top

## Index

- `!` (exclamation point), `!` operator: Boolean Ops
- `!` (exclamation point), `!` operator: Egrep Program
- `!` (exclamation point), `!` operator: Precedence
- `!` (exclamation point), `!=` operator: Precedence
- `!` (exclamation point), `!=` operator: Typing and Comparison
- `!` (exclamation point), `!~` operator: Regexp Constants
- `!` (exclamation point), `!~` operator: Typing and Comparison
- `!` (exclamation point), `!~` operator: Expression Patterns
- `!` (exclamation point), `!~` operator: Computed Regexps
- `!` (exclamation point), `!~` operator: Typing and Comparison
- `!` (exclamation point), `!~` operator: Case-sensitivity
- `!` (exclamation point), `!~` operator: Regexp Usage
- `!` (exclamation point), `!~` operator: Precedence
- `!` operator: Ranges
- `!` operator: Egrep Program
- `"` (double quote): Quoting
- `"` (double quote): Read Terminal
- `"` (double quote), regexp constants: Computed Regexps
- `#` (number sign), `#!` (executable scripts): Executable Scripts
- `#` (number sign), `#!` (executable scripts), portability issues with: Executable Scripts
- `#` (number sign), commenting: Comments
- `$` (dollar sign): Regexp Operators
- `$` (dollar sign), `$` field operator: Fields
- `$` (dollar sign), `$` field operator: Precedence
- `$` (dollar sign), incrementing fields and arrays: Increment Ops
- `$` field operator: Fields
- `%` (percent sign), `%` operator: Precedence
- `%` (percent sign), `%=` operator: Assignment Ops
- `%` (percent sign), `%=` operator: Precedence
- `&` (ampersand), `&&` operator: Precedence
- `&` (ampersand), `&&` operator: Boolean Ops
- `&` (ampersand), `gsub`/`gensub`/`sub` functions and: Gory Details
- `'` (single quote): One-shot
- `'` (single quote): Quoting
- `'` (single quote): Long
- `'` (single quote), vs. apostrophe: Comments
- `'` (single quote), with double quotes: Quoting
- `()` (parentheses): Regexp Operators
- `()` (parentheses), pgawk program: Profiling
- `*` (asterisk), `*` operator, as multiplication operator: Precedence
- `*` (asterisk), `*` operator, as regexp operator: Regexp Operators
- `*` (asterisk), `*` operator, null strings, matching: Gory Details
- `*` (asterisk), `**` operator: Options
- `*` (asterisk), `**` operator: Precedence
- `*` (asterisk), `**` operator: Arithmetic Ops
- `*` (asterisk), `**=` operator: Assignment Ops
- `*` (asterisk), `**=` operator: Options
- `*` (asterisk), `**=` operator: Precedence
- `*` (asterisk), `*=` operator: Assignment Ops
- `*` (asterisk), `*=` operator: Precedence
- `+` (plus sign): Regexp Operators
- `+` (plus sign), `+` operator: Precedence
- `+` (plus sign), `++` operator: Precedence
- `+` (plus sign), `++` operator: Increment Ops
- `+` (plus sign), `+=` operator: Assignment Ops
- `+` (plus sign), `+=` operator: Precedence
- `+` (plus sign), decrement/increment operators: Increment Ops
- `,` (comma), in range patterns: Ranges
- `-` (hyphen), `-` operator: Precedence
- `-` (hyphen), `--` (decrement/increment) operator: Precedence
- `-` (hyphen), `--` operator: Increment Ops
- `-` (hyphen), `-=` operator: Assignment Ops
- `-` (hyphen), `-=` operator: Precedence
- `-` (hyphen), filenames beginning with: Options
- `-` (hyphen), in character lists: Character Lists
- `--assign` option: Options
- `--compat` option: Options
- `--copyleft` option: Options
- `--copyright` option: Options
- `--disable-lint` configuration option: Additional Configuration Options
- `--disable-nls` configuration option: Additional Configuration Options
- `--dump-variables` option: Library Names
- `--dump-variables` option: Options
- `--enable-portals` configuration option: Portal Files
- `--enable-portals` configuration option: Additional Configuration Options
- `--enable-switch` configuration option: Additional Configuration Options
- `--field-separator` option: Options
- `--file` option: Options
- `--gen-po` option: String Extraction
- `--gen-po` option: Options
- `--gen-po` option: String Extraction
- `--help` option: Options
- `--lint` option: Options
- `--lint` option: Command Line
- `--lint-old` option: Options
- `--non-decimal-data` option: Nondecimal Data
- `--non-decimal-data` option: Options
- `--non-decimal-data` option, `strtonum` function and: Nondecimal Data
- `--posix` option: Options
- `--posix` option, `--traditional` option and: Options
- `--profile` option: Profiling
- `--profile` option: Options
- `--re-interval` option: Options
- `--source` option: Options
- `--traditional` option: Options
- `--traditional` option, `--posix` option and: Options
- `--usage` option: Options
- `--version` option: Options
- `--with-included-gettext` configuration option: Additional Configuration Options
- `--with-included-gettext` configuration option: Gawk I18N
- `--with-included-gettext` configuration option, configuring gawk with: Additional Configuration Options
- `-f` option: Options
- `-F` option: Command Line Field Separator
- `-f` option: Long
- `-F` option: Options
- `-F` option, `-Ft` sets `FS` to TAB: Options
- `-f` option, on command line: Options
- `-F` option, troubleshooting: Known Bugs
- `-mf`/`-mr` options: Options
- `-v` option: Options
- `-v` option, variables, assigning: Assignment Options
- `-W` option: Options
- `.` (period): Regexp Operators
- `.mo` files: Explaining gettext
- `.mo` files, converting from `.po`: I18N Example
- `.mo` files, specifying directory of: Programmer i18n
- `.mo` files, specifying directory of: Explaining gettext
- `.po` files: Translator i18n
- `.po` files: Explaining gettext
- `.po` files, converting to `.mo`: I18N Example
- `/` (forward slash): Regexp
- `/` (forward slash), `/` operator: Precedence
- `/` (forward slash), `/=` operator: Precedence
- `/` (forward slash), `/=` operator: Assignment Ops
- `/` (forward slash), `/=` operator, vs. `/=.../` regexp constant: Assignment Ops
- `/` (forward slash), patterns and: Expression Patterns
- `/=` operator vs. `/=.../` regexp constant: Assignment Ops
- `/dev/...` special files (gawk): Special FD
- `/inet/` files (gawk): TCP/IP Networking
- `/p` files (gawk): Portal Files
- `;` (semicolon): Statements/Lines
- `;` (semicolon), `AWKPATH` variable and: PC Using
- `;` (semicolon), separating statements in actions: Statements
- `;` (semicolon), separating statements in actions: Action Overview
- `<` (left angle bracket), `<` operator: Typing and Comparison
- `<` (left angle bracket), `<` operator: Precedence
- `<` (left angle bracket), `<` operator (I/O): Getline/File
- `<` (left angle bracket), `<=` operator: Precedence
- `<` (left angle bracket), `<=` operator: Typing and Comparison
- `=` (equals sign), `=` operator: Assignment Ops
- `=` (equals sign), `==` operator: Precedence
- `=` (equals sign), `==` operator: Typing and Comparison
- `>` (right angle bracket), `>` operator: Typing and Comparison
- `>` (right angle bracket), `>` operator: Precedence
- `>` (right angle bracket), `>` operator (I/O): Redirection
- `>` (right angle bracket), `>=` operator: Typing and Comparison
- `>` (right angle bracket), `>=` operator: Precedence
- `>` (right angle bracket), `>>` operator (I/O): Redirection
- `>` (right angle bracket), `>>` operator (I/O): Precedence
- `?` (question mark): Regexp Operators
- `?` (question mark): GNU Regexp Operators
- `?` (question mark), `?:` operator: Precedence
- `[]` (square brackets): Regexp Operators
- `\` (backslash): Read Terminal
- `\` (backslash): Quoting
- `\` (backslash): Comments
- `\` (backslash): Regexp Operators
- `\` (backslash), `\"` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- `\` (backslash), `\'` operator (gawk): GNU Regexp Operators
- `\` (backslash), `\/` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- `\` (backslash), `\<` operator (gawk): GNU Regexp Operators
- `\` (backslash), `\>` operator (gawk): GNU Regexp Operators
- `\` (backslash), `\`` operator (gawk): GNU Regexp Operators
- `\` (backslash), `\a` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- `\` (backslash), `\b` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- `\` (backslash), `\B` operator (gawk): GNU Regexp Operators
- `\` (backslash), `\f` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- `\` (backslash), `\n` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- `\` (backslash), `\`nnn escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- `\` (backslash), `\r` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- `\` (backslash), `\t` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- `\` (backslash), `\v` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- `\` (backslash), `\w` operator (gawk): GNU Regexp Operators
- `\` (backslash), `\W` operator (gawk): GNU Regexp Operators
- `\` (backslash), `\x` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- `\` (backslash), `\y` operator (gawk): GNU Regexp Operators
- `\` (backslash), as field separators: Command Line Field Separator
- `\` (backslash), continuing lines and: Statements/Lines
- `\` (backslash), continuing lines and: Egrep Program
- `\` (backslash), continuing lines and, comments and: Statements/Lines
- `\` (backslash), continuing lines and, in csh: Statements/Lines
- `\` (backslash), continuing lines and, in csh: More Complex
- `\` (backslash), `gsub`/`gensub`/`sub` functions and: Gory Details
- `\` (backslash), in character lists: Character Lists
- `\` (backslash), in escape sequences: Escape Sequences
- `\` (backslash), in escape sequences, POSIX and: Escape Sequences
- `\` (backslash), regexp constants: Computed Regexps
- `^` (caret): GNU Regexp Operators
- `^` (caret): Regexp Operators
- `^` (caret), `^` operator: Options
- `^` (caret), `^` operator: Precedence
- `^` (caret), `^=` operator: Precedence
- `^` (caret), `^=` operator: Assignment Ops
- `^` (caret), `^=` operator: Options
- `^` (caret), in character lists: Character Lists
- `_` (underscore), `_` C macro: Explaining gettext
- `_` (underscore), in names of private variables: Library Names
- `_` (underscore), translatable string: Programmer i18n
- `_gr_init` user-defined function: Group Functions
- `_pw_init` user-defined function: Passwd Functions
- accessing fields: Fields
- account information: Passwd Functions
- account information: Group Functions
- actions: Action Overview
- actions, control statements in: Statements
- actions, default: Very Simple
- actions, empty: Very Simple
- adding, features to gawk: Adding Code
- adding, fields: Changing Fields
- adding, functions to gawk: Dynamic Extensions
- advanced features, buffering: I/O Functions
- advanced features, `close` function: Close Files And Pipes
- advanced features, constants, values of: Nondecimal-numbers
- advanced features, data files as single record: Records
- advanced features, fixed-width data: Constant Size
- advanced features, `FNR`/`NR` variables: Auto-set
- advanced features, gawk: Advanced Features
- advanced features, gawk, BSD portals: Portal Files
- advanced features, gawk, network programming: TCP/IP Networking
- advanced features, gawk, nondecimal input data: Nondecimal Data
- advanced features, gawk, processes, communicating with: Two-way I/O
- advanced features, network connections, See Also networks, connections: Advanced Features
- advanced features, null strings, matching: Gory Details
- advanced features, operators, precedence: Increment Ops
- advanced features, piping into sh: Redirection
- advanced features, regexp constants: Assignment Ops
- Aho, Alfred: Contributors
- Aho, Alfred: History
- alarm clock example program: Alarm Program
- `alarm.awk` program: Alarm Program
- algorithms: Basic High Level
- Alpha (DEC): Manual History
- amazing awk assembler (aaa): Glossary
- amazingly workable formatter (awf): Glossary
- ambiguity, syntactic: `/=` operator vs. `/=.../` regexp constant: Assignment Ops
- amiga: Amiga Installation
- ampersand (`&`), `&&` operator: Boolean Ops
- ampersand (`&`), `&&`operator: Precedence
- ampersand (`&`), `gsub`/`gensub`/`sub` functions and: Gory Details
- AND bitwise operation: Bitwise Functions
- and Boolean-logic operator: Boolean Ops
- `and` function (gawk): Bitwise Functions
- ANSI: Glossary
- archeologists: Bugs
- `ARGC`/`ARGV` variables: ARGC and ARGV
- `ARGC`/`ARGV` variables: Auto-set
- `ARGC`/`ARGV` variables, command-line arguments: Other Arguments
- `ARGC`/`ARGV` variables, portability and: Executable Scripts
- `ARGIND` variable: Auto-set
- `ARGIND` variable, command-line arguments: Other Arguments
- arguments, command-line: Auto-set
- arguments, command-line: Other Arguments
- arguments, command-line: ARGC and ARGV
- arguments, command-line, invoking awk: Command Line
- arguments, in function calls: Function Calls
- arguments, processing: Getopt Function
- arguments, retrieving: Internals
- arithmetic operators: Arithmetic Ops
- arrays: Arrays
- arrays, as parameters to functions: Function Caveats
- arrays, associative: Array Intro
- arrays, associative, clearing: Internals
- arrays, associative, library functions and: Library Names
- arrays, deleting entire contents: Delete
- arrays, elements, assigning: Assigning Elements
- arrays, elements, deleting: Delete
- arrays, elements, installing: Internals
- arrays, elements, order of: Scanning an Array
- arrays, elements, referencing: Reference to Elements
- arrays, elements, retrieving number of: String Functions
- arrays, `for` statement and: Scanning an Array
- arrays, `IGNORECASE` variable and: Array Intro
- arrays, indexing: Array Intro
- arrays, merging into strings: Join Function
- arrays, multidimensional: Multi-dimensional
- arrays, multidimensional, scanning: Multi-scanning
- arrays, names of: Arrays
- arrays, scanning: Scanning an Array
- arrays, sorting: Array Sorting
- arrays, sorting, `IGNORECASE` variable and: Array Sorting
- arrays, sparse: Array Intro
- arrays, subscripts: Numeric Array Subscripts
- arrays, subscripts, uninitialized variables as: Uninitialized Subscripts
- artificial intelligence, gawk and: Distribution contents
- ASCII: Ordinal Functions
- `asort` function (gawk): String Functions
- `asort` function (gawk): Array Sorting
- `asort` function (gawk), arrays, sorting: Array Sorting
- `asorti` function (gawk): String Functions
- `assert` function (C library): Assert Function
- `assert` user-defined function: Assert Function
- assertions: Assert Function
- assignment operators: Assignment Ops
- assignment operators, evaluation order: Assignment Ops
- assignment operators, lvalues/rvalues: Assignment Ops
- assignments as filenames: Ignoring Assigns
- `assoc_clear` internal function: Internals
- `assoc_lookup` internal function: Internals
- associative arrays: Array Intro
- asterisk (`*`), `*` operator, as multiplication operator: Precedence
- asterisk (`*`), `*` operator, as regexp operator: Regexp Operators
- asterisk (`*`), `*` operator, null strings, matching: Gory Details
- asterisk (`*`), `**` operator: Arithmetic Ops
- asterisk (`*`), `**` operator: Precedence
- asterisk (`*`), `**` operator: Options
- asterisk (`*`), `**=` operator: Assignment Ops
- asterisk (`*`), `**=` operator: Precedence
- asterisk (`*`), `**=` operator: Options
- asterisk (`*`), `*=` operator: Assignment Ops
- asterisk (`*`), `*=` operator: Precedence
- `atan2` function: Numeric Functions
- atari: Atari Installation
- awf (amazingly workable formatter) program: Glossary
- awk language, POSIX version: Assignment Ops
- awk programs: Executable Scripts
- awk programs: Getting Started
- awk programs: Two Rules
- awk programs, complex: When
- awk programs, documenting: Library Names
- awk programs, documenting: Comments
- awk programs, examples of: Sample Programs
- awk programs, execution of: Next Statement
- awk programs, internationalizing: I18N Functions
- awk programs, internationalizing: Programmer i18n
- awk programs, lengthy: Long
- awk programs, lengthy, assertions: Assert Function
- awk programs, location of: Options
- awk programs, one-line examples: Very Simple
- awk programs, profiling: Profiling
- awk programs, profiling, enabling: Options
- awk programs, running: Running gawk
- awk programs, running: Long
- awk programs, running, from shell scripts: One-shot
- awk programs, running, without input files: Read Terminal
- awk programs, shell variables in: Using Shell Variables
- awk, function of: Getting Started
- awk, gawk and: Preface
- awk, gawk and: This Manual
- awk, history of: History
- awk, implementation issues, pipes: Redirection
- awk, implementations: Other Versions
- awk, implementations, limits: Getline Notes
- awk, invoking: Command Line
- awk, new vs. old: Names
- awk, new vs. old, `OFMT` variable: Conversion
- awk, POSIX and: Preface
- awk, POSIX and, See Also POSIX awk: Preface
- awk, regexp constants and: Typing and Comparison
- awk, See Also gawk: Preface
- awk, terms describing: This Manual
- awk, uses for: Preface
- awk, uses for: When
- awk, uses for: Getting Started
- awk, versions of: V7/SVR3.1
- awk, versions of: Names
- awk, versions of, changes between SVR3.1 and SVR4: SVR4
- awk, versions of, changes between SVR4 and POSIX awk: POSIX
- awk, versions of, changes between V7 and SVR3.1: V7/SVR3.1
- awk, versions of, See Also Bell Laboratories awk: BTL
- `awk.h` file (internal): Internals
- awka compiler for awk: Other Versions
- `AWKNUM` internal type: Internals
- AWKPATH environment variable: AWKPATH Variable
- `AWKPATH` environment variable: PC Using
- `awkprof.out` file: Profiling
- awksed.awk program: Simple Sed
- `awkvars.out` file: Options
- backslash (`\`): Comments
- backslash (`\`): Regexp Operators
- backslash (`\`): Read Terminal
- backslash (`\`): Quoting
- backslash (`\`), `\"` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- backslash (`\`), `\'` operator (gawk): GNU Regexp Operators
- backslash (`\`), `\/` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- backslash (`\`), `\<` operator (gawk): GNU Regexp Operators
- backslash (`\`), `\>` operator (gawk): GNU Regexp Operators
- backslash (`\`), `\`` operator (gawk): GNU Regexp Operators
- backslash (`\`), `\a` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- backslash (`\`), `\b` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- backslash (`\`), `\B` operator (gawk): GNU Regexp Operators
- backslash (`\`), `\f` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- backslash (`\`), `\n` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- backslash (`\`), `\`nnn escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- backslash (`\`), `\r` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- backslash (`\`), `\t` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- backslash (`\`), `\v` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- backslash (`\`), `\w` operator (gawk): GNU Regexp Operators
- backslash (`\`), `\W` operator (gawk): GNU Regexp Operators
- backslash (`\`), `\x` escape sequence: Escape Sequences
- backslash (`\`), `\y` operator (gawk): GNU Regexp Operators
- backslash (`\`), as field separators: Command Line Field Separator
- backslash (`\`), continuing lines and: Egrep Program
- backslash (`\`), continuing lines and: Statements/Lines
- backslash (`\`), continuing lines and, comments and: Statements/Lines
- backslash (`\`), continuing lines and, in csh: Statements/Lines
- backslash (`\`), continuing lines and, in csh: More Complex
- backslash (`\`), `gsub`/`gensub`/`sub` functions and: Gory Details
- backslash (`\`), in character lists: Character Lists
- backslash (`\`), in escape sequences: Escape Sequences
- backslash (`\`), in escape sequences, POSIX and: Escape Sequences
- backslash (`\`), regexp constants: Computed Regexps
- `BBS-list` file: Sample Data Files
- Beebe, Nelson: Acknowledgments
- Beebe, Nelson H.F.: Other Versions
- `BEGIN` pattern: Field Separators
- `BEGIN` pattern: BEGIN/END
- `BEGIN` pattern: Records
- `BEGIN` pattern, `assert` user-defined function and: Assert Function
- `BEGIN` pattern, Boolean patterns and: Expression Patterns
- `BEGIN` pattern, `exit` statement and: Exit Statement
- `BEGIN` pattern, `getline` and: Getline Notes
- `BEGIN` pattern, headings, adding: Print Examples
- `BEGIN` pattern, `next`/`nextfile` statements and: I/O And BEGIN/END
- `BEGIN` pattern, `next`/`nextfile` statements and: Next Statement
- `BEGIN` pattern, `OFS`/`ORS` variables, assigning values to: Output Separators
- `BEGIN` pattern, operators and: Using BEGIN/END
- `BEGIN` pattern, pgawk program: Profiling
- `BEGIN` pattern, `print` statement and: I/O And BEGIN/END
- `BEGIN` pattern, `pwcat` program: Passwd Functions
- `BEGIN` pattern, running awk programs and: Cut Program
- `BEGIN` pattern, `TEXTDOMAIN` variable and: Programmer i18n
- `beginfile` user-defined function: Filetrans Function
- Bell Laboratories awk extensions: BTL
- Benzinger, Michael: Contributors
- BeOS: BeOS Installation
- Berry, Karl: Acknowledgments
- binary input/output: User-modified
- `bindtextdomain` function (C library): Explaining gettext
- `bindtextdomain` function (gawk): I18N Functions
- `bindtextdomain` function (gawk): Programmer i18n
- `bindtextdomain` function (gawk), portability and: I18N Portability
- `BINMODE` variable: User-modified
- `BINMODE` variable: PC Using
- `bits2str` user-defined function: Bitwise Functions
- bitwise, complement: Bitwise Functions
- bitwise, operations: Bitwise Functions
- bitwise, shift: Bitwise Functions
- body, in actions: Statements
- body, in loops: While Statement
- Boolean expressions: Boolean Ops
- Boolean expressions, as patterns: Expression Patterns
- Boolean operators, See Boolean expressions: Boolean Ops
- Bourne shell, quoting rules for: Quoting
- braces (`{}`), actions and: Action Overview
- braces (`{}`), pgawk program: Profiling
- braces (`{}`), statements, grouping: Statements
- bracket expressions, See character lists: Regexp Operators
- `break` statement: Break Statement
- Brennan, Michael: Two-way I/O
- Brennan, Michael: Other Versions
- Brennan, Michael: Delete
- Brennan, Michael: Other Versions
- Brennan, Michael: Simple Sed
- Broder, Alan J.: Contributors
- Brown, Martin: Acknowledgments
- Brown, Martin: Contributors
- Brown, Martin: Bugs
- BSD portals: Portal Files
- BSD-based operating systems: Glossary
- Buening, Andreas: Contributors
- Buening, Andreas: Acknowledgments
- buffering, input/output: I/O Functions
- buffering, input/output: Two-way I/O
- buffering, interactive vs. noninteractive: I/O Functions
- buffers, flushing: I/O Functions
- buffers, operators for: GNU Regexp Operators
- bug reports, email address, `bug-gawk@gnu.org`: Bugs
- `bug-gawk@gnu.org` bug reporting address: Bugs
- built-in functions: Functions
- built-in functions, evaluation order: Calling Built-in
- built-in variables: Built-in Variables
- built-in variables, `-v` option, setting with: Options
- built-in variables, conveying information: Auto-set
- built-in variables, user-modifiable: User-modified
- call by reference: Function Caveats
- call by value: Function Caveats
- caret (`^`): GNU Regexp Operators
- caret (`^`): Regexp Operators
- caret (`^`), `^` operator: Precedence
- caret (`^`), `^` operator: Options
- caret (`^`), `^=` operator: Precedence
- caret (`^`), `^=` operator: Options
- caret (`^`), `^=` operator: Assignment Ops
- caret (`^`), in character lists: Character Lists
- `case` keyword: Switch Statement
- case sensitivity, array indices and: Array Intro
- case sensitivity, converting case: String Functions
- case sensitivity, example programs: Library Functions
- case sensitivity, gawk: Case-sensitivity
- case sensitivity, regexps and: User-modified
- case sensitivity, regexps and: Case-sensitivity
- case sensitivity, string comparisons and: User-modified
- character encodings: Ordinal Functions
- character lists: Character Lists
- character lists: Regexp Operators
- character lists, character classes: Character Lists
- character lists, collating elements: Character Lists
- character lists, collating symbols: Character Lists
- character lists, complemented: Regexp Operators
- character lists, equivalence classes: Character Lists
- character lists, non-ASCII: Character Lists
- character lists, range expressions: Character Lists
- character sets: Ordinal Functions
- character sets (machine character encodings): Glossary
- character sets, See Also character lists: Regexp Operators
- characters, counting: Wc Program
- characters, transliterating: Translate Program
- characters, values of as numbers: Ordinal Functions
- Chassell, Robert J.: Acknowledgments
- `chdir` function, implementing in gawk: Sample Library
- chem utility: Glossary
- `chr` user-defined function: Ordinal Functions
- Cliff random numbers: Cliff Random Function
- `cliff_rand` user-defined function: Cliff Random Function
- `close` function: I/O Functions
- `close` function: Close Files And Pipes
- `close` function: Getline/Variable/File
- `close` function: Getline/Pipe
- `close` function, return values: Close Files And Pipes
- `close` function, two-way pipes and: Two-way I/O
- Close, Diane: Manual History
- Close, Diane: Contributors
- collating elements: Character Lists
- collating symbols: Character Lists
- columns, aligning: Print Examples
- columns, cutting: Cut Program
- comma (`,`), in range patterns: Ranges
- command line, arguments: ARGC and ARGV
- command line, arguments: Auto-set
- command line, arguments: Other Arguments
- command line, formats: Running gawk
- command line, `FS` on, setting: Command Line Field Separator
- command line, invoking awk from: Command Line
- command line, options: Options
- command line, options: Long
- command line, options: Command Line Field Separator
- command line, options, end of: Options
- command line, variables, assigning on: Assignment Options
- command-line options, processing: Getopt Function
- command-line options, string extraction: String Extraction
- commenting: Comments
- commenting, backslash continuation and: Statements/Lines
- `comp.lang.awk` newsgroup: Bugs
- comparison expressions: Typing and Comparison
- comparison expressions, as patterns: Expression Patterns
- comparison expressions, string vs. regexp: Typing and Comparison
- compatibility mode (gawk), extensions: POSIX/GNU
- compatibility mode (gawk), file names: Special Caveats
- compatibility mode (gawk), hexadecimal numbers: Nondecimal-numbers
- compatibility mode (gawk), octal numbers: Nondecimal-numbers
- compatibility mode (gawk), specifying: Options
- compiled programs: Glossary
- compiled programs: Basic High Level
- `compl` function (gawk): Bitwise Functions
- complement, bitwise: Bitwise Functions
- compound statements, control statements and: Statements
- concatenating: Concatenation
- conditional expressions: Conditional Exp
- configuration option, `--disable-lint`: Additional Configuration Options
- configuration option, `--disable-nls`: Additional Configuration Options
- configuration option, `--enable-portals`: Additional Configuration Options
- configuration option, `--enable-switch`: Additional Configuration Options
- configuration option, `--with-included-gettext`: Additional Configuration Options
- configuration option, `--with-included-gettext`: Gawk I18N
- configuration options, gawk: Additional Configuration Options
- constants, nondecimal: Nondecimal Data
- constants, types of: Constants
- `continue` statement: Continue Statement
- control statements: Statements
- converting, case: String Functions
- converting, dates to timestamps: Time Functions
- converting, during subscripting: Numeric Array Subscripts
- converting, numbers: Conversion
- converting, numbers, to strings: Bitwise Functions
- converting, strings to numbers: Conversion
- `CONVFMT` variable: User-modified
- `CONVFMT` variable: Conversion
- `CONVFMT` variable, array subscripts and: Numeric Array Subscripts
- coprocesses: Two-way I/O
- coprocesses: Redirection
- coprocesses, closing: Close Files And Pipes
- coprocesses, `getline` from: Getline/Coprocess
- `cos` function: Numeric Functions
- counting: Wc Program
- csh utility: Statements/Lines
- csh utility, backslash continuation and: More Complex
- csh utility, `POSIXLY_CORRECT` environment variable: Options
- csh utility, `|&` operator, comparison with: Two-way I/O
- `ctime` user-defined function: Function Example
- currency symbols, localization: Explaining gettext
- `custom.h` file: Configuration Philosophy
- cut utility: Cut Program
- `cut.awk` program: Cut Program
- d.c., See dark corner: Conventions
- dark corner: Glossary
- dark corner: Conventions
- dark corner: Truth Values
- dark corner: Format Modifiers
- dark corner: Assignment Ops
- dark corner, array subscripts: Uninitialized Subscripts
- dark corner, `break` statement: Break Statement
- dark corner, `close` function: Close Files And Pipes
- dark corner, command-line arguments: Assignment Options
- dark corner, `continue` statement: Continue Statement
- dark corner, `CONVFMT` variable: Conversion
- dark corner, escape sequences: Other Arguments
- dark corner, escape sequences, for metacharacters: Escape Sequences
- dark corner, `exit` statement: Exit Statement
- dark corner, field separators: Field Splitting Summary
- dark corner, `FILENAME` variable: Auto-set
- dark corner, `FILENAME` variable: Getline Notes
- dark corner, `FNR`/`NR` variables: Auto-set
- dark corner, format-control characters: Control Letters
- dark corner, `FS` as null string: Single Character Fields
- dark corner, input files: Records
- dark corner, invoking awk: Command Line
- dark corner, multiline records: Multiple Line
- dark corner, `NF` variable, decrementing: Changing Fields
- dark corner, `OFMT` variable: OFMT
- dark corner, regexp constants: Using Constant Regexps
- dark corner, regexp constants, `/=` operator and: Assignment Ops
- dark corner, regexp constants, as arguments to user-defined functions: Using Constant Regexps
- dark corner, `split` function: String Functions
- dark corner, strings, storing: Records
- data, fixed-width: Constant Size
- data-driven languages: Basic High Level
- database, group, reading: Group Functions
- database, users, reading: Passwd Functions
- date utility, GNU: Time Functions
- `date` utility, POSIX: Time Functions
- dates, converting to timestamps: Time Functions
- dates, information related to, localization: Explaining gettext
- Davies, Stephen: Contributors
- Davies, Stephen: Bugs
- `dcgettext` function (gawk): I18N Functions
- `dcgettext` function (gawk): Programmer i18n
- `dcgettext` function (gawk), portability and: I18N Portability
- `dcngettext` function (gawk): Programmer i18n
- `dcngettext` function (gawk): I18N Functions
- `dcngettext` function (gawk), portability and: I18N Portability
- deadlocks: Two-way I/O
- debugging gawk: Known Bugs
- debugging gawk, bug reports: Bugs
- decrement operators: Increment Ops
- `default` keyword: Switch Statement
- Deifik, Scott: Bugs
- Deifik, Scott: Contributors
- Deifik, Scott: Acknowledgments
- `delete` statement: Delete
- deleting elements in arrays: Delete
- deleting entire arrays: Delete
- differences in awk and gawk, `ARGC`/`ARGV` variables: ARGC and ARGV
- differences in awk and gawk, `ARGIND` variable: Auto-set
- differences in awk and gawk, array elements, deleting: Delete
- differences in awk and gawk, `AWKPATH` environment variable: AWKPATH Variable
- differences in awk and gawk, `BEGIN`/`END` patterns: I/O And BEGIN/END
- differences in awk and gawk, `BINMODE` variable: User-modified
- differences in awk and gawk, `BINMODE` variable: PC Using
- differences in awk and gawk, `close` function: Close Files And Pipes
- differences in awk and gawk, `ERRNO` variable: Auto-set
- differences in awk and gawk, error messages: Special FD
- differences in awk and gawk, `FIELDWIDTHS` variable: User-modified
- differences in awk and gawk, function arguments (gawk): Calling Built-in
- differences in awk and gawk, `getline` command: Getline
- differences in awk and gawk, `IGNORECASE` variable: User-modified
- differences in awk and gawk, implementation limitations: Getline Notes
- differences in awk and gawk, implementation limitations: Redirection
- differences in awk and gawk, input/output operators: Getline/Coprocess
- differences in awk and gawk, input/output operators: Redirection
- differences in awk and gawk, line continuations: Conditional Exp
- differences in awk and gawk, `LINT` variable: User-modified
- differences in awk and gawk, `match` function: String Functions
- differences in awk and gawk, `next`/`nextfile` statements: Nextfile Statement
- differences in awk and gawk, `print`/`printf` statements: Format Modifiers
- differences in awk and gawk, `PROCINFO` array: Auto-set
- differences in awk and gawk, record separators: Records
- differences in awk and gawk, regexp constants: Using Constant Regexps
- differences in awk and gawk, regular expressions: Case-sensitivity
- differences in awk and gawk, `RS`/`RT` variables: Records
- differences in awk and gawk, `RT` variable: Auto-set
- differences in awk and gawk, single-character fields: Single Character Fields
- differences in awk and gawk, `split` function: String Functions
- differences in awk and gawk, strings: Scalar Constants
- differences in awk and gawk, strings, storing: Records
- differences in awk and gawk, `strtonum` function (gawk): String Functions
- differences in awk and gawk, `TEXTDOMAIN` variable: User-modified
- differences in awk and gawk, trunc-mod operation: Arithmetic Ops
- directories, changing: Sample Library
- directories, searching: AWKPATH Variable
- directories, searching: Igawk Program
- division: Arithmetic Ops
- `do`-`while` statement: Regexp Usage
- `do`-`while` statement: Do Statement
- documentation, of awk programs: Library Names
- documentation, online: Manual History
- documents, searching: Dupword Program
- dollar sign (`$`): Regexp Operators
- dollar sign (`$`), `$` field operator: Precedence
- dollar sign (`$`), `$` field operator: Fields
- dollar sign (`$`), incrementing fields and arrays: Increment Ops
- double quote (`"`): Read Terminal
- double quote (`"`): Quoting
- double quote (`"`), regexp constants: Computed Regexps
- double-precision floating-point: Basic Data Typing
- Drepper, Ulrich: Acknowledgments
- `dupnode` internal function: Internals
- `dupword.awk` program: Dupword Program
- EBCDIC: Ordinal Functions
- egrep utility: Character Lists
- egrep utility: Egrep Program
- `egrep.awk` program: Egrep Program
- elements in arrays: Reference to Elements
- elements in arrays, assigning: Assigning Elements
- elements in arrays, deleting: Delete
- elements in arrays, order of: Scanning an Array
- elements in arrays, scanning: Scanning an Array
- email address for bug reports, `bug-gawk@gnu.org`: Bugs
- `EMISTERED`: TCP/IP Networking
- empty pattern: Empty
- empty strings, See null strings: Regexp Field Splitting
- `END` pattern: BEGIN/END
- `END` pattern, `assert` user-defined function and: Assert Function
- `END` pattern, backslash continuation and: Egrep Program
- `END` pattern, Boolean patterns and: Expression Patterns
- `END` pattern, `exit` statement and: Exit Statement
- `END` pattern, `next`/`nextfile` statements and: I/O And BEGIN/END
- `END` pattern, `next`/`nextfile` statements and: Next Statement
- `END` pattern, operators and: Using BEGIN/END
- `END` pattern, pgawk program: Profiling
- `END` pattern, `print` statement and: I/O And BEGIN/END
- `endfile` user-defined function: Filetrans Function
- `endgrent` function (C library): Group Functions
- `endgrent` user-defined function: Group Functions
- `endpwent` function (C library): Passwd Functions
- `endpwent` user-defined function: Passwd Functions
- `ENVIRON` variable: Auto-set
- environment variables: Auto-set
- epoch, definition of: Glossary
- equals sign (`=`), `=` operator: Assignment Ops
- equals sign (`=`), `==` operator: Typing and Comparison
- equals sign (`=`), `==` operator: Precedence
- EREs (Extended Regular Expressions): Character Lists
- `ERRNO` variable: Internals
- `ERRNO` variable: Getline
- `ERRNO` variable: Auto-set
- error handling: Special FD
- error handling, `ERRNO` variable and: Auto-set
- error output: Special FD
- escape processing, `gsub`/`gensub`/`sub` functions: Gory Details
- escape sequences: Escape Sequences
- escape sequences, unrecognized: Options
- evaluation order: Increment Ops
- evaluation order, concatenation: Concatenation
- evaluation order, functions: Calling Built-in
- examining fields: Fields
- exclamation point (`!`), `!` operator: Boolean Ops
- exclamation point (`!`), `!` operator: Egrep Program
- exclamation point (`!`), `!` operator: Precedence
- exclamation point (`!`), `!=` operator: Typing and Comparison
- exclamation point (`!`), `!=` operator: Precedence
- exclamation point (`!`), `!~` operator: Precedence
- exclamation point (`!`), `!~` operator: Typing and Comparison
- exclamation point (`!`), `!~` operator: Regexp Usage
- exclamation point (`!`), `!~` operator: Typing and Comparison
- exclamation point (`!`), `!~` operator: Computed Regexps
- exclamation point (`!`), `!~` operator: Regexp Constants
- exclamation point (`!`), `!~` operator: Expression Patterns
- exclamation point (`!`), `!~` operator: Case-sensitivity
- `exit` statement: Exit Statement
- `exp` function: Numeric Functions
- expand utility: Very Simple
- expressions: Expressions
- expressions, as patterns: Expression Patterns
- expressions, assignment: Assignment Ops
- expressions, Boolean: Boolean Ops
- expressions, comparison: Typing and Comparison
- expressions, conditional: Conditional Exp
- expressions, matching, See comparison expressions: Typing and Comparison
- expressions, selecting: Conditional Exp
- Extended Regular Expressions (EREs): Character Lists
- `extension` function (gawk): Using Internal File Ops
- extensions, Bell Laboratories awk: BTL
- extensions, in gawk, not in POSIX awk: POSIX/GNU
- extensions, mawk: Other Versions
- `extract.awk` program: Extract Program
- extraction, of marked strings (internationalization): String Extraction
- false, logical: Truth Values
- FDL (Free Documentation License): GNU Free Documentation License
- features, adding to gawk: Adding Code
- features, advanced, See advanced features: Obsolete
- features, deprecated: Obsolete
- features, undocumented: Undocumented
- Fenlason, Jay: Contributors
- Fenlason, Jay: History
- `fflush` function: I/O Functions
- `fflush` function, unsupported: Options
- field numbers: Nonconstant Fields
- field operator `$`: Fields
- field operators, dollar sign as: Fields
- field separators: Field Separators
- field separators: User-modified
- field separators, choice of: Field Separators
- field separators, `FIELDWIDTHS` variable and: User-modified
- field separators, in multiline records: Multiple Line
- field separators, on command line: Command Line Field Separator
- field separators, POSIX and: Fields
- field separators, POSIX and: Field Splitting Summary
- field separators, regular expressions as: Field Separators
- field separators, regular expressions as: Regexp Field Splitting
- field separators, See Also `OFS`: Changing Fields
- field separators, spaces as: Cut Program
- fields: Basic High Level
- fields: Fields
- fields: Reading Files
- fields, adding: Changing Fields
- fields, changing contents of: Changing Fields
- fields, cutting: Cut Program
- fields, examining: Fields
- fields, number of: Fields
- fields, numbers: Nonconstant Fields
- fields, printing: Print Examples
- fields, separating: Field Separators
- fields, single-character: Single Character Fields
- `FIELDWIDTHS` variable: User-modified
- `FIELDWIDTHS` variable: Constant Size
- file descriptors: Special FD
- file names, distinguishing: Auto-set
- file names, in compatibility mode: Special Caveats
- file names, standard streams in gawk: Special FD
- `FILENAME` variable: Auto-set
- `FILENAME` variable: Reading Files
- `FILENAME` variable, `getline`, setting with: Getline Notes
- filenames, assignments as: Ignoring Assigns
- files, `.mo`: Explaining gettext
- files, `.mo`, converting from `.po`: I18N Example
- files, `.mo`, specifying directory of: Programmer i18n
- files, `.mo`, specifying directory of: Explaining gettext
- files, `.po`: Translator i18n
- files, `.po`: Explaining gettext
- files, `.po`, converting to `.mo`: I18N Example
- files, `/dev/...` special files: Special FD
- files, `/inet/` (gawk): TCP/IP Networking
- files, `/p` (gawk): Portal Files
- files, as single records: Records
- files, awk programs in: Long
- files, `awkprof.out`: Profiling
- files, `awkvars.out`: Options
- files, closing: I/O Functions
- files, descriptors, See file descriptors: Special FD
- files, for process information: Special Process
- files, group: Group Functions
- files, information about, retrieving: Sample Library
- files, initialization and cleanup: Filetrans Function
- files, input, See input files: Read Terminal
- files, log, timestamps in: Time Functions
- files, managing: Data File Management
- files, managing, data file boundaries: Filetrans Function
- files, message object: Explaining gettext
- files, message object, converting from portable object files: I18N Example
- files, message object, specifying directory of: Explaining gettext
- files, message object, specifying directory of: Programmer i18n
- files, multiple passes over: Other Arguments
- files, multiple, duplicating output into: Tee Program
- files, output, See output files: Close Files And Pipes
- files, password: Passwd Functions
- files, portable object: Translator i18n
- files, portable object: Explaining gettext
- files, portable object, converting to message object files: I18N Example
- files, portable object, generating: Options
- files, portal: Portal Files
- files, processing, `ARGIND` variable and: Auto-set
- files, reading: Rewind Function
- files, reading, multiline records: Multiple Line
- files, searching for regular expressions: Egrep Program
- files, skipping: File Checking
- files, source, search path for: Igawk Program
- files, splitting: Split Program
- files, Texinfo, extracting programs from: Extract Program
- Fish, Fred: Contributors
- Fish, Fred: Bugs
- fixed-width data: Constant Size
- flag variables: Tee Program
- flag variables: Boolean Ops
- floating-point: Floating Point Issues
- floating-point, numbers: Basic Data Typing
- floating-point, numbers, `AWKNUM` internal type: Internals
- `FNR` variable: Auto-set
- `FNR` variable: Records
- `FNR` variable, changing: Auto-set
- `for` statement: For Statement
- `for` statement, in arrays: Scanning an Array
- `force_number` internal function: Internals
- `force_string` internal function: Internals
- format specifiers, mixing regular with positional specifiers: Printf Ordering
- format specifiers, `printf` statement: Control Letters
- format specifiers, `strftime` function (gawk): Time Functions
- format strings: Basic Printf
- formats, numeric output: OFMT
- formatting output: Printf
- forward slash (`/`): Regexp
- forward slash (`/`), `/` operator: Precedence
- forward slash (`/`), `/=` operator: Precedence
- forward slash (`/`), `/=` operator: Assignment Ops
- forward slash (`/`), `/=` operator, vs. `/=.../` regexp constant: Assignment Ops
- forward slash (`/`), patterns and: Expression Patterns
- Free Documentation License (FDL): GNU Free Documentation License
- Free Software Foundation (FSF): Glossary
- Free Software Foundation (FSF): Manual History
- Free Software Foundation (FSF): Getting
- Free Software Foundation (FSF): Glossary
- `free_temp` internal macro: Internals
- FreeBSD: Glossary
- `FS` variable: Field Separators
- `FS` variable: User-modified
- `FS` variable, `--field-separator` option and: Options
- FS variable, as null string: Single Character Fields
- `FS` variable, as TAB character: Options
- `FS` variable, changing value of: Field Separators
- `FS` variable, changing value of: Known Bugs
- `FS` variable, running awk programs and: Cut Program
- `FS` variable, setting from command line: Command Line Field Separator
- FSF (Free Software Foundation): Glossary
- FSF (Free Software Foundation): Getting
- FSF (Free Software Foundation): Manual History
- function calls: Function Calls
- functions, arrays as parameters to: Function Caveats
- functions, built-in: Functions
- functions, built-in: Function Calls
- functions, built-in, adding to gawk: Dynamic Extensions
- functions, built-in, evaluation order: Calling Built-in
- functions, defining: Definition Syntax
- functions, library: Library Functions
- functions, library, assertions: Assert Function
- functions, library, associative arrays and: Library Names
- functions, library, C library: Getopt Function
- functions, library, character values as numbers: Ordinal Functions
- functions, library, Cliff random numbers: Cliff Random Function
- functions, library, command-line options: Getopt Function
- functions, library, example program for using: Igawk Program
- functions, library, group database, reading: Group Functions
- functions, library, managing data files: Data File Management
- functions, library, managing time: Gettimeofday Function
- functions, library, merging arrays into strings: Join Function
- functions, library, `nextfile` statement: Nextfile Function
- functions, library, rounding numbers: Round Function
- functions, library, user database, reading: Passwd Functions
- functions, names of: Definition Syntax
- functions, names of: Arrays
- functions, recursive: Definition Syntax
- functions, return values, setting: Internals
- functions, string-translation: I18N Functions
- functions, undefined: Function Caveats
- functions, user-defined: User-defined
- functions, user-defined, calling: Function Caveats
- functions, user-defined, counts: Profiling
- functions, user-defined, library of: Library Functions
- functions, user-defined, `next`/`nextfile` statements and: Next Statement
- functions, user-defined, `next`/`nextfile` statements and: Nextfile Statement
- G-d: Acknowledgments
- Garfinkle, Scott: Contributors
- gawk, awk and: This Manual
- gawk, awk and: Preface
- gawk, bitwise operations in: Bitwise Functions
- gawk, `break` statement in: Break Statement
- gawk, built-in variables and: Built-in Variables
- gawk, character classes and: Character Lists
- gawk, coding style in: Adding Code
- gawk, command-line options: GNU Regexp Operators
- gawk, comparison operators and: Typing and Comparison
- gawk, configuring: Configuration Philosophy
- gawk, configuring, options: Additional Configuration Options
- gawk, `continue` statement in: Continue Statement
- gawk, debugging: Known Bugs
- gawk, distribution: Distribution contents
- gawk, escape sequences: Escape Sequences
- gawk, extensions, disabling: Options
- gawk, features, adding: Adding Code
- gawk, features, advanced: Advanced Features
- gawk, `fflush` function in: I/O Functions
- gawk, field separators and: User-modified
- gawk, `FIELDWIDTHS` variable in: User-modified
- gawk, file names in: Special Files
- gawk, format-control characters: Control Letters
- gawk, function arguments and: Calling Built-in
- gawk, functions, adding: Dynamic Extensions
- gawk, hexadecimal numbers and: Nondecimal-numbers
- gawk, `IGNORECASE` variable in: User-modified
- gawk, implementation issues: Notes
- gawk, implementation issues, debugging: Compatibility Mode
- gawk, implementation issues, downward compatibility: Compatibility Mode
- gawk, implementation issues, limits: Getline Notes
- gawk, implementation issues, pipes: Redirection
- gawk, installing: Installation
- gawk, internals: Internals
- gawk, internationalization and, See internationalization: Internationalization
- gawk, interpreter, adding code to: Future Extensions
- gawk, interpreter, adding code to: Using Internal File Ops
- gawk, interval expressions and: Regexp Operators
- gawk, line continuation in: Conditional Exp
- gawk, `LINT` variable in: User-modified
- gawk, list of contributors to: Contributors
- gawk, MS-DOS version of: PC Using
- gawk, newlines in: Statements/Lines
- gawk, `next file` statement in: Nextfile Statement
- gawk, `nextfile` statement in: Nextfile Function
- gawk, `nextfile` statement in: Nextfile Statement
- gawk, octal numbers and: Nondecimal-numbers
- gawk, OS/2 version of: PC Using
- gawk, regexp constants and: Using Constant Regexps
- gawk, regular expressions, case sensitivity: Case-sensitivity
- gawk, regular expressions, operators: GNU Regexp Operators
- gawk, regular expressions, precedence: Regexp Operators
- gawk, See Also awk: Preface
- gawk, source code, obtaining: Getting
- gawk, splitting fields and: Constant Size
- gawk, string-translation functions: I18N Functions
- gawk, timestamps: Time Functions
- gawk, uses for: Preface
- gawk, versions of, information about, printing: Options
- gawk, word-boundary operator: GNU Regexp Operators
- General Public License (GPL): Glossary
- General Public License, See GPL: Manual History
- `gensub` function (gawk): Using Constant Regexps
- `gensub` function (gawk): String Functions
- `gensub` function (gawk), escape processing: Gory Details
- `get_actual_argument` internal function: Internals
- `get_argument` internal function: Internals
- `get_array_argument` internal macro: Internals
- `get_curfunc_arg_count` internal function: Internals
- `get_scalar_argument` internal macro: Internals
- `getgrent` function (C library): Group Functions
- `getgrent` user-defined function: Group Functions
- `getgrgid` function (C library): Group Functions
- `getgrgid` user-defined function: Group Functions
- `getgrnam` function (C library): Group Functions
- `getgrnam` user-defined function: Group Functions
- `getgruser` function (C library): Group Functions
- `getgruser` function, user-defined: Group Functions
- `getline` command: Reading Files
- `getline` command, `_gr_init` user-defined function: Group Functions
- `getline` command, `_pw_init` function: Passwd Functions
- `getline` command, coprocesses, using from: Close Files And Pipes
- `getline` command, coprocesses, using from: Getline/Coprocess
- `getline` command, deadlock and: Two-way I/O
- `getline` command, explicit input with: Getline
- `getline` command, `FILENAME` variable and: Getline Notes
- `getline` command, return values: Getline
- `getline` command, variants: Getline Summary
- `getopt` function (C library): Getopt Function
- `getopt` user-defined function: Getopt Function
- `getpwent` function (C library): Passwd Functions
- `getpwent` user-defined function: Passwd Functions
- `getpwnam` function (C library): Passwd Functions
- `getpwnam` user-defined function: Passwd Functions
- `getpwuid` function (C library): Passwd Functions
- `getpwuid` user-defined function: Passwd Functions
- `getservbyname` function (C library): TCP/IP Networking
- `gettext` function (C library): Explaining gettext
- `gettext` library: Explaining gettext
- `gettext` library, locale categories: Explaining gettext
- `gettimeofday` user-defined function: Gettimeofday Function
- GNITS mailing list: Acknowledgments
- GNU awk, See gawk: Preface
- GNU Free Documentation License: GNU Free Documentation License
- GNU General Public License: Glossary
- GNU Lesser General Public License: Glossary
- GNU long options: Command Line
- GNU long options: Options
- GNU long options, printing list of: Options
- GNU Project: Glossary
- GNU Project: Manual History
- GNU/Linux: I18N Example
- GNU/Linux: Glossary
- GNU/Linux: Atari Compiling
- GNU/Linux: Manual History
- GNU/Linux: Additional Configuration Options
- GPL (General Public License): Glossary
- GPL (General Public License): Manual History
- GPL (General Public License), printing: Options
- grcat program: Group Functions
- Grigera, Juan: Bugs
- Grigera, Juan: Contributors
- group database, reading: Group Functions
- group file: Group Functions
- groups, information about: Group Functions
- `gsub` function: Using Constant Regexps
- `gsub` function: String Functions
- `gsub` function, arguments of: String Functions
- `gsub` function, escape processing: Gory Details
- Hankerson, Darrel: Bugs
- Hankerson, Darrel: Acknowledgments
- Hankerson, Darrel: Contributors
- Hartholz, Elaine: Acknowledgments
- Hartholz, Marshall: Acknowledgments
- Hasegawa, Isamu: Contributors
- Hasegawa, Isamu: Acknowledgments
- hexadecimal numbers: Nondecimal-numbers
- hexadecimal values, enabling interpretation of: Options
- `histsort.awk` program: History Sorting
- Hughes, Phil: Acknowledgments
- `HUP` signal: Profiling
- hyphen (`-`), `-` operator: Precedence
- hyphen (`-`), `--` (decrement/increment) operators: Precedence
- hyphen (`-`), `--` operator: Increment Ops
- hyphen (`-`), `-=` operator: Assignment Ops
- hyphen (`-`), `-=` operator: Precedence
- hyphen (`-`), filenames beginning with: Options
- hyphen (`-`), in character lists: Character Lists
- id utility: Id Program
- `id.awk` program: Id Program
- `if` statement: If Statement
- `if` statement: Regexp Usage
- `if` statement, actions, changing: Ranges
- `igawk.sh` program: Igawk Program
- `IGNORECASE` variable: Case-sensitivity
- `IGNORECASE` variable: User-modified
- `IGNORECASE` variable, array sorting and: Array Sorting
- `IGNORECASE` variable, array subscripts and: Array Intro
- `IGNORECASE` variable, in example programs: Library Functions
- implementation issues, gawk: Notes
- implementation issues, gawk, debugging: Compatibility Mode
- implementation issues, gawk, limits: Getline Notes
- implementation issues, gawk, limits: Redirection
- `in` operator: Precedence
- `in` operator: Id Program
- `in` operator: Typing and Comparison
- `in` operator, arrays and: Scanning an Array
- `in` operator, arrays and: Reference to Elements
- increment operators: Increment Ops
- `index` function: String Functions
- indexing arrays: Array Intro
- initialization, automatic: More Complex
- input files: Reading Files
- input files, closing: Close Files And Pipes
- input files, counting elements in: Wc Program
- input files, examples: Sample Data Files
- input files, reading: Reading Files
- input files, running awk without: Read Terminal
- input files, skipping: Nextfile Function
- input files, variable assignments and: Other Arguments
- input pipeline: Getline/Pipe
- input redirection: Getline/File
- input, data, nondecimal: Nondecimal Data
- input, explicit: Getline
- input, files, See input files: Multiple Line
- input, multiline records: Multiple Line
- input, splitting into records: Records
- input, standard: Special FD
- input, standard: Read Terminal
- input/output, binary: User-modified
- input/output, from `BEGIN` and `END`: I/O And BEGIN/END
- input/output, two-way: Two-way I/O
- insomnia, cure for: Alarm Program
- installation, amiga: Amiga Installation
- installation, atari: Atari Installation
- installation, beos: BeOS Installation
- installation, tandem: Tandem Installation
- installation, vms: VMS Installation
- installing gawk: Installation
- `int` function: Numeric Functions
- `INT` signal (MS-DOS): Profiling
- integers: Basic Data Typing
- integers, unsigned: Basic Data Typing
- interacting with other programs: I/O Functions
- internationalization: I18N Functions
- internationalization: I18N and L10N
- internationalization, localization: Internationalization
- internationalization, localization: User-modified
- internationalization, localization, character classes: Character Lists
- internationalization, localization, gawk and: Internationalization
- internationalization, localization, locale categories: Explaining gettext
- internationalization, localization, marked strings: Programmer i18n
- internationalization, localization, portability and: I18N Portability
- internationalizing a program: Explaining gettext
- interpreted programs: Glossary
- interpreted programs: Basic High Level
- interval expressions: Regexp Operators
- `inventory-shipped` file: Sample Data Files
- ISO: Glossary
- ISO 8859-1: Glossary
- ISO Latin-1: Glossary
- Jacobs, Andrew: Passwd Functions
- Jaegermann, Michal: Acknowledgments
- Jaegermann, Michal: Contributors
- Jedi knights: Undocumented
- `join` user-defined function: Join Function
- Kahrs, J: Acknowledgments
- Kahrs, J: Contributors
- Kenobi, Obi-Wan: Undocumented
- Kernighan, Brian: Other Versions
- Kernighan, Brian: Acknowledgments
- Kernighan, Brian: BTL
- Kernighan, Brian: Concatenation
- Kernighan, Brian: History
- Kernighan, Brian: Conventions
- Kernighan, Brian: Basic Data Typing
- Kernighan, Brian: Contributors
- kill command, dynamic profiling: Profiling
- Knights, jedi: Undocumented
- Kwok, Conrad: Contributors
- `labels.awk` program: Labels Program
- languages, data-driven: Basic High Level
- `LC_ALL` locale category: Explaining gettext
- `LC_COLLATE` locale category: Explaining gettext
- `LC_CTYPE` locale category: Explaining gettext
- `LC_MESSAGES` locale category: Explaining gettext
- `LC_MESSAGES` locale category, `bindtextdomain` function (gawk): Programmer i18n
- `LC_MONETARY` locale category: Explaining gettext
- `LC_NUMERIC` locale category: Explaining gettext
- `LC_RESPONSE` locale category: Explaining gettext
- `LC_TIME` locale category: Explaining gettext
- left angle bracket (`<`), `<` operator: Precedence
- left angle bracket (`<`), `<` operator: Typing and Comparison
- left angle bracket (`<`), `<` operator (I/O): Getline/File
- left angle bracket (`<`), `<=` operator: Typing and Comparison
- left angle bracket (`<`), `<=` operator: Precedence
- left shift, bitwise: Bitwise Functions
- leftmost longest match: Multiple Line
- `length` function: String Functions
- Lesser General Public License (LGPL): Glossary
- LGPL (Lesser General Public License): Glossary
- libraries of awk functions: Library Functions
- libraries of awk functions, assertions: Assert Function
- libraries of awk functions, associative arrays and: Library Names
- libraries of awk functions, character values as numbers: Ordinal Functions
- libraries of awk functions, command-line options: Getopt Function
- libraries of awk functions, example program for using: Igawk Program
- libraries of awk functions, group database, reading: Group Functions
- libraries of awk functions, managing, data files: Data File Management
- libraries of awk functions, managing, time: Gettimeofday Function
- libraries of awk functions, merging arrays into strings: Join Function
- libraries of awk functions, `nextfile` statement: Nextfile Function
- libraries of awk functions, rounding numbers: Round Function
- libraries of awk functions, user database, reading: Passwd Functions
- line breaks: Statements/Lines
- line continuations: Boolean Ops
- line continuations, gawk: Conditional Exp
- line continuations, in `print` statement: Print Examples
- line continuations, with C shell: More Complex
- lines, blank, printing: Print
- lines, counting: Wc Program
- lines, duplicate, removing: History Sorting
- lines, matching ranges of: Ranges
- lines, skipping between markers: Ranges
- lint checking: User-modified
- lint checking, array elements: Delete
- lint checking, array subscripts: Uninitialized Subscripts
- lint checking, empty programs: Command Line
- lint checking, issuing warnings: Options
- lint checking, `POSIXLY_CORRECT` environment variable: Options
- lint checking, undefined functions: Function Caveats
- `LINT` variable: User-modified
- Linux: Manual History
- Linux: Glossary
- Linux: Additional Configuration Options
- Linux: I18N Example
- Linux: Atari Compiling
- locale categories: Explaining gettext
- localization: I18N and L10N
- localization, See internationalization, localization: I18N and L10N
- log files, timestamps in: Time Functions
- `log` function: Numeric Functions
- logical false/true: Truth Values
- logical operators, See Boolean expressions: Boolean Ops
- login information: Passwd Functions
- long options: Command Line
- loops: While Statement
- loops, `continue` statements and: For Statement
- loops, count for header: Profiling
- loops, exiting: Break Statement
- loops, See Also `while` statement: While Statement
- Lost In Space: Dynamic Extensions
- ls utility: More Complex
- `lshift` function (gawk): Bitwise Functions
- lvalues/rvalues: Assignment Ops
- mailing labels, printing: Labels Program
- mailing list, GNITS: Acknowledgments
- `make_builtin` internal function: Internals
- `make_number` internal function: Internals
- `make_string` internal function: Internals
- mark parity: Ordinal Functions
- marked string extraction (internationalization): String Extraction
- marked strings, extracting: String Extraction
- Marx, Groucho: Increment Ops
- `match` function: String Functions
- `match` function, `RSTART`/`RLENGTH` variables: String Functions
- matching, expressions, See comparison expressions: Typing and Comparison
- matching, leftmost longest: Multiple Line
- matching, null strings: Gory Details
- mawk program: Other Versions
- McPhee, Patrick: Contributors
- memory, releasing: Internals
- memory, setting limits: Options
- message object files: Explaining gettext
- message object files, converting from portable object files: I18N Example
- message object files, specifying directory of: Programmer i18n
- message object files, specifying directory of: Explaining gettext
- metacharacters, escape sequences for: Escape Sequences
- `mktime` function (gawk): Time Functions
- modifiers, in format specifiers: Format Modifiers
- monetary information, localization: Explaining gettext
- msgfmt utility: I18N Example
- names, arrays/variables: Arrays
- names, arrays/variables: Library Names
- names, functions: Library Names
- names, functions: Definition Syntax
- namespace issues: Library Names
- namespace issues: Arrays
- namespace issues, functions: Definition Syntax
- nawk utility: Names
- negative zero: Floating Point Issues
- NetBSD: Glossary
- networks, programming: TCP/IP Networking
- networks, support for: Special Network
- newlines: Options
- newlines: Boolean Ops
- newlines: Statements/Lines
- newlines, as field separators: Field Separators
- newlines, as record separators: Records
- newlines, in dynamic regexps: Computed Regexps
- newlines, in regexp constants: Computed Regexps
- newlines, printing: Print Examples
- newlines, separating statements in actions: Action Overview
- newlines, separating statements in actions: Statements
- `next file` statement: POSIX/GNU
- `next file` statement, deprecated: Obsolete
- `next file` statement, in gawk: Nextfile Statement
- `next` statement: Next Statement
- `next` statement: Boolean Ops
- `next` statement, `BEGIN`/`END` patterns and: I/O And BEGIN/END
- `next` statement, user-defined functions and: Next Statement
- `nextfile` statement: Nextfile Statement
- `nextfile` statement, `BEGIN`/`END` patterns and: I/O And BEGIN/END
- `nextfile` statement, implementing: Nextfile Function
- `nextfile` statement, in gawk: Nextfile Statement
- `nextfile` statement, `next file` statement and: Obsolete
- `nextfile` statement, user-defined functions and: Nextfile Statement
- `nextfile` user-defined function: Nextfile Function
- `NF` variable: Auto-set
- `NF` variable: Fields
- `NF` variable, decrementing: Changing Fields
- `noassign.awk` program: Ignoring Assigns
- `NODE` internal type: Internals
- nodes, duplicating: Internals
- not Boolean-logic operator: Boolean Ops
- `NR` variable: Auto-set
- `NR` variable: Records
- `NR` variable, changing: Auto-set
- null strings: Basic Data Typing
- null strings: Regexp Field Splitting
- null strings: Records
- null strings: Truth Values
- null strings, array elements and: Delete
- null strings, as array subscripts: Uninitialized Subscripts
- null strings, converting numbers to strings: Conversion
- null strings, matching: Gory Details
- null strings, quoting and: Quoting
- number sign (`#`), `#!` (executable scripts): Executable Scripts
- number sign (`#`), `#!` (executable scripts), portability issues with: Executable Scripts
- number sign (`#`), commenting: Comments
- numbers: Internals
- numbers, as array subscripts: Numeric Array Subscripts
- numbers, as values of characters: Ordinal Functions
- numbers, Cliff random: Cliff Random Function
- numbers, converting: Conversion
- numbers, converting, to strings: User-modified
- numbers, converting, to strings: Bitwise Functions
- numbers, converting, to strings: User-modified
- numbers, floating-point: Basic Data Typing
- numbers, floating-point, `AWKNUM` internal type: Internals
- numbers, hexadecimal: Nondecimal-numbers
- numbers, `NODE` internal type: Internals
- numbers, octal: Nondecimal-numbers
- numbers, random: Numeric Functions
- numbers, rounding: Round Function
- numeric, constants: Scalar Constants
- numeric, output format: OFMT
- numeric, strings: Typing and Comparison
- numeric, values: Internals
- oawk utility: Names
- obsolete features: Obsolete
- octal numbers: Nondecimal-numbers
- octal values, enabling interpretation of: Options
- `OFMT` variable: Conversion
- `OFMT` variable: OFMT
- `OFMT` variable: User-modified
- `OFMT` variable, POSIX awk and: OFMT
- `OFS` variable: User-modified
- `OFS` variable: Output Separators
- `OFS` variable: Changing Fields
- OpenBSD: Glossary
- operating systems, BSD-based: Portal Files
- operating systems, BSD-based: Manual History
- operating systems, PC, gawk on: PC Using
- operating systems, PC, gawk on, installing: PC Installation
- operating systems, porting gawk to: New Ports
- operating systems, See Also GNU/Linux, PC operating systems, Unix: Installation
- operations, bitwise: Bitwise Functions
- operators, arithmetic: Arithmetic Ops
- operators, assignment: Assignment Ops
- operators, assignment, evaluation order: Assignment Ops
- operators, Boolean, See Boolean expressions: Boolean Ops
- operators, decrement/increment: Increment Ops
- operators, GNU-specific: GNU Regexp Operators
- operators, input/output: Precedence
- operators, input/output: Getline/Pipe
- operators, input/output: Precedence
- operators, input/output: Getline/File
- operators, input/output: Redirection
- operators, input/output: Getline/Coprocess
- operators, input/output: Redirection
- operators, input/output: Precedence
- operators, logical, See Boolean expressions: Boolean Ops
- operators, precedence: Precedence
- operators, precedence: Increment Ops
- operators, relational, See operators, comparison: Typing and Comparison
- operators, short-circuit: Boolean Ops
- operators, string: Concatenation
- operators, string-matching: Regexp Usage
- operators, string-matching, for buffers: GNU Regexp Operators
- operators, word-boundary (gawk): GNU Regexp Operators
- options, command-line: Options
- options, command-line: Long
- options, command-line: Command Line Field Separator
- options, command-line, end of: Options
- options, command-line, invoking awk: Command Line
- options, command-line, processing: Getopt Function
- options, deprecated: Obsolete
- options, long: Options
- options, long: Command Line
- options, printing list of: Options
- OR bitwise operation: Bitwise Functions
- or Boolean-logic operator: Boolean Ops
- `or` function (gawk): Bitwise Functions
- `ord` user-defined function: Ordinal Functions
- order of evaluation, concatenation: Concatenation
- `ORS` variable: Output Separators
- `ORS` variable: User-modified
- output field separator, See `OFS` variable: Changing Fields
- output record separator, See `ORS` variable: Output Separators
- output redirection: Redirection
- output, buffering: I/O Functions
- output, duplicating into files: Tee Program
- output, files, closing: Close Files And Pipes
- output, format specifier, `OFMT`: OFMT
- output, formatted: Printf
- output, pipes: Redirection
- output, printing, See printing: Printing
- output, records: Output Separators
- output, standard: Special FD
- P1003.2 POSIX standard: Glossary
- `param_cnt` internal variable: Internals
- parameters, number of: Internals
- parentheses `()`: Regexp Operators
- parentheses `()`, pgawk program: Profiling
- password file: Passwd Functions
- patterns: Patterns and Actions
- patterns, comparison expressions as: Expression Patterns
- patterns, counts: Profiling
- patterns, default: Very Simple
- patterns, empty: Empty
- patterns, expressions as: Regexp Patterns
- patterns, ranges in: Ranges
- patterns, regexp constants as: Expression Patterns
- patterns, types of: Pattern Overview
- pawk profiling Bell Labs awk: Other Versions
- PC operating systems, gawk on: PC Using
- PC operating systems, gawk on, installing: PC Installation
- percent sign (`%`), `%` operator: Precedence
- percent sign (`%`), `%=` operator: Assignment Ops
- percent sign (`%`), `%=` operator: Precedence
- period (`.`): Regexp Operators
- PERL: Future Extensions
- Peters, Arno: Contributors
- Peterson, Hal: Contributors
- pgawk program: Profiling
- pgawk program, `awkprof.out` file: Profiling
- pgawk program, dynamic profiling: Profiling
- pipes, closing: Close Files And Pipes
- pipes, input: Getline/Pipe
- pipes, output: Redirection
- plus sign (`+`): Regexp Operators
- plus sign (`+`), `+` operator: Precedence
- plus sign (`+`), `++` operator: Increment Ops
- plus sign (`+`), `++` operator: Precedence
- plus sign (`+`), `+=` operator: Assignment Ops
- plus sign (`+`), `+=` operator: Precedence
- plus sign (`+`), decrement/increment operators: Increment Ops
- portability: Escape Sequences
- portability, `#!` (executable scripts): Executable Scripts
- portability, `**` operator and: Arithmetic Ops
- portability, `**=` operator and: Assignment Ops
- portability, `ARGV` variable: Executable Scripts
- portability, backslash continuation and: Statements/Lines
- portability, backslash in escape sequences: Escape Sequences
- portability, `close` function and: Close Files And Pipes
- portability, data files as single record: Records
- portability, deleting array elements: Delete
- portability, example programs: Library Functions
- portability, `fflush` function and: I/O Functions
- portability, functions, defining: Definition Syntax
- portability, gawk: New Ports
- portability, `gettext` library and: Explaining gettext
- portability, internationalization and: I18N Portability
- portability, `length` function: String Functions
- portability, new awk vs. old awk: Conversion
- portability, `next` statement in user-defined functions: Function Caveats
- portability, `NF` variable, decrementing: Changing Fields
- portability, operators: Increment Ops
- portability, operators, not in POSIX awk: Precedence
- portability, `POSIXLY_CORRECT` environment variable: Options
- portability, `substr` function: String Functions
- portable object files: Explaining gettext
- portable object files: Translator i18n
- portable object files, converting to message object files: I18N Example
- portable object files, generating: Options
- portal files: Portal Files
- porting gawk: New Ports
- positional specifiers, `printf` statement: Printf Ordering
- positional specifiers, `printf` statement: Format Modifiers
- positional specifiers, `printf` statement, mixing with regular formats: Printf Ordering
- positive zero: Floating Point Issues
- POSIX awk: Assignment Ops
- POSIX awk: This Manual
- POSIX awk, `**=` operator and: Assignment Ops
- POSIX awk, `<` operator and: Getline/File
- POSIX awk, arithmetic operators and: Arithmetic Ops
- POSIX awk, backslashes in string constants: Escape Sequences
- POSIX awk, `BEGIN`/`END` patterns: I/O And BEGIN/END
- POSIX awk, `break` statement and: Break Statement
- POSIX awk, changes in awk versions: POSIX
- POSIX awk, character lists and: Character Lists
- POSIX awk, character lists and, character classes: Character Lists
- POSIX awk, `continue` statement and: Continue Statement
- POSIX awk, `CONVFMT` variable and: User-modified
- POSIX awk, `date` utility and: Time Functions
- POSIX awk, field separators and: Field Splitting Summary
- POSIX awk, field separators and: Fields
- POSIX awk, `FS` variable and: User-modified
- POSIX awk, `function` keyword in: Definition Syntax
- POSIX awk, functions and, `gsub`/`sub`: Gory Details
- POSIX awk, functions and, `length`: String Functions
- POSIX awk, GNU long options and: Options
- POSIX awk, interval expressions in: Regexp Operators
- POSIX awk, `next`/`nextfile` statements and: Next Statement
- POSIX awk, numeric strings and: Typing and Comparison
- POSIX awk, `OFMT` variable and: Conversion
- POSIX awk, `OFMT` variable and: OFMT
- POSIX awk, period (`.`), using: Regexp Operators
- POSIX awk, `printf` format strings and: Format Modifiers
- POSIX awk, regular expressions and: Regexp Operators
- POSIX awk, timestamps and: Time Functions
- POSIX awk, `|` I/O operator and: Getline/Pipe
- POSIX mode: Options
- POSIX, awk and: Preface
- POSIX, gawk extensions not included in: POSIX/GNU
- POSIX, programs, implementing in awk: Clones
- `POSIXLY_CORRECT` environment variable: Options
- precedence: Increment Ops
- precedence: Precedence
- precedence, regexp operators: Regexp Operators
- `print` statement: Printing
- `print` statement, `BEGIN`/`END` patterns and: I/O And BEGIN/END
- `print` statement, commas, omitting: Print Examples
- `print` statement, I/O operators in: Precedence
- `print` statement, line continuations and: Print Examples
- `print` statement, `OFMT` variable and: User-modified
- `print` statement, See Also redirection, of output: Redirection
- `print` statement, `sprintf` function and: Round Function
- `printf` statement: Printf
- `printf` statement: Printing
- `printf` statement, columns, aligning: Print Examples
- `printf` statement, format-control characters: Control Letters
- `printf` statement, I/O operators in: Precedence
- `printf` statement, modifiers: Format Modifiers
- `printf` statement, positional specifiers: Printf Ordering
- `printf` statement, positional specifiers: Format Modifiers
- `printf` statement, positional specifiers, mixing with regular formats: Printf Ordering
- `printf` statement, See Also redirection, of output: Redirection
- `printf` statement, `sprintf` function and: Round Function
- `printf` statement, syntax of: Basic Printf
- printing: Printing
- printing, list of options: Options
- printing, mailing labels: Labels Program
- printing, unduplicated lines of text: Uniq Program
- printing, user information: Id Program
- private variables: Library Names
- process information, files for: Special Process
- processes, two-way communications with: Two-way I/O
- processing data: Basic High Level
- `PROCINFO` array: Auto-set
- `PROCINFO` array: Passwd Functions
- `PROCINFO` array: Group Functions
- `PROCINFO` array: Special Caveats
- profiling awk programs: Profiling
- profiling awk programs, dynamically: Profiling
- profiling gawk, See pgawk program: Profiling
- program, definition of: Getting Started
- programmers, attractiveness of: Two-way I/O
- programming conventions, `--non-decimal-data` option: Nondecimal Data
- programming conventions, `ARGC`/`ARGV` variables: Auto-set
- programming conventions, `exit` statement: Exit Statement
- programming conventions, function parameters: Return Statement
- programming conventions, functions, calling: Calling Built-in
- programming conventions, functions, writing: Definition Syntax
- programming conventions, gawk internals: Internal File Ops
- programming conventions, `nextfile` statement: Nextfile Function
- programming conventions, private variable names: Library Names
- programming language, recipe for: History
- programming languages, data-driven vs. procedural: Getting Started
- programming, basic steps: Basic High Level
- programming, concepts: Basic Concepts
- pwcat program: Passwd Functions
- question mark (`?`): Regexp Operators
- question mark (`?`): GNU Regexp Operators
- question mark (`?`), `?:` operator: Precedence
- `QUIT` signal (MS-DOS): Profiling
- quoting: Comments
- quoting: Read Terminal
- quoting: Long
- quoting, rules for: Quoting
- quoting, tricks for: Quoting
- Rakitzis, Byron: History Sorting
- `rand` function: Numeric Functions
- random numbers, Cliff: Cliff Random Function
- random numbers, `rand`/`srand` functions: Numeric Functions
- random numbers, seed of: Numeric Functions
- range expressions: Character Lists
- range patterns: Ranges
- Rankin, Pat: Bugs
- Rankin, Pat: Contributors
- Rankin, Pat: Assignment Ops
- Rankin, Pat: Acknowledgments
- raw sockets: TCP/IP Networking
- readable data files, checking: File Checking
- `readable.awk` program: File Checking
- recipe for a programming language: History
- record separators: Records
- record separators: User-modified
- record separators, changing: Records
- record separators, regular expressions as: Records
- record separators, with multiline records: Multiple Line
- records: Basic High Level
- records: Reading Files
- records, multiline: Multiple Line
- records, printing: Print
- records, splitting input into: Records
- records, terminating: Records
- records, treating files as: Records
- recursive functions: Definition Syntax
- redirection of input: Getline/File
- redirection of output: Redirection
- reference counting, sorting arrays: Array Sorting
- regexp constants: Regexp Constants
- regexp constants: Typing and Comparison
- regexp constants: Regexp Usage
- regexp constants, `/=.../`, `/=` operator and: Assignment Ops
- regexp constants, as patterns: Expression Patterns
- regexp constants, in gawk: Using Constant Regexps
- regexp constants, slashes vs. quotes: Computed Regexps
- regexp constants, vs. string constants: Computed Regexps
- regexp, See regular expressions: Regexp
- regular expressions: Regexp
- regular expressions as field separators: Field Separators
- regular expressions, anchors in: Regexp Operators
- regular expressions, as field separators: Regexp Field Splitting
- regular expressions, as patterns: Regexp Patterns
- regular expressions, as patterns: Regexp Usage
- regular expressions, as record separators: Records
- regular expressions, case sensitivity: User-modified
- regular expressions, case sensitivity: Case-sensitivity
- regular expressions, computed: Computed Regexps
- regular expressions, constants, See regexp constants: Regexp Usage
- regular expressions, dynamic: Computed Regexps
- regular expressions, dynamic, with embedded newlines: Computed Regexps
- regular expressions, gawk, command-line options: GNU Regexp Operators
- regular expressions, interval expressions and: Options
- regular expressions, leftmost longest match: Leftmost Longest
- regular expressions, operators: Regexp Operators
- regular expressions, operators: Regexp Usage
- regular expressions, operators, for buffers: GNU Regexp Operators
- regular expressions, operators, for words: GNU Regexp Operators
- regular expressions, operators, gawk: GNU Regexp Operators
- regular expressions, operators, precedence of: Regexp Operators
- regular expressions, searching for: Egrep Program
- relational operators, See comparison operators: Typing and Comparison
- `return` statement, user-defined functions: Return Statement
- return values, `close` function: Close Files And Pipes
- `rev` user-defined function: Function Example
- `rewind` user-defined function: Rewind Function
- right angle bracket (`>`), `>` operator: Typing and Comparison
- right angle bracket (`>`), `>` operator: Precedence
- right angle bracket (`>`), `>` operator (I/O): Redirection
- right angle bracket (`>`), `>=` operator: Typing and Comparison
- right angle bracket (`>`), `>=` operator: Precedence
- right angle bracket (`>`), `>>` operator (I/O): Precedence
- right angle bracket (`>`), `>>` operator (I/O): Redirection
- right shift, bitwise: Bitwise Functions
- Ritchie, Dennis: Basic Data Typing
- `RLENGTH` variable: Auto-set
- `RLENGTH` variable, `match` function and: String Functions
- Robbins, Arnold: Future Extensions
- Robbins, Arnold: Alarm Program
- Robbins, Arnold: Getline/Pipe
- Robbins, Arnold: Contributors
- Robbins, Arnold: Passwd Functions
- Robbins, Arnold: Bugs
- Robbins, Arnold: Command Line Field Separator
- Robbins, Bill: Getline/Pipe
- Robbins, Harry: Acknowledgments
- Robbins, Jean: Acknowledgments
- Robbins, Miriam: Passwd Functions
- Robbins, Miriam: Acknowledgments
- Robbins, Miriam: Getline/Pipe
- Robinson, Will: Dynamic Extensions
- robot, the: Dynamic Extensions
- Rommel, Kai Uwe: Acknowledgments
- Rommel, Kai Uwe: Contributors
- `round` user-defined function: Round Function
- rounding: Round Function
- rounding numbers: Round Function
- `RS` variable: User-modified
- `RS` variable: Records
- `RS` variable, multiline records and: Multiple Line
- `rshift` function (gawk): Bitwise Functions
- `RSTART` variable: Auto-set
- `RSTART` variable, `match` function and: String Functions
- `RT` variable: Auto-set
- `RT` variable: Records
- `RT` variable: Multiple Line
- Rubin, Paul: Contributors
- Rubin, Paul: History
- rule, definition of: Getting Started
- rvalues/lvalues: Assignment Ops
- scalar values: Basic Data Typing
- Schreiber, Bert: Acknowledgments
- Schreiber, Rita: Acknowledgments
- search paths: VMS Running
- search paths: PC Using
- search paths, for source files: AWKPATH Variable
- search paths, for source files: VMS Running
- search paths, for source files: Igawk Program
- searching: String Functions
- searching, files for regular expressions: Egrep Program
- searching, for words: Dupword Program
- sed utility: Field Splitting Summary
- sed utility: Simple Sed
- sed utility: Glossary
- semicolon (`;`): Statements/Lines
- semicolon (`;`), `AWKPATH` variable and: PC Using
- semicolon (`;`), separating statements in actions: Action Overview
- semicolon (`;`), separating statements in actions: Statements
- separators, field: User-modified
- separators, field, `FIELDWIDTHS` variable and: User-modified
- separators, field, POSIX and: Fields
- separators, for records: Records
- separators, for records, regular expressions as: Records
- separators, for statements in actions: Action Overview
- separators, record: User-modified
- separators, subscript: User-modified
- `set_value` internal function: Internals
- shells, piping commands into: Redirection
- shells, quoting: Using Shell Variables
- shells, quoting, rules for: Quoting
- shells, scripts: One-shot
- shells, variables: Using Shell Variables
- shift, bitwise: Bitwise Functions
- short-circuit operators: Boolean Ops
- side effects: Concatenation
- side effects: Increment Ops
- side effects, array indexing: Reference to Elements
- side effects, `asort` function: Array Sorting
- side effects, assignment expressions: Assignment Ops
- side effects, Boolean operators: Boolean Ops
- side effects, conditional expressions: Conditional Exp
- side effects, decrement/increment operators: Increment Ops
- side effects, `FILENAME` variable: Getline Notes
- side effects, function calls: Function Calls
- side effects, statements: Action Overview
- signals, `HUP`/`SIGHUP`: Profiling
- signals, `INT`/`SIGINT` (MS-DOS): Profiling
- signals, `QUIT`/`SIGQUIT` (MS-DOS): Profiling
- signals, `USR1`/`SIGUSR1`: Profiling
- `sin` function: Numeric Functions
- single quote (`'`): Quoting
- single quote (`'`): One-shot
- single quote (`'`): Long
- single quote (`'`), vs. apostrophe: Comments
- single quote (`'`), with double quotes: Quoting
- single-character fields: Single Character Fields
- single-precision floating-point: Basic Data Typing
- Skywalker, Luke: Undocumented
- sleep utility: Alarm Program
- sockets: TCP/IP Networking
- sort function, arrays, sorting: Array Sorting
- sort utility: Word Sorting
- sort utility, coprocesses and: Two-way I/O
- sorting characters in different languages: Explaining gettext
- source code, awka: Other Versions
- source code, Bell Laboratories awk: Other Versions
- source code, gawk: Gawk Distribution
- source code, mawk: Other Versions
- source code, mixing: Options
- source files, search path for: Igawk Program
- sparse arrays: Array Intro
- Spencer, Henry: Glossary
- `split` function: String Functions
- `split` function, array elements, deleting: Delete
- `split` utility: Split Program
- `split.awk` program: Split Program
- `sprintf` function: String Functions
- `sprintf` function: OFMT
- `sprintf` function, `OFMT` variable and: User-modified
- `sprintf` function, `print`/`printf` statements and: Round Function
- `sqrt` function: Numeric Functions
- square brackets (`[]`): Regexp Operators
- `srand` function: Numeric Functions
- Stallman, Richard: Glossary
- Stallman, Richard: Acknowledgments
- Stallman, Richard: Manual History
- Stallman, Richard: Contributors
- standard input: Read Terminal
- standard input: Special FD
- standard output: Special FD
- `stat` function, implementing in gawk: Sample Library
- statements, compound, control statements and: Statements
- statements, control, in actions: Statements
- statements, multiple: Statements/Lines
- `stlen` internal variable: Internals
- `stptr` internal variable: Internals
- stream editors: Simple Sed
- stream editors: Field Splitting Summary
- `strftime` function (gawk): Time Functions
- string constants: Scalar Constants
- string constants, vs. regexp constants: Computed Regexps
- string extraction (internationalization): String Extraction
- string operators: Concatenation
- string-matching operators: Regexp Usage
- strings: Internals
- strings, converting: Conversion
- strings, converting, numbers to: Bitwise Functions
- strings, converting, numbers to: User-modified
- strings, empty, See null strings: Records
- strings, extracting: String Extraction
- strings, for localization: Programmer i18n
- strings, length of: Scalar Constants
- strings, merging arrays into: Join Function
- strings, `NODE` internal type: Internals
- strings, null: Regexp Field Splitting
- strings, numeric: Typing and Comparison
- strings, splitting: String Functions
- `strtonum` function (gawk): String Functions
- `strtonum` function (gawk), `--non-decimal-data` option and: Nondecimal Data
- `sub` function: Using Constant Regexps
- `sub` function: String Functions
- `sub` function, arguments of: String Functions
- `sub` function, escape processing: Gory Details
- subscript separators: User-modified
- subscripts in arrays, multidimensional: Multi-dimensional
- subscripts in arrays, multidimensional, scanning: Multi-scanning
- subscripts in arrays, numbers as: Numeric Array Subscripts
- subscripts in arrays, uninitialized variables as: Uninitialized Subscripts
- `SUBSEP` variable: User-modified
- `SUBSEP` variable, multidimensional arrays: Multi-dimensional
- `substr` function: String Functions
- Sumner, Andrew: Other Versions
- `switch` statement: Switch Statement
- syntactic ambiguity: `/=` operator vs. `/=.../` regexp constant: Assignment Ops
- `system` function: I/O Functions
- `systime` function (gawk): Time Functions
- tandem: Tandem Installation
- Tcl: Library Names
- TCP/IP: TCP/IP Networking
- TCP/IP, support for: Special Network
- `tee` utility: Tee Program
- `tee.awk` program: Tee Program
- terminating records: Records
- `testbits.awk` program: Bitwise Functions
- Texinfo: Library Functions
- Texinfo: Dupword Program
- Texinfo: Distribution contents
- Texinfo: Adding Code
- Texinfo: Conventions
- Texinfo: Extract Program
- Texinfo, chapter beginnings in files: Regexp Operators
- Texinfo, extracting programs from source files: Extract Program
- text, printing: Print
- text, printing, unduplicated lines of: Uniq Program
- `textdomain` function (C library): Explaining gettext
- `TEXTDOMAIN` variable: Programmer i18n
- `TEXTDOMAIN` variable: User-modified
- `TEXTDOMAIN` variable, `BEGIN` pattern and: Programmer i18n
- `TEXTDOMAIN` variable, portability and: I18N Portability
- tilde (`~`), `~` operator: Typing and Comparison
- tilde (`~`), `~` operator: Expression Patterns
- tilde (`~`), `~` operator: Precedence
- tilde (`~`), `~` operator: Computed Regexps
- tilde (`~`), `~` operator: Regexp Usage
- tilde (`~`), `~` operator: Case-sensitivity
- tilde (`~`), `~` operator: Regexp Constants
- time, alarm clock example program: Alarm Program
- time, localization and: Explaining gettext
- time, managing: Gettimeofday Function
- time, retrieving: Time Functions
- timestamps: Time Functions
- timestamps, converting dates to: Time Functions
- timestamps, formatted: Gettimeofday Function
- `tmp_number` internal function: Internals
- `tmp_string` internal function: Internals
- `tolower` function: String Functions
- `toupper` function: String Functions
- tr utility: Translate Program
- `translate.awk` program: Translate Program
- troubleshooting, `--non-decimal-data` option: Options
- troubleshooting, `-F` option: Known Bugs
- troubleshooting, `==` operator: Typing and Comparison
- troubleshooting, awk uses `FS` not `IFS`: Field Separators
- troubleshooting, backslash before nonspecial character: Escape Sequences
- troubleshooting, division: Arithmetic Ops
- troubleshooting, fatal errors, field widths, specifying: Constant Size
- troubleshooting, fatal errors, `printf` format strings: Format Modifiers
- troubleshooting, `fflush` function: I/O Functions
- troubleshooting, function call syntax: Function Calls
- troubleshooting, gawk: Compatibility Mode
- troubleshooting, gawk: Known Bugs
- troubleshooting, gawk, bug reports: Bugs
- troubleshooting, gawk, fatal errors, function arguments: Calling Built-in
- troubleshooting, `getline` function: File Checking
- troubleshooting, `gsub`/`sub` functions: String Functions
- troubleshooting, `match` function: String Functions
- troubleshooting, `print` statement, omitting commas: Print Examples
- troubleshooting, printing: Redirection
- troubleshooting, quotes with file names: Special FD
- troubleshooting, readable data files: File Checking
- troubleshooting, regexp constants vs. string constants: Computed Regexps
- troubleshooting, string concatenation: Concatenation
- troubleshooting, `substr` function: String Functions
- troubleshooting, `system` function: I/O Functions
- troubleshooting, typographical errors, global variables: Options
- true, logical: Truth Values
- Trueman, David: History
- Trueman, David: Acknowledgments
- Trueman, David: Contributors
- trunc-mod operation: Arithmetic Ops
- truth values: Truth Values
- type conversion: Conversion
- `type` internal variable: Internals
- undefined functions: Function Caveats
- underscore (`_`), `_` C macro: Explaining gettext
- underscore (`_`), in names of private variables: Library Names
- underscore (`_`), translatable string: Programmer i18n
- undocumented features: Undocumented
- uninitialized variables, as array subscripts: Uninitialized Subscripts
- uniq utility: Uniq Program
- `uniq.awk` program: Uniq Program
- Unix: Glossary
- Unix awk, backslashes in escape sequences: Escape Sequences
- Unix awk, `close` function and: Close Files And Pipes
- Unix awk, password files, field separators and: Command Line Field Separator
- Unix, awk scripts and: Executable Scripts
- unsigned integers: Basic Data Typing
- `update_ERRNO` internal function: Internals
- user database, reading: Passwd Functions
- user-defined, functions: User-defined
- user-defined, functions, counts: Profiling
- user-defined, variables: Variables
- user-modifiable variables: User-modified
- users, information about, printing: Id Program
- users, information about, retrieving: Passwd Functions
- `USR1` signal: Profiling
- values, numeric: Basic Data Typing
- values, string: Basic Data Typing
- variable typing: Typing and Comparison
- variables: Basic Data Typing
- variables: Other Features
- variables, assigning on command line: Assignment Options
- variables, built-in: Built-in Variables
- variables, built-in: Using Variables
- variables, built-in, `-v` option, setting with: Options
- variables, built-in, conveying information: Auto-set
- variables, flag: Boolean Ops
- variables, `getline` command into, using: Getline/Variable
- variables, `getline` command into, using: Getline/Variable/File
- variables, `getline` command into, using: Getline/Variable/Pipe
- variables, `getline` command into, using: Getline/Variable/Coprocess
- variables, global, for library functions: Library Names
- variables, global, printing list of: Options
- variables, initializing: Using Variables
- variables, names of: Arrays
- variables, private: Library Names
- variables, setting: Options
- variables, shadowing: Definition Syntax
- variables, types of: Assignment Ops
- variables, types of, comparison expressions and: Typing and Comparison
- variables, uninitialized, as array subscripts: Uninitialized Subscripts
- variables, user-defined: Variables
- vertical bar (`|`): Regexp Operators
- vertical bar (`|`), `|` operator (I/O): Getline/Pipe
- vertical bar (`|`), `|` operator (I/O): Precedence
- vertical bar (`|`), `|&` I/O operator (I/O): Two-way I/O
- vertical bar (`|`), `|&` operator (I/O): Precedence
- vertical bar (`|`), `|&` operator (I/O): Getline/Coprocess
- vertical bar (`|`), `|&` operator (I/O), two-way communications: Portal Files
- vertical bar (`|`), `||` operator: Boolean Ops
- vertical bar (`|`), `||` operator: Precedence
- `vname` internal variable: Internals
- w utility: Constant Size
- Wall, Larry: Future Extensions
- warnings, issuing: Options
- wc utility: Wc Program
- `wc.awk` program: Wc Program
- Weinberger, Peter: Contributors
- Weinberger, Peter: History
- `while` statement: Regexp Usage
- `while` statement: While Statement
- whitespace, as field separators: Field Separators
- whitespace, functions, calling: Calling Built-in
- whitespace, newlines as: Options
- Williams, Kent: Contributors
- Woods, John: Contributors
- word boundaries, matching: GNU Regexp Operators
- word, regexp definition of: GNU Regexp Operators
- word-boundary operator (gawk): GNU Regexp Operators
- `wordfreq.awk` program: Word Sorting
- words, counting: Wc Program
- words, duplicate, searching for: Dupword Program
- words, usage counts, generating: Word Sorting
- `xgettext` utility: String Extraction
- XOR bitwise operation: Bitwise Functions
- `xor` function (gawk): Bitwise Functions
- Zaretskii, Eli: Acknowledgments
- zero, negative vs. positive: Floating Point Issues
- `zerofile.awk` program: Empty Files
- Zoulas, Christos: Contributors
- `{}` (braces), actions and: Action Overview
- `{}` (braces), pgawk program: Profiling
- `{}` (braces), statements, grouping: Statements
- `|` (vertical bar): Regexp Operators
- `|` (vertical bar), `|` operator (I/O): Redirection
- `|` (vertical bar), `|` operator (I/O): Precedence
- `|` (vertical bar), `|` operator (I/O): Getline/Pipe
- `|` (vertical bar), `|&` operator (I/O): Precedence
- `|` (vertical bar), `|&` operator (I/O): Two-way I/O
- `|` (vertical bar), `|&` operator (I/O): Redirection
- `|` (vertical bar), `|&` operator (I/O): Getline/Coprocess
- `|` (vertical bar), `|&` operator (I/O), pipes, closing: Close Files And Pipes
- `|` (vertical bar), `|&` operator (I/O), two-way communications: Portal Files
- `|` (vertical bar), `||` operator: Boolean Ops
- `|` (vertical bar), `||` operator: Precedence
- `~` (tilde), `~` operator: Regexp Constants
- `~` (tilde), `~` operator: Typing and Comparison
- `~` (tilde), `~` operator: Computed Regexps
- `~` (tilde), `~` operator: Case-sensitivity
- `~` (tilde), `~` operator: Expression Patterns
- `~` (tilde), `~` operator: Precedence

#### Footnotes

[1] These commands are available on POSIX-compliant systems, as well as on traditional Unix-based systems. If you are using some other operating system, you still need to be familiar with the ideas of I/O redirection and pipes.

[2] Often, these systems use gawk for their awk implementation!

[3] All such differences appear in the index under the entry “differences in awk and gawk.”

[4] GNU stands for “GNU's not Unix.”

[5] The terminology “GNU/Linux” is explained in the Glossary.

[6] Although we generally recommend the use of single quotes around the program text, double quotes are needed here in order to put the single quote into the message.

[7] The #! mechanism works on Linux systems, systems derived from the 4.4-Lite Berkeley Software Distribution, and most commercial Unix systems.

[8] The line beginning with #! lists the full file name of an interpreter to run and an optional initial command-line argument to pass to that interpreter. The operating system then runs the interpreter with the given argument and the full argument list of the executed program. The first argument in the list is the full file name of the awk program. The rest of the argument list contains either options to awk, or data files, or both.

[9] In the C shell (csh), you need to type a semicolon and then a backslash at the end of the first line; see Statements/Lines, for an explanation. In a POSIX-compliant shell, such as the Bourne shell or bash, you can type the example as shown. If the command echo $path produces an empty output line, you are most likely using a POSIX-compliant shell. Otherwise, you are probably using the C shell or a shell derived from it.

[10] On some very old systems, you may need to use ls -lg to get this output.

[11] The ? and : referred to here is the three-operand conditional expression described in Conditional Exp. Splitting lines after ? and : is a minor gawk extension; if --posix is specified (see Options), then this extension is disabled.

[12] Yet Another Wiki Clone.

[13] In other literature, you may see a character list referred to as either a character set, a character class, or a bracket expression.

[14] Use two backslashes if you're using a string constant with a regexp operator or function.

[15] Experienced C and C++ programmers will note that it is possible, using something like IGNORECASE = 1 && /foObAr/ { ... } and IGNORECASE = 0 || /foobar/ { ... }. However, this is somewhat obscure and we don't recommend it.

[16] At least that we know about.

[17] In POSIX awk, newlines are not considered whitespace for separating fields.

[18] The sed utility is a “stream editor.” Its behavior is also defined by the POSIX standard.

[19] When `FS` is the null string (`""`) or a regexp, this special feature of `RS` does not apply. It does apply to the default field separator of a single space: FS = " ".

[20] Older versions of gawk would interpret these names internally only if the system did not actually have a /dev/fd directory or any of the other special files listed earlier. Usually this didn't make a difference, but sometimes it did; thus, it was decided to make gawk's behavior consistent on all systems and to have it always interpret the special file names itself.

[21] The technical terminology is rather morbid. The finished child is called a “zombie,” and cleaning up after it is referred to as “reaping.”

[22] This is a full 16-bit value as returned by the `wait` system call. See the system manual pages for information on how to decode this value.

[23] The internal representation of all numbers, including integers, uses double-precision floating-point numbers. On most modern systems, these are in IEEE 754 standard format.

[24] Pathological cases can require up to 752 digits (!), but we doubt that you need to worry about this.

[25] The POSIX standard is under revision. The revised standard's rules for typing and comparison are the same as just described for gawk.

[26] The original version of awk used to keep reading and ignoring input until the end of the file was seen.

[27] In POSIX awk, newline does not count as whitespace.

[28] Some early implementations of Unix awk initialized `FILENAME` to `"-"`, even if there were data files to be processed. This behavior was incorrect and should not be relied upon in your programs.

[29] Thanks to Michael Brennan for pointing this out.

[30] The C version of `rand` is known to produce fairly poor sequences of random numbers. However, nothing requires that an awk implementation use the C `rand` to implement the awk version of `rand`. In fact, gawk uses the BSD `random` function, which is considerably better than `rand`, to produce random numbers.

[31] Computer-generated random numbers really are not truly random. They are technically known as “pseudorandom.” This means that while the numbers in a sequence appear to be random, you can in fact generate the same sequence of random numbers over and over again.

[32] Unless you use the --non-decimal-data option, which isn't recommended. See Nondecimal Data, for more information.

[33] Note that this means that the record will first be regenerated using the value of `OFS` if any fields have been changed, and that the fields will be updated after the substituion, even if the operation is a “no-op” such as sub(/^/, "").

[34] This is different from C and C++, in which the first character is number zero.

[35] This consequence was certainly unintended.

[36] A program is interactive if the standard output is connected to a terminal device.

[37] See Glossary, especially the entries “Epoch” and “UTC.”

[38] The GNU date utility can also do many of the things described here. Its use may be preferable for simple time-related operations in shell scripts.

[39] Occasionally there are minutes in a year with a leap second, which is why the seconds can go up to 60.

[40] As this is a recent standard, not every system's `strftime` necessarily supports all of the conversions listed here.

[41] If you don't understand any of this, don't worry about it; these facilities are meant to make it easier to “internationalize” programs. Other internationalization features are described in Internationalization.

[42] This is because ISO C leaves the behavior of the C version of `strftime` undefined and gawk uses the system's version of `strftime` if it's there. Typically, the conversion specifier either does not appear in the returned string or appears literally.

[43] This example shows that 0's come in on the left side. For gawk, this is always true, but in some languages, it's possible to have the left side fill with 1's. Caveat emptor.

[44] For some operating systems, the gawk port doesn't support GNU `gettext`. This applies most notably to the PC operating systems. As such, these features are not available if you are using one of those operating systems. Sorry.

[45] Americans use a comma every three decimal places and a period for the decimal point, while many Europeans do exactly the opposite: `1,234.56` versus `1.234,56`.

[46] Starting with `gettext` version 0.11.5, the xgettext utility that comes with GNU `gettext` can handle .awk files.

[47] This example is borrowed from the GNU `gettext` manual.

[48] This is good fodder for an “Obfuscated awk” contest.

[49] Perhaps it would be better if it were called “Hippy.” Ah, well.

[50] This is very different from the same operator in the C shell, csh.

[51] Not recommended.

[52] Your version of gawk may use a different directory; it will depend upon how gawk was built and installed. The actual directory is the value of $(datadir) generated when gawk was configured. You probably don't need to worry about this, though.

[53] The effects are not identical. Output of the transformed record will be in all lowercase, while `IGNORECASE` preserves the original contents of the input record.

[54] While all the library routines could have been rewritten to use this convention, this was not done, in order to show how my own awk programming style has evolved and to provide some basis for this discussion.

[55] gawk's --dump-variables command-line option is useful for verifying this.

[56] http://mathworld.wolfram.com/CliffRandomNumberGenerator.hmtl

[57] ASCII has been extended in many countries to use the values from 128 to 255 for country-specific characters. If your system uses these extensions, you can simplify `_ord_init` to simply loop from 0 to 255.

[58] It would be nice if awk had an assignment operator for concatenation. The lack of an explicit operator for concatenation makes string operations more difficult than they really need to be.

[59] This function was written before gawk acquired the ability to split strings into single characters using `""` as the separator. We have left it alone, since using `substr` is more portable.

[60] It is often the case that password information is stored in a network database.

[61] It also introduces a subtle bug; if a match happens, we output the translated line, not the original.

[62] wc can't just use the value of `FNR` in `endfile`. If you examine the code in Filetrans Function, you will see that `FNR` has already been reset by the time `endfile` is called.

[63] On some older System V systems, tr may require that the lists be written as range expressions enclosed in square brackets ([a-z]) and quoted, to prevent the shell from attempting a file name expansion. This is not a feature.

[64] This program was written before gawk acquired the ability to split each character in a string into separate array elements.

[65] “Real world” is defined as “a program actually used to get something done.”

[66] Fully explaining the sh language is beyond the scope of this book. We provide some minimal explanations, but see a good shell programming book if you wish to understand things in more depth.

[67] On some very old versions of awk, the test getline junk < t can loop forever if the file exists but is empty. Caveat emptor.

[68] http://www.cygwin.com

[69] http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/bwk

[70] This version is edited slightly for presentation. The complete version can be found in extension/filefuncs.c in the gawk distribution.

[71] Compiled programs are typically written in lower-level languages such as C, C++, Fortran, or Ada, and then translated, or compiled, into a form that the computer can execute directly.

[72] http://www.validlab.com/goldberg/paper.ps.

[73] Pathological cases can require up to 752 digits (!), but we doubt that you need to worry about this.