GAWK: E Ective AWK Programming

GAWK: Effective AWK Programming
A User’s Guide for GNU Awk

Edition 3
June, 2004
Arnold D. Robbins
“To boldly go where no man has gone before” is a Registered Trademark of Paramount
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ISBN 1-882114-28-0
Copyright c 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”.
a. “A GNU Manual”
b. “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.”
Cover art by Etienne Suvasa.

To Miriam, for making me complete.
To Chana, for the joy you bring us.
To Rivka, for the exponential increase.
To Nachum, for the added dimension.
To Malka, for the new beginning.

i
Short Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1 Getting Started with awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2 Regular Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3 Reading Input Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4 Printing Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
5 Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
6 Patterns, Actions, and Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
7 Arrays in awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
8 Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
9 Internationalization with gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
10 Advanced Features of gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
11 Running awk and gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
12 A Library of awk Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
13 Practical awk Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
A The Evolution of the awk Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
B Installing gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
C Implementation Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
D Basic Programming Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
GNU General Public License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
GNU Free Documentation License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
ii GAWK: Effective AWK Programming
Table of Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
History of awk and gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
A Rose by Any Other Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Using This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Typographical Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
The GNU Project and This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
How to Contribute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1 Getting Started with awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

1.1 How to Run awk Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.1.1 One-Shot Throwaway awk Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.1.2 Running awk Without Input Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.1.3 Running Long Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.1.4 Executable awk Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.1.5 Comments in awk Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.1.6 Shell-Quoting Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.2 Data Files for the Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.3 Some Simple Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.4 An Example with Two Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.5 A More Complex Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.6 awk Statements Versus Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.7 Other Features of awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.8 When to Use awk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2 Regular Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.1 How to Use Regular Expressions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.2 Escape Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.3 Regular Expression Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.4 Using Character Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.5 gawk-Specific Regexp Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.6 Case Sensitivity in Matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.7 How Much Text Matches? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.8 Using Dynamic Regexps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.9 Where You Are Makes A Difference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
iii
3 Reading Input Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

3.1 How Input Is Split into Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.2 Examining Fields. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.3 Nonconstant Field Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.4 Changing the Contents of a Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.5 Specifying How Fields Are Separated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.5.1 Using Regular Expressions to Separate Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.5.2 Making Each Character a Separate Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.5.3 Setting FS from the Command Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.5.4 Field-Splitting Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.6 Reading Fixed-Width Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.7 Multiple-Line Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.8 Explicit Input with getline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.8.1 Using getline with No Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.8.2 Using getline into a Variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.8.3 Using getline from a File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.8.4 Using getline into a Variable from a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.8.5 Using getline from a Pipe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.8.6 Using getline into a Variable from a Pipe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.8.7 Using getline from a Coprocess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.8.8 Using getline into a Variable from a Coprocess . . . . . . . . . 55
3.8.9 Points to Remember About getline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.8.10 Summary of getline Variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4 Printing Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.1 The print Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.2 Examples of print Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.3 Output Separators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.4 Controlling Numeric Output with print . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.5 Using printf Statements for Fancier Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.5.1 Introduction to the printf Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.5.2 Format-Control Letters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.5.3 Modifiers for printf Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.5.4 Examples Using printf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.6 Redirecting Output of print and printf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.7 Special File Names in gawk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.7.1 Special Files for Standard Descriptors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.7.2 Special Files for Process-Related Information . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.7.3 Special Files for Network Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.7.4 Special File Name Caveats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
4.8 Closing Input and Output Redirections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
iv GAWK: Effective AWK Programming
5 Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.1 Constant Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.1.1 Numeric and String Constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.1.2 Octal and Hexadecimal Numbers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.1.3 Regular Expression Constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.2 Using Regular Expression Constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.3 Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.3.1 Using Variables in a Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.3.2 Assigning Variables on the Command Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.4 Conversion of Strings and Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
5.5 Arithmetic Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5.6 String Concatenation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
5.7 Assignment Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.8 Increment and Decrement Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.9 True and False in awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
5.10 Variable Typing and Comparison Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
5.11 Boolean Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
5.12 Conditional Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
5.13 Function Calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
5.14 Operator Precedence (How Operators Nest) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
6 Patterns, Actions, and Variables . . . . . . . . . . . 93

6.1 Pattern Elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.1.1 Regular Expressions as Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.1.2 Expressions as Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.1.3 Specifying Record Ranges with Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
6.1.4 The BEGIN and END Special Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
6.1.4.1 Startup and Cleanup Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
6.1.4.2 Input/Output from BEGIN and END Rules . . . . . . . . . . . 97
6.1.5 The Empty Pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
6.2 Using Shell Variables in Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
6.3 Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
6.4 Control Statements in Actions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
6.4.1 The if-else Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
6.4.2 The while Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
6.4.3 The do-while Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
6.4.4 The for Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
6.4.5 The switch Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
6.4.6 The break Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
6.4.7 The continue Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
6.4.8 The next Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
6.4.9 Using gawk’s nextfile Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
6.4.10 The exit Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
6.5 Built-in Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
6.5.1 Built-in Variables That Control awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
6.5.2 Built-in Variables That Convey Information . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
6.5.3 Using ARGC and ARGV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
v
7 Arrays in awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

7.1 Introduction to Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
7.2 Referring to an Array Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
7.3 Assigning Array Elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
7.4 Basic Array Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
7.5 Scanning All Elements of an Array . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
7.6 The delete Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
7.7 Using Numbers to Subscript Arrays. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
7.8 Using Uninitialized Variables as Subscripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
7.9 Multidimensional Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
7.10 Scanning Multidimensional Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
7.11 Sorting Array Values and Indices with gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
8 Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
8.1 Built-in Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
8.1.1 Calling Built-in Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
8.1.2 Numeric Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
8.1.3 String-Manipulation Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
8.1.3.1 More About ‘\’ and ‘&’ with sub, gsub, and gensub
.................................................... 136
8.1.4 Input/Output Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
8.1.5 Using gawk’s Timestamp Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
8.1.6 Bit-Manipulation Functions of gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
8.1.7 Using gawk’s String-Translation Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
8.2 User-Defined Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
8.2.1 Function Definition Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
8.2.2 Function Definition Examples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
8.2.3 Calling User-Defined Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
8.2.4 The return Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
8.2.5 Functions and Their Effects on Variable Typing . . . . . . . . . 155
9 Internationalization with gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

9.1 Internationalization and Localization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
9.2 GNU gettext . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
9.3 Internationalizing awk Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
9.4 Translating awk Programs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
9.4.1 Extracting Marked Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
9.4.2 Rearranging printf Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
9.4.3 awk Portability Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
9.5 A Simple Internationalization Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
9.6 gawk Can Speak Your Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
vi GAWK: Effective AWK Programming
10 Advanced Features of gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

10.1 Allowing Nondecimal Input Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
10.2 Two-Way Communications with Another Process . . . . . . . . . . . 166
10.3 Using gawk for Network Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
10.4 Using gawk with BSD Portals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
10.5 Profiling Your awk Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
11 Running awk and gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

11.1 Invoking awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
11.2 Command-Line Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
11.3 Other Command-Line Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
11.4 The AWKPATH Environment Variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
11.5 Obsolete Options and/or Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
11.6 Undocumented Options and Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
11.7 Known Bugs in gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
12 A Library of awk Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

12.1 Naming Library Function Global Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
12.2 General Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
12.2.1 Implementing nextfile as a Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
12.2.2 Converting Strings To Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
12.2.3 Assertions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
12.2.4 Rounding Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
12.2.5 The Cliff Random Number Generator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
12.2.6 Translating Between Characters and Numbers . . . . . . . . . 188
12.2.7 Merging an Array into a String . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
12.2.8 Managing the Time of Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
12.3 Data File Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
12.3.1 Noting Data File Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
12.3.2 Rereading the Current File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
12.3.3 Checking for Readable Data Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
12.3.4 Checking For Zero-length Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
12.3.5 Treating Assignments as File Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
12.4 Processing Command-Line Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
12.5 Reading the User Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
12.6 Reading the Group Database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
13 Practical awk Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

13.1 Running the Example Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
13.2 Reinventing Wheels for Fun and Profit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
13.2.1 Cutting out Fields and Columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
13.2.2 Searching for Regular Expressions in Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
13.2.3 Printing out User Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
13.2.4 Splitting a Large File into Pieces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
13.2.5 Duplicating Output into Multiple Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
13.2.6 Printing Nonduplicated Lines of Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
13.2.7 Counting Things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
vii
13.3 A Grab Bag of awk Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

13.3.1 Finding Duplicated Words in a Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
13.3.2 An Alarm Clock Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
13.3.3 Transliterating Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
13.3.4 Printing Mailing Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
13.3.5 Generating Word-Usage Counts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
13.3.6 Removing Duplicates from Unsorted Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
13.3.7 Extracting Programs from Texinfo Source Files . . . . . . . . 240
13.3.8 A Simple Stream Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
13.3.9 An Easy Way to Use Library Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Appendix A The Evolution of the awk Language

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
A.1 Major Changes Between V7 and SVR3.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
A.2 Changes Between SVR3.1 and SVR4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
A.3 Changes Between SVR4 and POSIX awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
A.4 Extensions in the Bell Laboratories awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
A.5 Extensions in gawk Not in POSIX awk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
A.6 Major Contributors to gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Appendix B Installing gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

B.1 The gawk Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
B.1.1 Getting the gawk Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
B.1.2 Extracting the Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
B.1.3 Contents of the gawk Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
B.2 Compiling and Installing gawk on Unix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
B.2.1 Compiling gawk for Unix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
B.2.2 Additional Configuration Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
B.2.3 The Configuration Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
B.3 Installation on Other Operating Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
B.3.1 Installing gawk on an Amiga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
B.3.2 Installing gawk on BeOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
B.3.3 Installation on PC Operating Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
B.3.3.1 Installing a Prepared Distribution for PC Systems . . 267
B.3.3.2 Compiling gawk for PC Operating Systems . . . . . . . . 267
B.3.3.3 Compiling gawk For Dynamic Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
B.3.3.4 Using gawk on PC Operating Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
B.3.3.5 Using gawk In The Cygwin Environment . . . . . . . . . . 271
B.3.4 How to Compile and Install gawk on VMS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
B.3.4.1 Compiling gawk on VMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
B.3.4.2 Installing gawk on VMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
B.3.4.3 Running gawk on VMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
B.3.4.4 Building and Using gawk on VMS POSIX . . . . . . . . . 273
B.4 Unsupported Operating System Ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
B.4.1 Installing gawk on the Atari ST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
B.4.1.1 Compiling gawk on the Atari ST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
B.4.1.2 Running gawk on the Atari ST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
viii GAWK: Effective AWK Programming
B.4.2 Installing gawk on a Tandem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

B.5 Reporting Problems and Bugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
B.6 Other Freely Available awk Implementations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Appendix C Implementation Notes . . . . . . . . 279

C.1 Downward Compatibility and Debugging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
C.2 Making Additions to gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
C.2.1 Adding New Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
C.2.2 Porting gawk to a New Operating System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
C.3 Adding New Built-in Functions to gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
C.3.1 A Minimal Introduction to gawk Internals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
C.3.2 Directory and File Operation Built-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
C.3.2.1 Using chdir and stat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
C.3.2.2 C Code for chdir and stat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
C.3.2.3 Integrating the Extensions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
C.4 Probable Future Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Appendix D Basic Programming Concepts . . 294

D.1 What a Program Does . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
D.2 Data Values in a Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
D.3 Floating-Point Number Caveats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
GNU General Public License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Preamble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Terms and Conditions for Copying, Distribution and Modification . . 310
How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
GNU Free Documentation License . . . . . . . . . . . 315

ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents . . . . . . . . 320
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
1
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 program-
ming 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 pro-
grams 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
2 GAWK: Effective AWK Programming
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 exper-
imented with an algorithm that for n lines of input, exhibited ∼ Cn2 performance, while
theory predicted ∼ Cn log n behavior. A few minutes poring over the ‘awkprof.out’ pro-
file 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
3
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 book 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 en-
vironments. This book, 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.
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.
1
These commands are available on POSIX-compliant systems, as well as on traditional Unix-based sys-
tems. If you are using some other operating system, you still need to be familiar with the ideas of I/O
redirection and pipes.
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. Wein-
berger 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 expres-
sions. 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 Lan-
guage 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 Section A.6 [Major Contributors to gawk], page 258, for a complete list of those who
made important contributions to gawk.
A Rose by Any Other Name

The awk language has evolved over the years. Full details are provided in Appendix A [The
Evolution of the awk Language], page 252. The language described in this book 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 book, chances are good that you have gawk!)
Throughout this book, 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.
2
Often, these systems use gawk for their awk implementation!
5
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 book 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 book 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 book 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 book. 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 book 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 Chapter 12 [A Library of awk
Functions], page 181, and in Chapter 13 [Practical awk Programs], page 210, should be of
interest.
Chapter 1 [Getting Started with awk], page 11, provides the essentials you need to know
to begin using awk.
Chapter 2 [Regular Expressions], page 24, introduces regular expressions in general, and
in particular the flavors supported by POSIX awk and gawk.
Chapter 3 [Reading Input Files], page 36, describes how awk reads your data. It intro-
duces the concepts of records and fields, as well as the getline command. I/O redirection
is first described here.
Chapter 4 [Printing Output], page 57, describes how awk programs can produce output
with print and printf.
Chapter 5 [Expressions], page 73, describes expressions, which are the basic building
blocks for getting most things done in a program.
Chapter 6 [Patterns, Actions, and Variables], page 93, 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.
Chapter 7 [Arrays in awk], page 116, covers awk’s one-and-only data structure: associa-
tive arrays. Deleting array elements and whole arrays is also described, as well as sorting
arrays in gawk.
3
All such differences appear in the index under the entry “differences in awk and gawk.”
Chapter 8 [Functions], page 127, describes the built-in functions awk and gawk provide,
as well as how to define your own functions.
Chapter 9 [Internationalization with gawk], page 156, describes special features in gawk
for translating program messages into different languages at runtime.
Chapter 10 [Advanced Features of gawk], page 165, 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.
Chapter 11 [Running awk and gawk], page 173, describes how to run gawk, the meaning
of its command-line options, and how it finds awk program source files.
Chapter 12 [A Library of awk Functions], page 181, and Chapter 13 [Practical awk
Programs], page 210, provide many sample awk programs. Reading them allows you to see
awk solving real problems.
Appendix A [The Evolution of the awk Language], page 252, describes how the awk
language has evolved since first release to present. It also describes how gawk has acquired
features over time.
Appendix B [Installing gawk], page 260, 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.
Appendix C [Implementation Notes], page 279, describes how to disable gawk’s exten-
sions, as well as how to contribute new code to gawk, how to write extension libraries, and
some possible future directions for gawk development.
Appendix D [Basic Programming Concepts], page 294, provides some very cursory back-
ground 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], page 299, 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.
[GNU General Public License], page 309, and [GNU Free Documentation License],
page 315, present the licenses that cover the gawk source code and this book, respectively.
Typographical Conventions
This book 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 documen-
tation. 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 pri-
mary and secondary prompts, ‘$’ and ‘>’. Output from the command is preceded by the
glyph “ a ”. 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
a hi on stdout
$ echo hello on stderr 1>&2
error hello on stderr
7
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 book with the picture of a flashlight in the margin, as
shown here. 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.
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 book for
your reference (see [GNU General Public License], page 309). 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 book may also be read from their web site.
A shell, an editor (Emacs), highly portable optimizing C, C++, and Objective-C com-
pilers, 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
4
GNU stands for “GNU’s not Unix.”
5
The terminology “GNU/Linux” is explained in the [Glossary], page 299.
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 book you are reading is actually free—at least, the information in it is free to
anyone. The machine-readable source code for the book comes with gawk; anyone may take
this book 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], page 315.)
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 book 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
Section 7.11 [Sorting Array Values and Indices with gawk], page 124, as well as Section 8.1.6
[Bit-Manipulation Functions of gawk], page 147, Chapter 9 [Internationalization with gawk],
page 156, and also Chapter 10 [Advanced Features of gawk], page 165, and Section C.3
[Adding New Built-in Functions to gawk], page 282.
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 book,
please report it! See Section B.5 [Reporting Problems and Bugs], page 276, for information
on submitting problem reports electronically, or write to me in care of the publisher.
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.
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
9
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 ver-
sions 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 book 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 book 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 book 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
Chapter 1: Getting Started with awk 11
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 Section 8.2 [User-Defined Functions], page 149.) 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 }
...
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.
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.
Section 1.3 [Some Simple Examples], page 17, later in this chapter, presents several
short, self-contained programs.
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!\" }"
a 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.1
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
a Now is the time for all good men
to come to the aid of their country.
a to come to the aid of their country.
Four score and seven years ago, ...
a Four score and seven years ago, ...
What, me worry?
a What, me worry?
Ctrl-d
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:
1
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.
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 Section 1.1.2 [Running awk Without Input Files], page 12).
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.
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 systems2 as well as on the GNU system.
For example, you could update the file ‘advice’ to look like this:
#! /bin/awk -f

After making this file executable (with the chmod utility), simply type ‘advice’ at the shell
and the system arranges to run awk3 as if you had typed ‘awk -f advice’:
$ chmod +x advice
$ advice
a 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
2
The ‘#!’ mechanism works on Linux systems, systems derived from the 4.4-Lite Berkeley Software Dis-
tribution, and most commercial Unix systems.
3
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.
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 Section 6.5 [Built-in Variables], page 107) varies de-
pending 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.
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.
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 under-
stand the program when reading it at a later time.
Caution: As mentioned in Section 1.1.1 [One-Shot Throwaway awk Programs], page 11,
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.
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 Section 1.1.5
[Comments in awk Programs], page 14, 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 Section 1.1.2 [Running awk Without Input Files], page 12,
is applicable:
$ awk "BEGIN { print \"Don’t Panic!\" }"
a 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 <’"’"’>" }’
a 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 <’\’’>" }’

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 <’>\" }"
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>" }’
$ awk ’BEGIN { print "Here is a double quote <\42>" }’
a 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 ">" }’
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.
1.2 Data Files for the Examples

Many of the examples in this book 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 informa-
tion 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
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 Chapter 2 [Regular Expressions],
page 24). 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
a fooey 555-1234 2400/1200/300 B
a foot 555-6699 1200/300 B
a macfoo 555-6480 1200/300 A
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 book 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.
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 Section 6.4.8 [The next Statement], page 105, and also
see Section 6.4.9 [Using gawk’s nextfile Statement], page 106). 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
a aardvark 555-5553 1200/300 B
a alpo-net 555-3412 2400/1200/300 A
a barfly 555-7685 1200/300 A
a bites 555-1675 2400/1200/300 A
a core 555-2912 1200/300 C
a fooey 555-1234 2400/1200/300 B
a foot 555-6699 1200/300 B
a macfoo 555-6480 1200/300 A
a sdace 555-3430 2400/1200/300 A
a sabafoo 555-2127 1200/300 C
a sabafoo 555-2127 1200/300 C
a Jan 21 36 64 620
a Apr 21 70 74 514
Note how the line beginning with ‘sabafoo’ in ‘BBS-list’ was printed twice, once for each
rule.
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).4 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 27511 Dec 9 13:07 awk3.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.5
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 Section 6.3 [Ac-
tions], page 98). 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.
1.6 awk Statements Versus Lines

Most often, each line in an awk program is a separate statement or separate rule, like this:
4
In the C shell (csh), you need to type a semicolon and then a backslash at the end of the first line; see
Section 1.6 [awk Statements Versus Lines], page 20, 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.
5
On some very old systems, you may need to use ‘ls -lg’ to get this output.
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.6
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 $1 }’
We have generally not used backslash continuation in the sample programs in this book.
In gawk, there is no limit on the length of a line, so backslash continuation is never strictly
necessary; it just makes programs more readable. For this same reason, as well as for
clarity, we have kept most statements short in the sample programs presented throughout
the book. Backslash continuation is most useful when your awk program is in a separate
source file instead of entered from the command line. You should also note that many awk
implementations are more particular about where you may use backslash continuation. For
example, they may not allow you to split a string constant using backslash continuation.
Thus, for maximum portability of your awk programs, it is best not to split your lines in
the middle of a regular expression or a string.
Caution: Backslash continuation does not work as described with the C shell. It works for
awk programs in files and for one-shot programs, provided you are using a POSIX-compliant
shell, such as the Unix Bourne shell or bash. But the C shell behaves differently! There,
you must use two backslashes in a row, followed by a newline. Note also that when using
the C shell, every newline in your awk program must be escaped with a backslash. To
illustrate:
% awk ’BEGIN { \
? print \\
? "hello, world" \
? }’
a hello, world
Here, the ‘%’ and ‘?’ are the C shell’s primary and secondary prompts, analogous to the
standard shell’s ‘$’ and ‘>’.
Compare the previous example to how it is done with a POSIX-compliant shell:
$ awk ’BEGIN {
> print \
> "hello, world"
> }’
a hello, world
6
The ‘?’ and ‘:’ referred to here is the three-operand conditional expression described in Section 5.12
[Conditional Expressions], page 89. Splitting lines after ‘?’ and ‘:’ is a minor gawk extension; if ‘--posix’
is specified (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173), then this extension is disabled.
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 sepa-
rated with a semicolon was not in the original awk language; it was added for
consistency with the treatment of statements within an action.
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 vari-
ables and many of the functions. They are defined systematically in Section 6.5 [Built-in
Variables], page 107, and Section 8.1 [Built-in Functions], page 127.
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 Section 1.5
[A More Complex Example], page 20.)
Programs written with awk are usually much smaller than they would be in other lan-
guages. 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 pro-
grams 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 assem-
bler for eight-bit microprocessors (see [Glossary], page 299, for more information), and a
microcode assembler for a special-purpose Prolog computer. More recently, gawk was used
for writing a Wiki clone.7 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 conven-
tional 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.
7
Yet Another Wiki Clone.
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.
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
a 555-1234
a 555-6699
a 555-6480
a 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 Section 6.4 [Control Statements in Actions], page 99.) 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
a Jan 13 25 15 115
a Jun 31 42 75 492
a Jul 24 34 67 436
a 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:
Chapter 2: Regular Expressions 25
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
a Feb 15 32 24 226
a Mar 15 24 34 228
a Apr 31 52 63 420
a 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.
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." }’
a 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’.
\xhh ... 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 Section 2.5 [gawk-Specific Regexp Operators], page 31.
In a regexp, a backslash before any character that is not in the previous list and not listed
in Section 2.5 [gawk-Specific Regexp Operators], page 31, 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 Section 2.8 [Using
Dynamic Regexps], page 34), for the special operators listed in Section 2.5 [gawk-
Specific Regexp Operators], page 31.
• 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
Section 2.3 [Regular Expression Operators], page 27.) Does awk treat the character as a
literal character or as a regexp operator?
Historically, such characters were taken literally. However, the POSIX standard in-
dicates that they should be treated as real metacharacters, which is what gawk does. In
compatibility mode (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173), 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/.
2.3 Regular Expression Operators

You can combine regular expressions with special characters, called regular expression op-
erators or metacharacters, to increase the power and versatility of regular expressions.
The escape sequences described earlier in Section 2.2 [Escape Sequences], page 25, 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 em-
bedded 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 ex-
ample, ‘.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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173),
‘.’ 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.1 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 Section 2.4 [Using Character
Lists], page 29.
[^ ...] 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 oper-
ator, ‘|’. 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 ‘h’s. This also matches just ‘p’ if no ‘h’s 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$/ { print }’ sample’ prints
every record in ‘sample’ containing a string of the form ‘(car x)’, ‘(cdr x)’,
‘(cadr x)’, and so on. Notice the escaping of the parentheses by preceding
them with backslashes.
+ This symbol is similar to ‘*’, except that the preceding expression must be
matched at least once. This means that ‘wh+y’ would match ‘why’ and ‘whhy’,
but not ‘wy’, whereas ‘wh*y’ would match all three of these strings. The follow-
ing is a simpler way of writing the last ‘*’ example:
awk ’/$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
1
In other literature, you may see a character list referred to as either a character set, a character class,
or a bracket expression.
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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options],
page 173), 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.2
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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173),
POSIX character classes and interval expressions are not available in regular expressions.
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
2
Use two backslashes if you’re using a string constant with a regexp operator or function.
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. Char-
acter classes consist of ‘[:’, a keyword denoting the class, and ‘:]’. Table 2.1 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 char-
acters, 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 en-
closed between ‘[=’ and ‘=]’. For example, the name ‘e’ might be used to rep-
resent 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 equiva-
lence classes.
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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173)
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. 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 spe-
cial, 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.)
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 func-
tions (which we haven’t discussed yet; see Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions],
page 129). 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 Section 6.5 [Built-in Variables], page 107). 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.3 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 Section 11.3 [Other
Command-Line Arguments], page 178; also see Section 6.1.4.1 [Startup and Cleanup Ac-
tions], page 96). 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 Section 11.2
[Command-Line Options], page 173). Case is always significant in compatibility mode.
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 Section 8.1.3
[String-Manipulation Functions], page 129) 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 <A>bcd
For simple match/no-match tests, this is not so important. But when doing text match-
ing 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 Section 3.1 [How Input Is Split into Records], page 36, and also see Section 3.5 [Speci-
fying How Fields Are Separated], page 43).
3
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.
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
a 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.
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 Sec-
tion 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions], page 129). Here, the intent is to remove trailing
uppercase characters:
$ echo something1234abc | gawk ’{ sub("[A-Z]*$", ""); print }’
a something1234
This output is unexpected, since the ‘abc’ at the end of ‘something1234abc’ should not
normally match ‘[A-Z]*’. This result is due to the locale setting (and thus you may not
see it on your system). There are two fixes. The first is to use the POSIX character
class ‘[[:upper:]]’, instead of ‘[A-Z]’. The second is to change the locale setting in the
environment, before running gawk, by using the shell statements:
LANG=C LC_ALL=C
export LANG LC_ALL
The setting ‘C’ forces gawk to behave in the traditional Unix manner, where case dis-
tinctions do matter. You may wish to put these statements into your shell startup file, e.g.,
‘$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.
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 Section 6.5 [Built-in
Variables], page 107).
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 Section 3.8
[Explicit Input with getline], page 51).
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 Section 5.7 [Assignment Expressions], page 81). 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 Section 6.1.4 [The BEGIN and END Special Patterns], page 96).
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
a aardvark 555-5553 1200
Chapter 3: Reading Input Files 37
a 300 B
a alpo-net 555-3412 2400
a 1200
a 300 A
a barfly 555-7685 1200
a 300 A
a bites 555-1675 2400
a 1200
a 300 A
a camelot 555-0542 300 C
a core 555-2912 1200
a 300 C
a fooey 555-1234 2400
a 1200
a 300 B
a foot 555-6699 1200
a 300 B
a macfoo 555-6480 1200
a 300 A
a sdace 555-3430 2400
a 1200
a 300 A
a sabafoo 555-2127 1200
a 300 C
a
Note that the entry for the ‘camelot’ BBS is not split. In the original data file (see Sec-
tion 1.2 [Data Files for the Examples], page 16), 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 Section 11.3 [Other Command-Line Arguments], page 178):
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 }’
a 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.
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
Section 3.7 [Multiple-Line Records], page 49, 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 Chapter 2 [Regular Expressions],
page 24). 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 }’
a Record = record 1 and RT = AAAA
a Record = record 2 and RT = BBBB
a Record = record 3 and RT =
a
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 Section 13.3.8 [A Simple
Stream Editor], page 243, 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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173).
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 implementations1 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 = ""’.
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.
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 new-
lines;2 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
a fooey 555-1234 2400/1200/300 B
a foot 555-6699 1200/300 B
a macfoo 555-6480 1200/300 A
1
At least that we know about.
2
In POSIX awk, newlines are not considered whitespace for separating fields.
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 Section 2.1 [How to Use Regular
Expressions], page 24); 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
a fooey B
a foot B
a macfoo A
a sabafoo C
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 Section 5.14 [Operator
Precedence (How Operators Nest)], page 90.)
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 Section 3.2 [Examining Fields], page 39, awk stores the current record’s
number of fields in the built-in variable NF (also see Section 6.5 [Built-in Variables],
page 107). The expression $NF is not a special feature—it is the direct consequence of
evaluating NF and using its value as a field number.
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
a 25 15
a 32 22
a 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 Section 5.5 [Arithmetic Operators], page 78.) 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 Section 5.4 [Conversion of Strings and Numbers], page 77.
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
a Jan 3 25 15 115
a Feb 5 32 24 226
a 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
a 168
a 297
a 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 Section 3.2
[Examining Fields], page 39). 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
Section 4.3 [Output Separators], page 59).
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
Section 6.4.1 [The if-else Statement], page 99, for more information about awk’s if-else
statements. See Section 5.10 [Variable Typing and Comparison Expressions], page 85, 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 a::c:d
a 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 a::c:d::new
a 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. Here is an example:
$ echo a b c d e f | awk ’{ print "NF =", NF;
> NF = 3; print $0 }’
a NF = 6
a 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 Section 8.1.3
[String-Manipulation Functions], page 129).
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 Section 5.7 [Assignment Expressions], page 81). 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 Section 6.1.4
[The BEGIN and END Special Patterns], page 96). 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.
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 Chapter 2
[Regular Expressions], page 24).
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 }’
a 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 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 a b c d
a 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.
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
> }’
a Field 1 is a
a Field 2 is
a 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. In compatibility mode
(see Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173), if FS is the null string, then gawk
also behaves this way.
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 assign-
ments 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 Section 2.2 [Escape Sequences], page 25), finally yielding a single ‘\’
to use for the field separator.
As a special case, in compatibility mode (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options],
page 173), 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 ‘t’s. Use ‘-v FS="t"’ or ‘-F"[t]"’ on
the command line if you really do want to separate your fields with ‘t’s.
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
a aardvark 555
a alpo
a barfly 555
a bites 555
a camelot 555
a core 555
a fooey 555
a foot 555
a macfoo 555
a sdace 555
a 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
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 split-
ting the fields until a field is actually referenced. The fields are split using the current
value of FS! This behavior can be difficult to diagnose. The following example illustrates
the difference between the two methods. (The sed3 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 Section 6.5.1 [Built-in Variables That Control awk], page 107)
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 ignor-
ing case, use a regexp that will do it for you. E.g., ‘FS = "[c]"’. In this case, IGNORECASE
will take effect.
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 dis-
tinctive 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 an-
ticipate 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 Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions],
page 129), 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:
3
The sed utility is a “stream editor.” Its behavior is also defined by the POSIX standard.
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 intro-
duced 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 Section 6.5.2 [Built-in Variables
That Convey Information], page 110). 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 Section 12.5
[Reading the User Database], page 201, for an example of such a function).
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 Section 2.7 [How Much Text Matches?], page 33). 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.
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.4
4
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 = " "’.
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
Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions], page 129). 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
a Name is: Jane Doe
a Address is: 123 Main Street
a City and State are: Anywhere, SE 12345-6789
a
a Name is: John Smith
a Address is: 456 Tree-lined Avenue
a City and State are: Smallville, MW 98765-4321
a
...
See Section 13.3.4 [Printing Mailing Labels], page 235, 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.
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 book 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.
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 replac-
ing 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
Section 6.4.8 [The next Statement], page 105.
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.
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 $0
and the other fields are changed, resulting in a new value of NF.
According to POSIX, ‘getline < expression ’ is ambiguous if expression contains un-
parenthesized operators other than ‘$’; 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.
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 Section 4.8 [Closing Input and
Output Redirections], page 70.
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
Section 13.3.9 [An Easy Way to Use Library Functions], page 244, for a program that does
handle nested ‘@include’ statements.
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. 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 recom-
putes the value of $0. The values of NR and FNR are not changed.
According to POSIX, ‘expression | getline’ is ambiguous if expression contains un-
parenthesized operators other than ‘$’—for example, ‘"echo " "date" | getline’ is am-
biguous 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 im-
plementations.
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
}
not split into fields.
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 communica-
tions 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 Section 10.2 [Two-Way Communications with Another Process],
page 166, where coprocesses are discussed in more detail.
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.
not split into fields. The only variable changed is var.
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. (See Section 6.1.4 [The BEGIN and END Special Patterns],
page 96, also see Section 6.5.2 [Built-in Variables That Convey Information], page 110.)
• Using FILENAME with getline (‘getline < FILENAME’) is likely to be a source for con-
fusion. 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.
3.8.10 Summary of getline Variants

Table 3.1 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
Chapter 4: Printing Output 57
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 Section 4.3
[Output Separators], page 59, and Section 4.4 [Controlling Numeric Output with print],
page 59.) For printing with specifications, you need the printf statement (see Section 4.5
[Using printf Statements for Fancier Printing], page 60).
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.
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 Section 4.6 [Redirecting Output of print and printf],
page 65).
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.
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 Section 2.2 [Escape
Sequences], page 25):
$ awk ’BEGIN { print "line one\nline two\nline three" }’
a line one
a line two
a 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
a Jan 13
a Feb 15
a 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
a Jan13
a Feb15
a 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 Section 6.1.4 [The BEGIN and END Special Patterns], page 96) 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 Section 4.5 [Using
printf Statements for Fancier Printing], page 60); 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 Section 1.6 [awk Statements Versus Lines],
page 20).
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 Section 6.1.4
[The BEGIN and END Special Patterns], page 96), 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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line
Options], page 173). 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
a aardvark;555-5553
a
a alpo-net;555-3412
a
a barfly;555-7685
...
If the value of ORS does not contain a newline, the program’s output is run together on
a single line.
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 Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions], page 129). 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
Section 4.5.2 [Format-Control Letters], page 60.
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 }’
a 17 18
According to the POSIX standard, awk’s behavior is undefined if OFMT contains anything
but a floating-point conversion specification.
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.
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 Section 4.6 [Redirecting Output of print and printf],
page 65).
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
> }’
a Dont Panic!
Here, neither the ‘+’ nor the ‘OUCH’ appear when the message is printed.
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, be-
cause all numbers in awk are floating-point; it is provided primarily for com-
patibility 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 out-
side 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 Section 11.2
[Command-Line Options], page 173), gawk warns about this. Other versions of
awk may print invalid values or do something else entirely.
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 Section 9.4.2
[Rearranging printf Arguments], page 160, 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.
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 in-
dicates 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 pro-
gram
a BEGIN { printf "%’d\n", 1234567 }
$ LC_ALL=C gawk -f thousands.awk Run it in "C" lo-
cale
a 1234567
$ LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 gawk -f thousands.awk Run in US En-
glish UTF locale
a 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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line
Options], page 173), gawk warns about their use. If ‘--posix’ is supplied, their use is a
fatal error.
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
a aardvark 555-5553
a alpo-net 555-3412
a barfly 555-7685
a bites 555-1675
a camelot 555-0542
a core 555-2912
a fooey 555-1234
a foot 555-6699
a macfoo 555-6480
a sdace 555-3430
a 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 Section 6.1.4 [The BEGIN and END
Special Patterns], page 96) 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 ele-
ments 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 Section 4.1 [The print Statement], page 57).
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 Chapter 5 [Expressions], page 73).
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
a 555-5553
a 555-3412
...
$ cat name-list
a aardvark
a 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 Section 5.6 [String Concatenation], page 80.)
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 Section 4.8 [Closing
Input and Output Redirections], page 70, 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 differ-
ence between this and the single-‘|’ redirection is that the output from com-
mand 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
Section 10.2 [Two-Way Communications with Another Process], page 166, 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 Section 3.8.9 [Points to Remember About getline], page 56),
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 Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions], page 129). 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.
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 net-
working.
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.
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 Section 4.8 [Closing Input
and Output Redirections], page 70). 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 num-
ber).
$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 sys-
tems.)
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 con-
sidered 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 Section 6.5.2 [Built-in
Variables That Convey Information], page 110.
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 Section 10.2 [Two-
Way Communications with Another Process], page 166). This is an advanced feature,
mentioned here only for completeness. Full discussion is delayed until Section 10.3 [Using
gawk for Network Programming], page 168.
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
Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173).
• 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.
• Starting with version 3.1, gawk always interprets these special file names.1 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.
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 Section 3.8 [Explicit Input with getline],
page 51), 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:
1
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.
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;2 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 Section 10.2 [Two-Way
Communications with Another Process], page 166, 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:
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.3 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.
2
The technical terminology is rather morbid. The finished child is called a “zombie,” and cleaning up
after it is referred to as “reaping.”
3
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.
Chapter 5: Expressions 73
5 Expressions
Expressions are the basic building blocks of awk patterns and actions. An expression eval-
uates 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.
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.
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.1 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.
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’:
1
The internal representation of all numbers, including integers, uses double-precision floating-point num-
bers. On most modern systems, these are in IEEE 754 standard format.
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 }’
a 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 Section 10.1 [Allowing Nondecimal Input Data], page 165.) If you have
octal or hexadecimal data, you can use the strtonum function (see Section 8.1.3 [String-
Manipulation Functions], page 129) 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 Section 8.1.6 [Bit-Manipulation Functions of gawk], page 147,
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 }’
a 021 is 17
a 18
Octal and hexadecimal source code constants are a gawk extension. If gawk is in compat-
ibility mode (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173), 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 }’
a 0x11 is <17>
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).
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/)’ See Section 6.1.2
[Expressions as Patterns], page 93. 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 Section 8.1.3 [String-
Manipulation Functions], page 129). Modern implementations of awk, including gawk, allow
the third argument of split to be a regexp constant, but some older implementations do
not. This can lead to confusion when attempting to use regexp constants as arguments to
user-defined functions (see Section 8.2 [User-Defined Functions], page 149). 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.
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.
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 decre-
ment operators. See Section 5.7 [Assignment Expressions], page 81.
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 Section 6.5 [Built-in Variables],
page 107, 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.
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 Section 11.3 [Other Command-Line Arguments],
page 178). 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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173, 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
a 15
a 24
...
a 555-5553
a 555-3412
...
Command-line arguments are made available for explicit examination by the awk pro-
gram in the ARGV array (see Section 6.5.3 [Using ARGC and ARGV], page 113). awk processes
the values of command-line assignments for escape sequences (see Section 2.2 [Escape Se-
quences], page 25).
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 Section 6.5 [Built-in Variables], page 107). Numbers are
converted using the sprintf function with CONVFMT as the format specifier (see Section 8.1.3
[String-Manipulation Functions], page 129).
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.2
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
2
Pathological cases can require up to 752 digits (!), but we doubt that you need to worry about this.
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".
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 Section 4.1 [The print Statement], page 57, 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 Section 2.9 [Where You Are Makes A Difference], page 35, 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 Sec-
tion 11.3 [Other Command-Line Arguments], page 178). 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 }’
a 3.14159
$ LC_ALL=en_DK gawk ’BEGIN { printf "%g\n", 3.1415927 }’
a 3,14159
$ echo 4,321 | gawk ’{ print $1 + 1 }’
a 5
$ echo 4,321 | LC_ALL=en_DK gawk ’{ print $1 + 1 }’
a 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’.
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
a Pat 85
a Sandy 83
a 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 char-
acter 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.
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
a Field number one: aardvark
a 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
a Field number one:aardvark
a 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 }’

a -12-24
This “obviously” is concatenating −12, a space, and −24. But where did the space dis-
appear 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) }’
a -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.
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 Section 5.3 [Variables],
page 76); it can also be a field (see Section 3.4 [Changing the Contents of a Field], page 41)
or an array element (see Chapter 7 [Arrays in awk], page 116). 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
Chapter 7 [Arrays in awk], page 116, and see Section 8.1.2 [Numeric Functions], page 127, 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 5.1 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 ‘=’. 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
Section B.6 [Other Freely Available awk Implementations], page 277.
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 decre-
ments lvalue and delivers the value that is the result.
lvalue-- This expression is like ‘lvalue ++’, but instead of adding, it subtracts. It decre-
ments 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.
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")
if (j = 57)
}
There is a surprising consequence of the “nonzero or non-null” rule: the string constant
"0" is actually true, because it is non-null.
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.3
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 5.2
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 Section 5.4 [Conversion of Strings and Numbers], page 77).
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
...
3
The POSIX standard is under revision. The revised standard’s rules for typing and comparison are the
same as just described for gawk.
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" }’
a 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 Section 2.1 [How to Use Regular Expressions], page 24;
also see Section 2.8 [Using Dynamic Regexps], page 34).
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 Section 5.2 [Using Regular Expression Constants],
page 74, where this is discussed in more detail.
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 Section 6.4 [Control
Statements in Actions], page 99). 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 state-
ment 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 Section 7.2 [Referring to an Array Element],
page 117.)
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 Section 1.6 [awk Statements Versus Lines], page 20).
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 Section 6.4.8 [The next Statement],
page 105. 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.
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 Chapter 7 [Arrays in awk],
page 116, 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 Section 1.6 [awk Statements Ver-
sus Lines], page 20). If ‘--posix’ is specified (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options],
page 173), then this extension is disabled.
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 Section 8.1 [Built-in Functions], page 127, for a list
of built-in functions and their descriptions. In addition, you can define functions for use in
your program. See Section 8.2 [User-Defined Functions], page 149, 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 Section 8.1 [Built-in
Functions], page 127, 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 Section 8.2 [User-Defined Functions], page 149).
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
a The square root of 1 is 1
3
a The square root of 3 is 1.73205
5
a The square root of 5 is 2.23607
Ctrl-d
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 Section 5.6 [String Concatenation], page 80).
< <= == !=
> >= >> | |&
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.
Chapter 6: Patterns, Actions, and Variables 93
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.
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 Chapter 2 [Regular Expressions], page 24.)
expression
A single expression. It matches when its value is nonzero (if a number) or
non-null (if a string). (See Section 6.1.2 [Expressions as Patterns], page 93.)
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 Section 6.1.3 [Specifying Record Ranges with Patterns],
page 95.)
BEGIN
END Special patterns for you to supply startup or cleanup actions for your awk
program. (See Section 6.1.4 [The BEGIN and END Special Patterns], page 96.)
empty The empty pattern matches every input record. (See Section 6.1.5 [The Empty
Pattern], page 97.)
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" }
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 Section 5.10 [Vari-
able Typing and Comparison Expressions], page 85, 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 Section 2.8 [Using Dynamic Regexps], page 34). 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
a 555-1234
a 555-6699
a 555-6480
a 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
a 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
a alpo-net 555-3412 2400/1200/300 A
a bites 555-1675 2400/1200/300 A
a fooey 555-1234 2400/1200/300 B
a foot 555-6699 1200/300 B
a macfoo 555-6480 1200/300 A
a sdace 555-3430 2400/1200/300 A
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
a aardvark 555-5553 1200/300 B
a alpo-net 555-3412 2400/1200/300 A
a barfly 555-7685 1200/300 A
a bites 555-1675 2400/1200/300 A
a camelot 555-0542 300 C
a core 555-2912 1200/300 C
a sdace 555-3430 2400/1200/300 A
The subexpressions of a Boolean operator in a pattern can be constant regular expres-
sions, 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.
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", $1 == "off"’ myfile
prints every record in ‘myfile’ between ‘on’/‘off’ pairs, inclusive.
A range pattern starts out by matching begpat against every input record. When a
record matches begpat, the range pattern is turned on and the range pattern matches this
record as well. As long as the range pattern stays turned on, it automatically matches every
input record read. The range pattern also matches endpat against every input record; when
this succeeds, the range pattern is turned off again for the following record. Then the range
pattern goes back to checking begpat against each record.
The record that turns on the range pattern and the one that turns it off both match the
range pattern. If you don’t want to operate on these records, you can write if statements
in the rule’s action to distinguish them from the records you are interested in.
It is possible for a pattern to be turned on and off by the same record. If the record
satisfies both conditions, then the action is executed for just that record. For example,
suppose there is text between two identical markers (e.g., the ‘%’ symbol), each on its own
line, that should be ignored. A first attempt would be to combine a range pattern that
describes the delimited text with the next statement (not discussed yet, see Section 6.4.8
[The next Statement], page 105). This causes awk to skip any further processing of the
current record and start over again with the next input record. Such a program looks like
this:
/^%$/,/^%$/ { next }
{ print }
This program fails because the range pattern is both turned on and turned off by the first
line, which just has a ‘%’ on it. To accomplish this task, write the program in the following
manner, using a flag:
/^%$/ { 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
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.
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
a Analysis of "foo"
a "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
Section 5.3 [Variables], page 76). 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
Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173, for more information on using library
functions. See Chapter 12 [A Library of awk Functions], page 181, 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.1 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.
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 Section 3.8 [Explicit Input with getline], page 51).
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 Section 6.4.8
[The next Statement], page 105, and see Section 6.4.9 [Using gawk’s nextfile Statement],
page 106.)
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.
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.
1
The original version of awk used to keep reading and ignoring input until the end of the file was seen.
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 "/$pattern/ "’{ nmatches++ }
END { print nmatches, "found" }’ /path/to/data
the awk program consists of two pieces of quoted text that are concatenated together to
form the program. The first part is double-quoted, which allows substitution of the pattern
variable inside the quotes. The second part is single-quoted.
Variable substitution via quoting works, but can be potentially messy. It requires a good
understanding of the shell’s quoting rules (see Section 1.1.6 [Shell-Quoting Issues], page 14),
and it’s often difficult to correctly match up the quotes when reading the program.
A better method is to use awk’s variable assignment feature (see Section 5.3.2 [Assigning
Variables on the Command Line], page 76) to assign the shell variable’s value to an awk
variable’s value. Then use dynamic regexps to match the pattern (see Section 2.8 [Using
Dynamic Regexps], page 34). The following shows how to redo the previous example using
this technique:
echo -n "Enter search pattern: "
read pattern
awk -v pat="$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.
6.3 Actions
An awk program or script consists of a series of rules and function definitions interspersed.
(Functions are described later. See Section 8.2 [User-Defined Functions], page 149.) 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 Chapter 5 [Expressions],
page 73). Executing this kind of statement simply computes the value of the
expression. This is useful when the expression has side effects (see Section 5.7
[Assignment Expressions], page 81).
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 Section 6.4
[Control Statements in Actions], page 99).
Compound statements
Consist of one or more statements enclosed in curly braces. A compound state-
ment 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 Section 3.8 [Explicit Input with getline],
page 51). Also supplied in awk are the next statement (see Section 6.4.8 [The
next Statement], page 105), and the nextfile statement (see Section 6.4.9
[Using gawk’s nextfile Statement], page 106).
Output statements
Such as print and printf. See Chapter 4 [Printing Output], page 57.
Deletion statements
For deleting array elements. See Section 7.6 [The delete Statement], page 120.
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 dis-
tinguish them from simple expressions. Many control statements contain other statements.
For example, the if statement contains another statement that may or may not be exe-
cuted. 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.
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.
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 state-
ments. 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.
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.
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 ini-
tial 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 Section 6.4.7 [The continue
Statement], page 104) 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.
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 Section B.2.2 [Additional Configuration Options],
page 264, for more information.
The switch statement allows the evaluation of an expression and the execution of state-
ments 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.
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 Section 6.4.10 [The exit Statement], page 106.)
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 Section 6.4.8 [The next
Statement], page 105). 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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173). Otherwise, it is treated as an error,
since the POSIX standard specifies that break should only be used inside the body of a
loop.
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. Histor-
ical 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 Section 6.4.8 [The
next Statement], page 105). Recent versions of Unix awk no longer work this way, and
gawk allows it only if ‘--traditional’ is specified on the command line (see Section 11.2
[Command-Line Options], page 173). Just like the break statement, the POSIX standard
specifies that continue should only be used inside the body of a loop.
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 Section 3.8 [Explicit Input
with getline], page 51). 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 Section 4.7 [Special File Names in gawk], page 67.
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
Section 8.2 [User-Defined Functions], page 149). 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 Section 6.1.4 [The BEGIN and END
Special Patterns], page 96.
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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173),
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 Section 6.5 [Built-in Variables], page 107.) If the nextfile statement causes the
end of the input to be reached, then the code in any END rules is executed. See Section 6.1.4
[The BEGIN and END Special Patterns], page 96.
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 Section 12.2.1
[Implementing nextfile as a Function], page 183, for a user-defined function that simulates
the nextfile statement.
The current version of the Bell Laboratories awk (see Section B.6 [Other Freely Avail-
able awk Implementations], page 277) also supports nextfile. However, it doesn’t allow
the nextfile statement inside function bodies (see Section 8.2 [User-Defined Functions],
page 149). 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.
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 Section 6.1.4 [The BEGIN
and END Special Patterns], page 96). 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 Section 12.2.3 [Assertions],
page 185, 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.
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")
}
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 docu-
mented in the chapters describing their areas of activity.
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 Section B.3.3.4 [Using gawk on
PC Operating Systems], page 270.
This variable is a gawk extension. In other awk implementations (except mawk,
see Section B.6 [Other Freely Available awk Implementations], page 277), or
if gawk is in compatibility mode (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options],
page 173), it is not special.
CONVFMT This string controls conversion of numbers to strings (see Section 5.4 [Con-
version of Strings and Numbers], page 77). It works by being passed, in ef-
fect, as the first argument to the sprintf function (see Section 8.1.3 [String-
Manipulation Functions], page 129). 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 Section 3.6 [Reading Fixed-Width Data], page 47,
If gawk is in compatibility mode (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options],
page 173), then FIELDWIDTHS has no special meaning, and field-splitting oper-
ations occur based exclusively on the value of FS.
FS This is the input field separator (see Section 3.5 [Specifying How Fields Are Sep-
arated], page 43). The value is a single-character string or a multi-character reg-
ular 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.2 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
2
In POSIX awk, newline does not count as whitespace.
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 Section 2.6 [Case Sensitivity in
Matching], page 32.
If gawk is in compatibility mode (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options],
page 173), 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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options],
page 173). 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 Section 5.4 [Conver-
sion of Strings and Numbers], page 77) for printing with the print statement.
It works by being passed as the first argument to the sprintf function (see
Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions], page 129). Its default value is
"%.6g". Earlier versions of awk also used OFMT to specify the format for con-
verting numbers to strings in general expressions; this is now done by CONVFMT.
OFS This is the output field separator (see Section 4.3 [Output Separators], page 59).
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 Section 4.3
[Output Separators], page 59.)
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 Section 3.1 [How Input Is Split into Records],
page 36.)
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 Section 11.2
[Command-Line Options], page 173), 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 Section 7.9
[Multidimensional Arrays], page 122).
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 Chapter 9 [Internationalization with gawk], page 156). 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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173),
it is not special.
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
Section 11.3 [Other Command-Line Arguments], page 178. 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
a awk
a inventory-shipped
a 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 Section 6.5.3 [Using ARGC and ARGV], page 113, 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.
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 Section 11.4
[The AWKPATH Environment Variable], page 178).
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.
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 Chapter 3
[Reading Input Files], page 36). Inside a BEGIN rule, the value of FILENAME is
"", since there are no input files being processed yet.3 Note, though, that
using getline (see Section 3.8 [Explicit Input with getline], page 51) 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 Section 3.8 [Explicit Input with getline], page 51). 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 Section 3.2
[Examining Fields], page 39).
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
3
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.
can be used to create or remove fields from the current record: See Section 3.4
[Changing the Contents of a Field], page 41.
NR The number of input records awk has processed since the beginning of the
program’s execution (see Section 3.1 [How Input Is Split into Records], page 36).
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
"groupN " for some N. N is the number of supplementary groups that the
process has. Use the in operator to test for these elements (see Section 7.2
[Referring to an Array Element], page 117).
This array is a gawk extension. In other awk implementations, or if gawk is in
compatibility mode (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173), it is
not special.
RLENGTH The length of the substring matched by the match function (see Section 8.1.3
[String-Manipulation Functions], page 129). 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 Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions], page 129). 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.
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. This is demonstrated in
the following example:
$ echo ’1
> 2
> 3
> 4’ | awk ’NR == 2 { NR = 17 }
> { print NR }’
a 1
a 17
a 18
a 19
Before FNR was added to the awk language (see Section A.1 [Major Changes Between V7 and
SVR3.1], page 252), many awk programs used this feature to track the number of records
in a file by resetting NR to zero when FILENAME changed.
6.5.3 Using ARGC and ARGV

Section 6.5.2 [Built-in Variables That Convey Information], page 110, presented the follow-
ing program describing the information contained in ARGC and ARGV:
$ awk ’BEGIN {
> for (i = 0; i < ARGC; i++)
> print ARGV[i]
> }’ inventory-shipped BBS-list
a awk
a inventory-shipped
a 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 in-
cludes variable assignments done with the ‘-v’ option (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line
Options], page 173). Normal variable assignments on the command line are treated as
arguments and do show up in the ARGV array:
$ cat showargs.awk
a BEGIN {
a printf "A=%d, B=%d\n", A, B
a for (i = 0; i < ARGC; i++)

a printf "\tARGV[%d] = %s\n", i, ARGV[i]
a }
a END { printf "A=%d, B=%d\n", A, B }
$ awk -v A=1 -f showargs.awk B=2 /dev/null
a A=1, B=0
a ARGV[0] = awk
a ARGV[1] = B=2
a ARGV[2] = /dev/null
a 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 Section 7.6 [The delete Statement], page 120).
All of these actions are typically done in the BEGIN rule, before actual processing of
the input begins. See Section 13.2.4 [Splitting a Large File into Pieces], page 221, and
see Section 13.2.5 [Duplicating Output into Multiple Files], page 223, 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.
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 Section 8.2 [User-Defined Functions], page 149). Thus, you cannot have a
variable and an array with the same name in the same awk program.
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:
8 "foo" "" 30 Value

0 1 2 3 Index
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
Chapter 7: Arrays in awk 117
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 Section 7.7 [Using
Numbers to Subscript Arrays], page 121. 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 Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions], page 129.)
awk’s arrays are efficient—the time to access an element is independent of the number
of elements in the array.
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 Section 7.6 [The delete Statement], page 120). 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."
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.
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]
}
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 Section 8.1.3
[String-Manipulation Functions], page 129, 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 Section 13.3.5 [Generating Word-Usage Counts], page 237, 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.
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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173), 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 Section 11.2
[Command-Line Options], page 173).
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:1
split("", array)
The split function (see Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions], page 129) 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
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 Section 5.4 [Conversion of Strings and Numbers], page 77). 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. As-
signing 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 as-
signed 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 Section 5.4 [Conversion of Strings and Num-
bers], page 77), 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 conse-
quence for array indexing. Octal and hexadecimal constants (see Section 5.1.2 [Octal and
Hexadecimal Numbers], page 73) 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!
1
Thanks to Michael Brennan for pointing this out.
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.
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]
> }’
a line 3
a 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.
gawk warns about the use of the null string as a subscript if ‘--lint’ is provided on the
command line (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173).
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 Section 5.4 [Conversion of Strings and
Numbers], page 77) 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 sin-
gle 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
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 Section 7.5
[Scanning All Elements of an Array], page 119) with the built-in split function (see Sec-
tion 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions], page 129). 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.
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 ar-
bitrary. 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
Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions], page 129) 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 Section 5.10 [Variable Typing and Comparison Expressions], page 85).
An important side effect of calling asort is that the array’s original indices are irrevo-
cably 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 di-
rectly
...
do something with source[dest[i]] Access original array via sorted in-
dices
}
}
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 in-
dices
}
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.
Chapter 8: Functions 127
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.
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.
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.
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.1
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 be-
tween 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,
1
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.
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.2 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 inter-
nally. 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.
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"
2
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.
a[2] = "de"
a[3] = "sac"
The asort function is described in more detail in Section 7.11 [Sorting Array
Values and Indices with gawk], page 124. asort is a gawk extension; it is not
available in compatibility mode (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options],
page 173).
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 Section 7.11 [Sorting Array
Values and Indices with gawk], page 124. It was added in gawk 3.1.2. asorti
is a gawk extension; it is not available in compatibility mode (see Section 11.2
index(in, find )
This searches the string in for the first occurrence of the string find, and re-
turns the position in characters where that occurrence begins in the string in.
Consider the following example:
$ awk ’BEGIN { print index("peanut", "an") }’
a 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. Section 2.8 [Using Dynamic Regexps], page 34, 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 func-
tions 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] }’
a foooo barrrrr
In addition, beginning with gawk 3.1.2, multidimensional subscripts are avail-
able 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"]
> }’
a foooo barrrrr
a 1 5
a 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 Section 7.2 [Referring to an Array Element],
page 117).
The array argument to match is a gawk extension. In compatibility mode (see
Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173), 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 trail-
ing 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. The POSIX standard allows
this as well. Section 2.8 [Using Dynamic Regexps], page 34, 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 Section 7.6 [The delete Statement],
page 120.)
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 Section 4.5 [Using printf Statements for Fancier
Printing], page 60). 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) }’
a 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.3
strtonum is a gawk extension; it is not available in compatibility mode (see
Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173).
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. Section 2.8 [Using Dynamic Regexps], page 34, 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 $0.4 For example:
3
Unless you use the ‘--non-decimal-data’ option, which isn’t recommended. See Section 10.1 [Allowing
Nondecimal Input Data], page 165, for more information.
4
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(/^/, "")’.
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
> }’
a dCaaCbaaa
This shows how ‘&’ can represent a nonconstant string and also illustrates the
“leftmost, longest” rule in regexp matching (see Section 2.7 [How Much Text
Matches?], page 33).
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 pre-
vious 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
> }’
a 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 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 Sec-
tion 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173).
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.5 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 re-
placed 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 re-
placed with its corresponding uppercase character. Nonalphabetic characters
are left unchanged. For example, toupper("MiXeD cAsE 123") returns "MIXED
CASE 123".
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.
5
This is different from C and C++, in which the first character is number zero.
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 Section 2.2 [Escape Sequences],
page 25. 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 8.1.
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 8.2.
& & the matched text

\\\\& \\& 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.6
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 8.3.
\\\\\\& \\\& a literal ‘\&’

\\\\& \\& a literal ‘\’, followed by the matched text
\\\\ \\ \\
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 8.4.
6
This consequence was certainly unintended.
\\\\\\& \\\& a literal ‘\&’

\\\\& \\& a literal ‘\’, followed by the matched text
\\\\ \\ \
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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173). 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 8.5.
You type gensub sees gensub generates
& & the matched text

\\\\ \\ 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 }’
a XaXbXcX
Although this makes a certain amount of sense, it can be surprising.
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 Section 4.8 [Closing
Input and Output Redirections], page 70, 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 Section 10.2 [Two-Way Communications with
Another Process], page 166, 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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options],
page 173).
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.7
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
a 2
2 3
a 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
a 2
a 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.
7
A program is interactive if the standard output is connected to a terminal device.
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 (undesir-
able) output.
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.8 All known POSIX-compliant systems support timestamps
from 0 through 23 1 − 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;
8
See [Glossary], page 299, especially the entries “Epoch” and “UTC.”
they are not specified in the POSIX standard, nor are they in any other known version of
awk.9 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 60,10 and an optional daylight-savings flag.
The values of these numbers need not be within the ranges specified; for exam-
ple, 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.
9
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.
10
Occasionally there are minutes in a year with a leap second, which is why the seconds can go up to 60.
The strftime function allows you to easily turn a timestamp into human-readable
information. It is similar in nature to the sprintf function (see Section 8.1.3 [String-
Manipulation Functions], page 129), in that it copies nonformat specification characters
verbatim to the returned string, while substituting date and time values for format specifi-
cations in the format string.
strftime is guaranteed by the 1999 ISO C standard11 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.)
11
As this is a recent standard, not every system’s strftime necessarily supports all of the conversions
listed here.
%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 deter-
minable.
%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).12 (These facilitate compliance with the POSIX date
utility.)
%% A literal ‘%’.
If a conversion specifier is not one of the above, the behavior is undefined.13
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
12
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 Chapter 9 [Interna-
tionalization with gawk], page 156.
13
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.
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 Appendix B [Installing gawk], page 260), 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 representa-
tions 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.’
a 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 $1 in
-u) TZ=UTC0 # use UTC
export TZ
shift ;;
esac
gawk ’BEGIN {
format = "%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Z %Y"
exitval = 0
if (ARGC > 2)
exitval = 1
else if (ARGC == 2) {
format = ARGV[1]
if (format ~ /^\+/)
format = substr(format, 2) # remove leading +
}
print strftime(format)
exit exitval
}’ "$@"
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 num-
bers. 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 8.6.
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’.14 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.
14
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.
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 Section 8.2 [User-Defined Functions], page 149) 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
a 123 = 01111011
a 0123 = 01010011
a 0x99 = 10011001
a compl(0x99) = 0xffffff66 = 11111111111111111111111101100110
a lshift(0x99, 2) = 0x264 = 0000001001100100
a 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 Section 5.1.2 [Octal and Hexadecimal Numbers], page 73),
and then demonstrates the results of the compl, lshift, and rshift functions.
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 Chapter 9
[Internationalization with gawk], page 156, 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 lo-
cale 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 “stan-
dard” 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.
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 Section 5.13 [Function Calls],
page 89), but it is up to you to define them, i.e., to tell awk what they should do.
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 argu-
ment 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 abbrevi-
ated 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 Section 11.2
[Command-Line Options], page 173), then the following statement does not define a func-
tion:
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.
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 Section 7.6 [The delete Statement], page 120).
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 param-
eter 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
a !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 Section 8.1.5
[Using gawk’s Timestamp Functions], page 142) 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)
}
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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173), gawk
reports calls to undefined functions.
Some awk implementations generate a runtime error if you use the next statement (see
Section 6.4.8 [The next Statement], page 105) inside a user-defined function. gawk does not
have this limitation.
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.
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.
9 Internationalization with gawk

Once upon a time, computer makers wrote software that worked only in English. Even-
tually, 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 pro-
grams 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 interna-
tionalization is a requirement.
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 partic-
ular 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.
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.1
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.
1
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.
Chapter 9: Internationalization with gawk 157
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 consider-
ably 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 char-
acters 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 expres-
sions, such as /[[:alnum:]]/ (see Section 2.3 [Regular Expression Operators],
page 27).
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.2
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.)
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 transla-
tion at runtime. String constants without a leading underscore are not trans-
lated.
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.”
2
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.
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 Section 6.1.4 [The BEGIN and END Special Patterns], page 96), or it
can also be done via the ‘-v’ command-line option (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line
Options], page 173):
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 Section 9.5 [A Simple Internationalization Example], page 162, for an example pro-
gram showing the steps to create and use translations from awk.
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.
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.3 See
Section 9.5 [A Simple Internationalization Example], page 162, for the full list of steps to
go through to create and test translations for guide.
9.4.2 Rearranging printf Arguments

Format strings for printf and sprintf (see Section 4.5 [Using printf Statements for
Fancier Printing], page 60) present a special problem for translation. Consider the follow-
ing:4
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 ele-
ment, 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)
> }’
a 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.
3
Starting with gettext version 0.11.5, the xgettext utility that comes with GNU gettext can handle
‘.awk’ files.
4
This example is borrowed from the GNU gettext manual.
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$s\n", 20, 10, "hello")
> }’
a hello
a hello
NOTE: When using ‘*’ with a positional specifier, the ‘*’ comes first, then the
integer position, and then the ‘$’. 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 pur-
pose is to help in producing correct translations of format strings into languages different
from the one in which the program is first written.
9.4.3 awk Portability Issues

gawk’s internationalization features were purposely chosen to have as little impact as pos-
sible on the portability of awk programs that use them to other versions of awk. Consider
this program:
BEGIN {
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.5 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
5
This is good fodder for an “Obfuscated awk” contest.
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.
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 {
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”:6
$ 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
a Hey man, relax!
a Like, the scoop is 42
a Pardon me, Zaphod who?
If the three replacement functions for dcgettext, dcngettext and bindtextdomain (see
Section 9.4.3 [awk Portability Issues], page 161) are in a file named ‘libintl.awk’, then we
can run ‘guide.awk’ unchanged as follows:
$ gawk --posix -f guide.awk -f libintl.awk
a Don’t Panic
a The Answer Is 42
a Pardon me, Zaphod who?
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.
6
Perhaps it would be better if it were called “Hippy.” Ah, well.
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
Section B.2.2 [Additional Configuration Options], page 264, for more information.
Chapter 10: Advanced Features of gawk 165
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 book, 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.
Section C.3 [Adding New Built-in Functions to gawk], page 282, 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.
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 }’
a 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 }’
a 0123 123 0x123
The print statement treats its expressions as strings. Although the fields can act as num-
bers 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 }’
a 0123 123 0x123
a 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 Section 5.1.2 [Octal and
Hexadecimal Numbers], page 73). This makes your programs easier to write and easier to
read, and leads to less surprising results.
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):1
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.
1
This is very different from the same operator in the C shell, csh.
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 Section 4.8 [Closing
Input and Output Redirections], page 70). 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 co-
process; 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 Section 6.5.2 [Built-in Variables That
Convey Information], page 110), 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.
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 Section 10.2 [Two-Way Communications with Another Process], page 166), 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.
10.4 Using gawk with BSD Portals

Similar to the ‘/inet’ special files, if gawk is configured with the ‘--enable-portals’
option (see Section B.2.1 [Compiling gawk for Unix], page 264), 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.
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-hCi
or Ctrl-hBREAKi key, while the QUIT signal is generated by the Ctrl-h“i key.
Chapter 11: Running awk and gawk 173
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.
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 op-
tions.
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. If
‘--lint’ has been specified on the command line, gawk issues a warning that the program
is empty.
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 Section 3.5 [Specifying How Fields Are Separated],
page 43).
-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 Section 11.3 [Other
Command-Line Arguments], page 178).
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 ver-
sion of Unix awk. ‘--traditional’ is the preferred form of this option. See
Section A.5 [Extensions in gawk Not in POSIX awk], page 255, which sum-
marizes the extensions. Also see Section C.1 [Downward Compatibility and
Debugging], page 279.
-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 transla-
tion. See Chapter 9 [Internationalization with gawk], page 156, 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 imple-
mentations. 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 Section A.1 [Major Changes Between V7 and SVR3.1],
page 252).
-W non-decimal-data
--non-decimal-data
Enable automatic interpretation of octal and hexadecimal values in input data
(see Section 10.1 [Allowing Nondecimal Input Data], page 165).
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 Section 2.2 [Escape Sequences],
page 25).
• Newlines do not act as whitespace to separate fields when FS is equal to a
single space (see Section 3.2 [Examining Fields], page 39).
• Newlines are not allowed after ‘?’ or ‘:’ (see Section 5.12 [Conditional
Expressions], page 89).
• The synonym func for the keyword function is not recognized (see Sec-
tion 8.2.1 [Function Definition Syntax], page 149).
• The ‘**’ and ‘**=’ operators cannot be used in place of ‘^’ and ‘^=’ (see
Section 5.5 [Arithmetic Operators], page 78, and also see Section 5.7 [As-
signment Expressions], page 81).
• Specifying ‘-Ft’ on the command-line does not set the value of FS to be
a single TAB character (see Section 3.5 [Specifying How Fields Are Sepa-
rated], page 43).
• The fflush built-in function is not supported (see Section 8.1.4
[Input/Output Functions], page 140).
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 Section 10.5 [Profiling Your awk
Programs], page 169). 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 pro-
gram. 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 Section 2.3 [Regular Expression Operators],
page 27) in regexps. Because interval expressions were traditionally not avail-
able 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 Section 11.4 [The AWKPATH Environment
Variable], page 178).
-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 Section B.5 [Reporting Problems and Bugs], page 276).
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 Section 3.5 [Specifying How Fields Are Separated], page 43).
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 Section 8.2.1 [Function Definition Syntax],
page 149, 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 charac-
ter) 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 Section 11.4 [The AWKPATH Environment Variable], page 178).
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,1 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.
1
Not recommended.
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 Section 5.3.2 [Assigning Variables on the Command Line], page 76.)
All these arguments are made available to your awk program in the ARGV array (see
Section 6.5 [Built-in Variables], page 107). 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 Section 6.1.4 [The BEGIN and END Special Patterns],
page 96), 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
Section 2.2 [Escape Sequences], page 25).
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.
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’.2 (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 Chapter 12 [A Library of awk Functions], page 181). Path
searching is not done if gawk is in compatibility mode. This is true for both ‘--traditional’
and ‘--posix’. See Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173.
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.
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 Section 4.7.2 [Special Files for Process-
Related Information], page 69, work as described, but are now considered deprecated. gawk
prints a warning message every time they are used. (Use PROCINFO instead; see Section 6.5.2
[Built-in Variables That Convey Information], page 110.) They will be removed from the
next release of gawk.
2
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.
11.6 Undocumented Options and Features

Use the Source, Luke!
Obi-Wan
This section intentionally left blank.
11.7 Known Bugs in gawk

• The ‘-F’ option for changing the value of FS (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options],
page 173) 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, gener-
ating 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.
Chapter 12: A Library of awk Functions 181
12 A Library of awk Functions

Section 8.2 [User-Defined Functions], page 149, describes how to write your own awk func-
tions. 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 Chapter 13 [Practical awk Programs], page 210,
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 book use these functions. The functions are presented here in a
progression from simple to complex.
Section 13.3.7 [Extracting Programs from Texinfo Source Files], page 240, 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 book. (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], page 8,
The programs in this chapter and in Chapter 13 [Practical awk Programs], page 210,
freely use features that are gawk-specific. Rewriting these programs for different implemen-
tations 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 Section 6.4.9 [Using gawk’s nextfile State-
ment], page 106) to skip any remaining input in the input file. Section 12.2.1 [Implementing
nextfile as a Function], page 183, 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 effect1
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.
12.1 Naming Library Function Global Variables

Due to the way the awk language evolved, variables are either global (usable by the en-
tire 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
1
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.
Section 12.4 [Processing Command-Line Options], page 196). 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 vari-
ables 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 Section 12.5 [Reading the User Database], page 201). 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.2
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 Section 12.4 [Processing
Command-Line Options], page 196). 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.3 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 Section 12.5 [Reading the User Database], page 201, 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.
2
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.
3
gawk’s ‘--dump-variables’ command-line option is useful for verifying this.
12.2 General Programming

This section presents a number of functions that are of general programming use.
12.2.1 Implementing nextfile as a Function

The nextfile statement, presented in Section 6.4.9 [Using gawk’s nextfile Statement],
page 106, 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 Section 12.1
[Naming Library Function Global Variables], page 181.)
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).
12.2.2 Converting Strings To Numbers

The strtonum function (see Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions], page 129) 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.
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 Section 6.1.4.1
[Startup and Cleanup Actions], page 96), 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.
12.2.4 Rounding Numbers

The way printf and sprintf (see Section 4.5 [Using printf Statements for Fancier Print-
ing], page 60) 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) }
12.2.5 The Cliff Random Number Generator

The Cliff random number generator4 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 Section 8.1.2 [Numeric Func-
tions], page 127) isn’t random enough, you might try using this function instead.
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)

4
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/CliffRandomNumberGenerator.hmtl
{
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 127.5 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 \
# {
5
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.
# 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 func-
tion 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.
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 Chapter 13 [Practical awk Programs], page 210).
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 Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions], page 129):
# 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.6
12.2.8 Managing the Time of Day

The systime and strftime functions described in Section 8.1.5 [Using gawk’s Timestamp
Functions], page 142, provide the minimum functionality necessary for dealing with the
6
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.
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 preformat-
ted 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 Section 13.3.2 [An Alarm Clock Program],
page 231, 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.
12.3 Data File Management

This section presents functions that are useful for managing command-line data files.
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 Section 6.1.4 [The BEGIN and END Special Patterns],
page 96). 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 Section 12.2.1 [Im-
plementing nextfile as a Function], page 183). 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_) }
Section 13.2.7 [Counting Things], page 228, shows how this library function can be used
and how it simplifies writing the main program.
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 Section 3.8 [Explicit Input with getline], page 51) 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 Section 6.5.2 [Built-in Variables That Convey
Information], page 110), 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 Section 6.4.9 [Using gawk’s
nextfile Statement], page 106). See Section 12.2.1 [Implementing nextfile as a Function],
page 183, for a function version of nextfile.
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).
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 Section 6.5 [Built-in Variables], page 107), it is possible
to detect when an empty data file has been skipped. Similar to the library file presented
in Section 12.3.1 [Noting Data File Boundaries], page 192, 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.
12.3.5 Treating Assignments as File Names

Occasionally, you might not want awk to process command-line variable assignments (see
Section 5.3.2 [Assigning Variables on the Command Line], page 76). 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 in-
vocation 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.
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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173). 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. Fur-
thermore, 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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173).
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 Section 8.1.3 [String-
Manipulation Functions], page 129).7
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
7
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.
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
a c = <a>, optarg = <>
a c = <c>, optarg = <>
a c = <b>, optarg = <ARG>
a non-option arguments:
a ARGV[3] = <bax>
a ARGV[4] = <-x>
$ awk -f getopt.awk -v _getopt_test=1 -- -a -x -- xyz abc

a c = <a>, optarg = <>
error x -- invalid option
a c = <?>, optarg = <>
a non-option arguments:
a ARGV[4] = <xyz>
a 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
Chapter 13 [Practical awk Programs], page 210, use getopt to process their arguments.
12.5 Reading the User Database

The PROCINFO array (see Section 6.5 [Built-in Variables], page 107) 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 Section 12.6 [Reading
the Group Database], page 205, 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.8 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
8
It is often the case that password information is stored in a network database.
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 avail-
able 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
a root:3Ov02d5VaUPB6:0:1:Operator:/:/bin/sh
a nobody:*:65534:65534::/:
a daemon:*:1:1::/:
a sys:*:2:2::/:/bin/csh
a bin:*:3:3::/bin:
a arnold:xyzzy:2076:10:Arnold Robbins:/home/arnold:/bin/sh
a miriam:yxaay:112:10:Miriam Robbins:/home/miriam:/bin/sh
a 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 Section 13.2.3 [Printing out User Information], page 219, uses these
functions.
12.6 Reading the Group Database

Much of the discussion presented in Section 12.5 [Reading the User Database], page 201,
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 "groupN " in PROCINFO for those group ID
numbers. (Note that PROCINFO is a gawk extension;
see Section 6.5 [Built-in Variables], page 107.)
Here is what running grcat might produce:
$ grcat
a wheel:*:0:arnold
a nogroup:*:65534:
a daemon:*:1:
a kmem:*:2:
a staff:*:10:arnold,miriam,andy
a 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 Sec-
tion 12.5 [Reading the User Database], page 201). 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 neces-
sary), 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 infor-
mation 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 Section 13.2.3 [Printing out User Information], page 219, uses these
functions.
13 Practical awk Programs

Chapter 12 [A Library of awk Functions], page 181, presents the idea that reading programs
in a language contributes to learning that language. This chapter continues that theme, pre-
senting 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 Chapter 12 [A Library of
awk Functions], page 181.
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 Section 1.1.4
[Executable awk Programs], page 13), 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
13.2 Reinventing Wheels for Fun and Profit

This section presents a number of POSIX utilities that are implemented in awk. Reinvent-
ing 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 in-
stalled versions on your system. Instead, their purpose is to illustrate awk language pro-
gramming for “real world” tasks.
The programs are presented in alphabetical order.
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.
Chapter 13: Practical awk Programs 211
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 Section 12.4 [Pro-
cessing Command-Line Options], page 196) and the join library function (see Section 12.2.7
[Merging an Array into a String], page 190).
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.
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 Section 3.6 [Reading Fixed-Width Data], page 47),
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 Section 8.1.3
[String-Manipulation Functions], page 129), it is also extremely painful. The FIELDWIDTHS
variable supplies an elegant solution to the problem of picking the input line apart by
characters.
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 Chapter 2 [Regular Expressions], page 24). 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 Section 12.4 [Processing Command-
Line Options], page 196) and the file transition library program (see Section 12.3.1 [Noting
Data File Boundaries], page 192).
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 Section 6.5 [Built-in Variables],
page 107):
# 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 argu-
ments 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++]

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.1
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
1
It also introduces a subtle bug; if a match happens, we output the translated line, not the original.
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 ...]"

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.
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
a 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 Section 6.5
[Built-in Variables], page 107). 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 Section 12.5 [Reading the User Database], page 201) and the group database library
functions (see Section 12.6 [Reading the Group Database], page 205):
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(" gid=%d", gid)

pw = getgrgid(gid)
if (pw != "") {
split(pw, a, ":")
}
if (egid != gid) {
printf(" egid=%d", egid)
pw = getgrgid(egid)
if (pw != "") {
split(pw, a, ":")
}
}
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, ":")
}
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 "groupN " 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.
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
Section 12.2.6 [Translating Between Characters and Numbers], page 188.
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]"
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.
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])
}
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 Section 12.4 [Processing Command-Line Op-
tions], page 196) and the join library function (see Section 12.2.7 [Merging an Array into
a String], page 190).
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 nonre-
peated 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 ]]"
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++
}

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 Section 8.1.3 [String-
Manipulation Functions], page 129); 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
}
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 char-
acters, 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 Section 12.4 [Processing Command-Line Op-
tions], page 196) and the file-transition functions (see Section 12.3.1 [Noting Data File
Boundaries], page 192).
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
}
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.2 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)
2
wc can’t just use the value of FNR in endfile. If you examine the code in Section 12.3.1 [Noting Data
File Boundaries], page 192, you will see that FNR has already been reset by the time endfile is called.
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"
}
}
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.
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 nonalphanu-
meric 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 punctua-
tion 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
}
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 Section 12.2.8 [Managing the Time
of Day], page 190.
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"
exit 1
} else if (ARGC == 5) {
delay = ARGV[4] + 0
count = ARGV[3] + 0
message = ARGV[2]
count = ARGV[3] + 0
message = ARGV[2]
message = ARGV[2]
} else if (ARGV[1] !~ /[0-9]?[0-9]:[0-9][0-9]/) {
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 Section 8.1.4 [Input/Output Func-
tions], page 140) 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
}
13.3.3 Transliterating Characters

The system tr utility transliterates characters. For example, it is often used to map upper-
case letters into lowercase for further processing:
generate data | tr ’A-Z’ ’a-z’ | process data ...

tr requires two lists of characters.3 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: deal-
ing with individual characters is very painful, requiring repeated use of the substr, index,
and gsub built-in functions (see Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions], page 129).4
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)
3
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.
4
This program was written before gawk acquired the ability to split each character in a string into separate
array elements.
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 func-
tion. However, shortly after writing this program, we learned that the System V Release 4
awk had added the toupper and tolower functions (see Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation
Functions], page 129). These functions handle the vast majority of the cases where charac-
ter 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.
13.3.4 Printing Mailing Labels

Here is a “real world”5 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.
5
“Real world” is defined as “a program actually used to get something done.”
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 Section 3.1 [How Input Is Split into Records], page 36). 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 sequen-
tially 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()
}
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 Section 3.2 [Examining
Fields], page 39) to pick out the individual words from the line, and the built-in variable NF
(see Section 6.5 [Built-in Variables], page 107) 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 white-
space. 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 infor-
mation on how to use the sort program.
13.3.6 Removing Duplicates from Unsorted Text

The uniq program (see Section 13.2.6 [Printing Nonduplicated Lines of Text], page 224),
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.
13.3.7 Extracting Programs from Texinfo Source Files

Both this chapter and the previous chapter (Chapter 12 [A Library of awk Functions],
page 181) 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 book 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, avail-
able 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 Section 8.1.4 [Input/Output Functions], page 140). 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 Section 12.2.7 [Merging an Array into a String], page 190).
The example programs in the online Texinfo source for GAWK: Effective AWK Pro-
gramming (‘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")
next
}
$1 = ""
$2 = ""
stat = system($0)
if (stat != 0) {
e = (FILENAME ":" FNR)
e = (e ": warning: system returned " stat)
}
}
The variable e is used so that the function fits nicely on the page.
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 Section 3.8 [Explicit
Input with getline], page 51). 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 Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions], page 129). 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")
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
Section 4.6 [Redirecting Output of print and printf], page 65). 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)
}
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 Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions], page 129).
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 Section 3.1 [How Input Is Split into
Records], page 36).
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 Section 4.5 [Using
printf Statements for Fancier Printing], page 60).
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 Section 6.5.3 [Using ARGC and ARGV], page 113).
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.
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 environ-
ment variable and the ability to put awk functions into a library directory (see Section 11.2
[Command-Line Options], page 173). 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.6 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:
a. Literal text, provided with ‘--source’ or ‘--source=’. This text is just appended
directly.
b. 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:
6
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.
-- 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 Section 3.8 [Explicit Input with getline],
page 51). 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 Section 11.4 [The AWKPATH
Environment Variable], page 178). 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.7 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:
7
On some very old versions of awk, the test ‘getline junk < t’ can loop forever if the file exists but is
empty. Caveat emptor.
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 pro-
gramming 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.
Appendix A The Evolution of the awk Language

This book 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 book where you can find more
information.
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 Section 1.6 [awk Statements
Versus Lines], page 20).
• User-defined functions and the return statement (see Section 8.2 [User-Defined Func-
tions], page 149).
• The delete statement (see Section 7.6 [The delete Statement], page 120).
• The do-while statement (see Section 6.4.3 [The do-while Statement], page 101).
• The built-in functions atan2, cos, sin, rand, and srand (see Section 8.1.2 [Numeric
Functions], page 127).
• The built-in functions gsub, sub, and match (see Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation
• The built-in functions close and system (see Section 8.1.4 [Input/Output Functions],
page 140).
• The ARGC, ARGV, FNR, RLENGTH, RSTART, and SUBSEP built-in variables (see Section 6.5
[Built-in Variables], page 107).
• The conditional expression using the ternary operator ‘?:’ (see Section 5.12 [Condi-
tional Expressions], page 89).
• The exponentiation operator ‘^’ (see Section 5.5 [Arithmetic Operators], page 78) and
its assignment operator form ‘^=’ (see Section 5.7 [Assignment Expressions], page 81).
• C-compatible operator precedence, which breaks some old awk programs (see Sec-
tion 5.14 [Operator Precedence (How Operators Nest)], page 90).
• Regexps as the value of FS (see Section 3.5 [Specifying How Fields Are Separated],
page 43) and as the third argument to the split function (see Section 8.1.3 [String-
Manipulation Functions], page 129).
• Dynamic regexps as operands of the ‘~’ and ‘!~’ operators (see Section 2.1 [How to Use
Regular Expressions], page 24).
• The escape sequences ‘\b’, ‘\f’, and ‘\r’ (see Section 2.2 [Escape Sequences], page 25).
(Some vendors have updated their old versions of awk to recognize ‘\b’, ‘\f’, and ‘\r’,
but this is not something you can rely on.)
Appendix A: The Evolution of the awk Language 253
• Redirection of input for the getline function (see Section 3.8 [Explicit Input with
getline], page 51).
• Multiple BEGIN and END rules (see Section 6.1.4 [The BEGIN and END Special Patterns],
page 96).
• Multidimensional arrays (see Section 7.9 [Multidimensional Arrays], page 122).
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 Section 6.5 [Built-in Variables], page 107).
• Multiple ‘-f’ options on the command line (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options],
page 173).
• The ‘-v’ option for assigning variables before program execution begins (see Section 11.2
• The ‘--’ option for terminating command-line options.
• The ‘\a’, ‘\v’, and ‘\x’ escape sequences (see Section 2.2 [Escape Sequences], page 25).
• A defined return value for the srand built-in function (see Section 8.1.2 [Numeric
• The toupper and tolower built-in string functions for case translation (see
Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions], page 129).
• A cleaner specification for the ‘%c’ format-control letter in the printf function (see
Section 4.5.2 [Format-Control Letters], page 60).
• The ability to dynamically pass the field width and precision ("%*.*d") in the argument
list of the printf function (see Section 4.5.2 [Format-Control Letters], page 60).
• The use of regexp constants, such as /foo/, as expressions, where they are equivalent
to using the matching operator, as in ‘$0 ~ /foo/’ (see Section 5.2 [Using Regular
Expression Constants], page 74).
• Processing of escape sequences inside command-line variable assignments (see Sec-
tion 5.3.2 [Assigning Variables on the Command Line], page 76).
A.3 Changes Between SVR4 and POSIX awk

The POSIX Command Language and Utilities standard for awk (1992) introduced the fol-
lowing changes into the language:
• The use of ‘-W’ for implementation-specific options (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line
Options], page 173).
• The use of CONVFMT for controlling the conversion of numbers to strings (see Section 5.4
[Conversion of Strings and Numbers], page 77).
• The concept of a numeric string and tighter comparison rules to go with it (see Sec-
tion 5.10 [Variable Typing and Comparison Expressions], page 85).
• 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 Section 2.2 [Escape Sequences], page 25).
• Newlines do not act as whitespace to separate fields when FS is equal to a single space
(see Section 3.2 [Examining Fields], page 39).
• Newlines are not allowed after ‘?’ or ‘:’ (see Section 5.12 [Conditional Expressions],
page 89).
• The synonym func for the keyword function is not recognized (see Section 8.2.1
[Function Definition Syntax], page 149).
• The operators ‘**’ and ‘**=’ cannot be used in place of ‘^’ and ‘^=’ (see Section 5.5
[Arithmetic Operators], page 78, and Section 5.7 [Assignment Expressions], page 81).
• Specifying ‘-Ft’ on the command line does not set the value of FS to be a single TAB
character (see Section 3.5 [Specifying How Fields Are Separated], page 43).
• The fflush built-in function is not supported (see Section 8.1.4 [Input/Output Func-
tions], page 140).
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 Section B.6 [Other Freely Available awk Implementations], page 277).
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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options],
page 173). 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 Section 8.1.4
• The ‘**’ and ‘**=’ operators (see Section 5.5 [Arithmetic Operators], page 78 and
Section 5.7 [Assignment Expressions], page 81).
• The use of func as an abbreviation for function (see Section 8.2.1 [Function Definition
Syntax], page 149).
The Bell Laboratories awk also incorporates the following extensions, originally developed
for gawk:
• The ‘\x’ escape sequence (see Section 2.2 [Escape Sequences], page 25).
• The ‘/dev/stdin’, ‘/dev/stdout’, and ‘/dev/stderr’ special files (see Section 4.7
[Special File Names in gawk], page 67).
• The ability for FS and for the third argument to split to be null strings (see Sec-
tion 3.5.2 [Making Each Character a Separate Field], page 44).
• The nextfile statement (see Section 6.4.9 [Using gawk’s nextfile Statement],
page 106).
• The ability to delete all of an array at once with ‘delete array ’ (see Section 7.6 [The
delete Statement], page 120).
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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173).
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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173).
• The IGNORECASE variable and its effects (see Section 2.6 [Case Sensitivity in Matching],
page 32).
• The ‘/dev/stdin’, ‘/dev/stdout’, ‘/dev/stderr’ and ‘/dev/fd/N ’ special file names
(see Section 4.7 [Special File Names in gawk], page 67).
• The FIELDWIDTHS variable and its effects (see Section 3.6 [Reading Fixed-Width Data],
page 47).
• The systime and strftime built-in functions for obtaining and printing timestamps
(see Section 8.1.5 [Using gawk’s Timestamp Functions], page 142).
• The ‘-W lint’ option to provide error and portability checking for both the source code
and at runtime (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173).
• The ‘-W compat’ option to turn off the GNU extensions (see Section 11.2 [Command-
Line Options], page 173).
• The ‘-W posix’ option for full POSIX compliance (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line
Options], page 173).
Version 2.14 of gawk introduced the following feature:
• The next file statement for skipping to the next data file (see Section 6.4.9 [Using
gawk’s nextfile Statement], page 106).
• The ARGIND variable, which tracks the movement of FILENAME through ARGV (see Sec-
tion 6.5 [Built-in Variables], page 107).
• The ERRNO variable, which contains the system error message when getline returns
−1 or close fails (see Section 6.5 [Built-in Variables], page 107).
• The ‘/dev/pid’, ‘/dev/ppid’, ‘/dev/pgrpid’, and ‘/dev/user’ file name interpretation
(see Section 4.7 [Special File Names in gawk], page 67).
• The ability to delete all of an array at once with ‘delete array ’ (see Section 7.6 [The
delete Statement], page 120).
• The ability to use GNU-style long-named options that start with ‘--’ (see Section 11.2
• The ‘--source’ option for mixing command-line and library-file source code (see Sec-
• IGNORECASE changed, now applying to string comparison as well as regexp operations
(see Section 2.6 [Case Sensitivity in Matching], page 32).
• The RT variable that contains the input text that matched RS (see Section 3.1 [How
Input Is Split into Records], page 36).
• Full support for both POSIX and GNU regexps (see Chapter 2 [Regular Expressions],
page 24).
• The gensub function for more powerful text manipulation (see Section 8.1.3 [String-
Manipulation Functions], page 129).
• The strftime function acquired a default time format, allowing it to be called with
no arguments (see Section 8.1.5 [Using gawk’s Timestamp Functions], page 142).
• The ability for FS and for the third argument to split to be null strings (see Sec-
tion 3.5.2 [Making Each Character a Separate Field], page 44).
• The ability for RS to be a regexp (see Section 3.1 [How Input Is Split into Records],
page 36).
• The next file statement became nextfile (see Section 6.4.9 [Using gawk’s nextfile
Statement], page 106).
• The ‘--lint-old’ option to warn about constructs that are not available in the orig-
inal Version 7 Unix version of awk (see Section A.1 [Major Changes Between V7 and
SVR3.1], page 252).
• The ‘-m’ option and the fflush function from the Bell Laboratories research version
of awk (see Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173; also see Section 8.1.4
• The ‘--re-interval’ option to provide interval expressions in regexps (see Section 2.3
[Regular Expression Operators], page 27).
• The ‘--traditional’ option was added as a better name for ‘--compat’ (see Sec-
• The use of GNU Autoconf to control the configuration process (see Section B.2.1 [Com-
piling gawk for Unix], page 264).
• Amiga support (see Section B.3.1 [Installing gawk on an Amiga], page 266).
• The BINMODE special variable for non-POSIX systems, which allows binary I/O for
input and/or output files (see Section B.3.3.4 [Using gawk on PC Operating Systems],
page 270).
• The LINT special variable, which dynamically controls lint warnings (see Section 6.5
[Built-in Variables], page 107).
• The PROCINFO array for providing process-related information (see Section 6.5 [Built-in
Variables], page 107).
• The TEXTDOMAIN special variable for setting an application’s internationalization text
domain (see Section 6.5 [Built-in Variables], page 107, and Chapter 9 [International-
ization with gawk], page 156).
• The ability to use octal and hexadecimal constants in awk program source code (see
Section 5.1.2 [Octal and Hexadecimal Numbers], page 73).
• The ‘|&’ operator for two-way I/O to a coprocess (see Section 10.2 [Two-Way Commu-
nications with Another Process], page 166).
• The ‘/inet’ special files for TCP/IP networking using ‘|&’ (see Section 10.3 [Using
gawk for Network Programming], page 168).
• The optional second argument to close that allows closing one end of a two-way pipe
to a coprocess (see Section 10.2 [Two-Way Communications with Another Process],
page 166).
• The optional third argument to the match function for capturing text-matching subex-
pressions within a regexp (see Section 8.1.3 [String-Manipulation Functions], page 129).
• Positional specifiers in printf formats for making translations easier (see Section 9.4.2
[Rearranging printf Arguments], page 160).
• The asort and asorti functions for sorting arrays (see Section 7.11 [Sorting Array
Values and Indices with gawk], page 124).
• The bindtextdomain, dcgettext and dcngettext functions for internationalization
(see Section 9.3 [Internationalizing awk Programs], page 158).
• The extension built-in function and the ability to add new built-in functions dynam-
ically (see Section C.3 [Adding New Built-in Functions to gawk], page 282).
• The mktime built-in function for creating timestamps (see Section 8.1.5 [Using gawk’s
Timestamp Functions], page 142).
• The and, or, xor, compl, lshift, rshift, and strtonum built-in functions (see Sec-
tion 8.1.6 [Bit-Manipulation Functions of gawk], page 147).
• The support for ‘next file’ as two words was removed completely (see Section 6.4.9
[Using gawk’s nextfile Statement], page 106).
• The ‘--dump-variables’ option to print a list of all global variables (see Section 11.2
• The ‘--gen-po’ command-line option and the use of a leading underscore to mark
strings that should be translated (see Section 9.4.1 [Extracting Marked Strings],
page 160).
• The ‘--non-decimal-data’ option to allow non-decimal input data (see Section 10.1
[Allowing Nondecimal Input Data], page 165).
• The ‘--profile’ option and pgawk, the profiling version of gawk, for producing execu-
tion profiles of awk programs (see Section 10.5 [Profiling Your awk Programs], page 169).
• The ‘--enable-portals’ configuration option to enable special treatment of pathnames
that begin with ‘/p’ as BSD portals (see Section 10.4 [Using gawk with BSD Portals],
page 169).
• The use of GNU Automake to help in standardizing the configuration process (see
Section B.2.1 [Compiling gawk for Unix], page 264).
• The use of GNU gettext for gawk’s own message output (see Section 9.6 [gawk Can
Speak Your Language], page 163).
• BeOS support (see Section B.3.2 [Installing gawk on BeOS], page 266).
• Tandem support (see Section B.4.2 [Installing gawk on a Tandem], page 275).
• The Atari port became officially unsupported (see Section B.4.1 [Installing gawk on the
Atari ST], page 274).
• 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 Section B.2.2 [Additional Configuration Options], page 264).
• POSIX compliance for sub and gsub (see Section 8.1.3.1 [More About ‘\’ and ‘&’ with
sub, gsub, and gensub], page 136).
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 book, 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 book.
• Jay Fenlason finished the initial implementation.
• Diane Close revised the first draft of this book, bringing it to around 90 pages.
• Richard Stallman helped finish the implementation and the initial draft of this book.
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 plat-
forms 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 doc-
umentation, 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 environ-
ments.
• Arnold Robbins has been working on gawk since 1988, at first helping David Trueman,
and as the primary maintainer since around 1994.
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 Section B.5 [Reporting Problems and Bugs],
page 276, for the electronic mail addresses of the people who did the respective ports.
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.
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 ad-
dress is:
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 di-
rectory ‘/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.
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
Appendix B: Installing gawk 261
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.
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 Section B.2 [Compiling and Installing
gawk on Unix], page 264), 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 Intel-
ligence) 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 book. 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 book.
‘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 Section 13.3.9 [An Easy Way to Use Library Functions], page 244.
‘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 Section B.2 [Compiling and Installing gawk on
Unix], page 264.
‘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 Section 13.3.7
[Extracting Programs from Texinfo Source Files], page 240), which can be used
to extract the sample programs from the Texinfo source file for this book. 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 Chapter 12 [A Library of awk Functions], page 181, and the
igawk program from Section 13.3.9 [An Easy Way to Use Library Functions],
page 244, 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
book are available in appropriate subdirectories of ‘awklib/eg’.
‘unsupported/atari/*’
Files needed for building gawk on an Atari ST (see Section B.4.1 [Installing
gawk on the Atari ST], page 274, for details).
‘unsupported/tandem/*’
Files needed for building gawk on a Tandem (see Section B.4.2 [Installing gawk
on a Tandem], page 275, 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
Section B.3.3 [Installation on PC Operating Systems], page 267, for details).
‘vms/*’ Files needed for building gawk under VMS (see Section B.3.4 [How to Compile
and Install gawk on VMS], page 271, for details).
‘test/*’ A test suite for gawk. You can use ‘make check’ from the top-level gawk di-
rectory 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.
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.
B.2.1 Compiling gawk for Unix

After you have extracted the gawk distribution, cd to ‘gawk-3.1.4’. Like most GNU soft-
ware, 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 Section B.5 [Reporting Problems and Bugs], page 276.)
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 Section 10.4 [Using gawk with BSD Portals],
page 169).
--enable-switch
Enable the recognition and execution of C-style switch statements in awk pro-
grams (see Section 6.4.5 [The switch Statement], page 102.)
--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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173)
are accepted, but silently do nothing. Similarly, setting the LINT variable (see
Section 6.5.1 [Built-in Variables That Control awk], page 107) has no effect on
the running awk program.
When used with GCC’s automatic dead-code-elimination, this option cuts al-
most 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.
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 Section B.5 [Reporting Problems and Bugs],
page 276, 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’.
B.3 Installation on Other Operating Systems

This section describes how to install gawk on various non-Unix systems.
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 Section B.5 [Reporting Problems and Bugs], page 276).
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 Section B.5 [Reporting Problems
and Bugs], page 276).
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.
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.
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, Win-
dows32 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 un-
der 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/.
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.
B.3.3.4 Using gawk on PC Operating Systems

With the exception of the Cygwin environment, the ‘|&’ operator and TCP/IP networking
(see Section 10.3 [Using gawk for Network Programming], page 168) 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
Section 11.4 [The AWKPATH Environment Variable], page 178. 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 Section B.6 [Other Freely Available
awk Implementations], page 277). 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.
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.1
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 Section 10.3 [Using
gawk for Network Programming], page 168) are fully supported in the Cygwin
environment. This is not true for any other environment for MS-DOS or MS-
Windows.
B.3.4 How to Compile and Install gawk on VMS

This subsection describes how to compile and install gawk under VMS.
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:
1
http://www.cygwin.com
$ @[.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.
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 lan-
guage.
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.
B.3.4.3 Running gawk on VMS

Command-line parsing and quoting conventions are significantly different on VMS, so exam-
ples in this book 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.
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.
B.4 Unsupported Operating System Ports

This sections describes systems for which the gawk port is no longer supported.
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. Com-
piled 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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173). 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.
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 ints 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 Section B.4.1.2 [Running gawk on the Atari ST], page 274.
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.
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 Section 11.4 [The
AWKPATH Environment Variable], page 178. 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 Section 2.2 [Escape Sequences], page 25).
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 Section 3.8.5 [Using
getline from a Pipe], page 54, Section 3.8.6 [Using getline into a Variable from a Pipe],
page 55, and Section 4.6 [Redirecting Output of print and printf], page 65), 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 Section 11.2 [Command-Line Options], page 173) has been
“stolen” to enable Tandem users to process fixed-length records with no “end-of-line” char-
acter. That is, ‘-mr 74’ tells gawk to read the input file as fixed 74-byte records.
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 book.
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.
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.2 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 Section A.4 [Extensions in the Bell Laboratories awk], page 254, 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 [GNU General Public License],
page 309), 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 Section B.2 [Compiling and Installing gawk on Unix], page 264).
mawk has the following extensions that are not in POSIX awk:
• The fflush built-in function for flushing buffered output (see Section 8.1.4
2
http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/bwk
• The ‘**’ and ‘**=’ operators (see Section 5.5 [Arithmetic Operators],
page 78 and also see Section 5.7 [Assignment Expressions], page 81).
• The use of func as an abbreviation for function (see Section 8.2.1 [Func-
tion Definition Syntax], page 149).
• The ‘\x’ escape sequence (see Section 2.2 [Escape Sequences], page 25).
• The ‘/dev/stdout’, and ‘/dev/stderr’ special files (see Section 4.7 [Spe-
cial File Names in gawk], page 67). Use "-" instead of "/dev/stdin" with
mawk.
• The ability for FS and for the third argument to split to be null strings
(see Section 3.5.2 [Making Each Character a Separate Field], page 44).
• The ability to delete all of an array at once with ‘delete array ’ (see
Section 7.6 [The delete Statement], page 120).
• The ability for RS to be a regexp (see Section 3.1 [How Input Is Split into
Records], page 36).
• The BINMODE special variable for non-Unix operating systems (see Sec-
tion B.3.3.4 [Using gawk on PC Operating Systems], page 270).
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 Section 10.5 [Profiling Your awk Programs], page 169), 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.
Appendix C: Implementation Notes 279
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.
C.1 Downward Compatibility and Debugging

See Section A.5 [Extensions in gawk Not in POSIX awk], page 255, 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.
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 [GNU General Public License], page 309).
This section discusses the ways you might want to change gawk as well as any consider-
ations you should bear in mind.
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 Section C.3 [Adding New Built-in Functions to gawk], page 282). 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 Section B.1.1 [Getting the gawk Distribution],
page 260, 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 cases 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 ver-
sions; 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 Section B.5 [Reporting Problems and Bugs],
page 276), or gnu@gnu.org.
6. Update the documentation. Along with your new code, please supply new sections
and/or chapters for this book. If at all possible, please use real Texinfo, instead of just
supplying unformatted ASCII text (although even that is better than no documenta-
tion 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 Section B.5 [Reporting Problems and Bugs], page 276, 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.
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 ‘#ifdef’s 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 [GNU General Public License],
page 309).
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 scru-
tinized 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 ‘#ifdef’s 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 book 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.
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.
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 max-
imum 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 param-
eters, 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 appropri-
ately. 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 appropri-
ately. 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 appropri-
ately. 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 appropri-
ately. 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 argu-
ment 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.
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.
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 inte-
grated 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 Section 6.5 [Built-in
Variables], page 107) 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 Section 8.1
[Built-in Functions], page 127).
"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 Section 7.2 [Referring to an Array Element], page 117):
"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.
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:1
1
This version is edited slightly for presentation. The complete version can be found in
‘extension/filefuncs.c’ in the gawk distribution.
#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();
free_temp(file);
}
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 */

/* Just to make the interpreter happy */

}
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);
}
And that’s it! As an exercise, consider adding functions to implement system calls such
as chown, chmod, and umask.
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
a Info for testff.awk
a ret = 0
a data["blksize"] = 4096
a data["mtime"] = 932361936
a data["mode"] = 33188
a data["type"] = file
a data["dev"] = 2065
a data["gid"] = 10
a data["ino"] = 878597
a data["ctime"] = 971431797
a data["blocks"] = 2
a data["nlink"] = 1
a data["name"] = testff.awk
a data["atime"] = 971608519
a data["pmode"] = -rw-r--r--
a data["size"] = 607
a data["uid"] = 2076
a testff.awk modified: 07 19 99 08:25:36
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 direc-
tions 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 speci-
fiers. 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 Section C.3 [Adding New Built-
in Functions to gawk], page 282), 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 book.
See Section C.2 [Making Additions to gawk], page 279, if you are interested in tackling
any of these projects.
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 book. As this book 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.)
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 program1 (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:
No
Initialization More Data? Clean Up
Yes
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 Section 6.1.4 [The BEGIN and
END Special Patterns], page 96).
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 Chapter 1 [Getting Started with awk], page 11)
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.
1
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.
Appendix D: Basic Programming Concepts 295
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 Section 6.1.4 [The BEGIN
and END Special Patterns], page 96).
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 surpris-
ingly, 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.
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 Section D.3 [Floating-Point Number Caveats], page 296.
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 Section 5.1.2 [Octal and Hexadecimal Numbers],
page 73.
Programs are written in programming languages. Hundreds, if not thousands, of pro-
gramming 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.
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 Ev-
ery Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-point Arithmetic,” ACM Computing
Surveys 23, 1 (1991-03), 5-48.2 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
2
http://www.validlab.com/goldberg/paper.ps.
Appendix D: Basic Programming Concepts 297
Section 5.10 [Variable Typing and Comparison Expressions], page 85), 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
a $1 = 4.8888888
a a = <4.88889>
a $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.3
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
a 0000051579
515.80
a 0000051579
515.81
a 0000051580
515.82
a 0000051582
Ctrl-d
3
Pathological cases can require up to 752 digits (!), but we doubt that you need to worry about this.
This shows that some values can be represented exactly, whereas others are only approx-
imated. 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
> }’
a -0 = -0, +0 = 0, (-0 == +0) -> 1
a 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.
Appendix D: Glossary 299
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 Section 6.3 [Actions], page 98.)
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 lan-
guages. These standards often become international standards as well. See also
“ISO.”
Array A grouping of multiple values under the same name. Most languages just pro-
vide 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 Section 5.7 [Assignment Expressions], page 81.
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, ad-
dresses 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 Section 8.1.6 [Bit-Manipulation Functions of gawk],
page 147.
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 writ-
ten 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 Section 8.1 [Built-in Functions], page 127.)
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
Section 6.5 [Built-in Variables], page 107.)
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 book points out simi-
larities 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 Section 6.4 [Control Statements in Actions], page 99.)
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 Section 5.6 [String Concatenation],
page 80.)
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 Section 5.12
[Conditional Expressions], page 89.)
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 Section 5.10 [Variable Typing and Comparison
Expressions], page 85.)
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
book with the picture of a flashlight in the margin 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 Section 5.4 [Conversion of Strings and Numbers],
page 77.)
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 Section 2.8 [Using Dynamic Regexps],
page 34.)
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 in-
formation 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
Section 2.2 [Escape Sequences], page 25.)
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
Section 3.5 [Specifying How Fields Are Separated], page 43, and Section 3.6
[Reading Fixed-Width Data], page 47.)
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 Section 4.5.2 [Format-Control
Letters], page 60.)
Free Documentation License
This document describes the terms under which this book is published and may
be copied. (See [GNU Free Documentation License], page 315.)
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 Chapter 8 [Functions], page 127.)
FSF See “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 [GNU General Public License], page 309.)
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 environ-
ment.
GNU/Linux
A variant of the GNU system using the Linux kernel, instead of the Free Soft-
ware 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 Section 3.1 [How Input Is Split into Records],
page 36.)
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 in-
structions 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 inter-
national 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 book 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 al-
ternation.
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 Section 6.1 [Pattern Elements], page 93.)
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 func-
tions and not for the main awk program. Special care must be taken when
naming such variables and functions. (See Section 12.1 [Naming Library Func-
tion Global Variables], page 181.)
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
Section 6.1 [Pattern Elements], page 93.)
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 out-
put 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
Section 4.6 [Redirecting Output of print and printf], page 65, and Section 3.8
[Explicit Input with getline], page 51.)
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 Chapter 2 [Regular Expressions], page 24.)
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 Section 2.1 [How to Use
Regular Expressions], page 24.)
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 en-
tire expression is determinable from evaluating just the lefthand side of these
operators, the righthand side is not evaluated. (See Section 5.11 [Boolean Ex-
pressions], page 88.)
Side Effect
A side effect occurs when an expression has an effect aside from merely pro-
ducing a value. Assignment expressions, increment and decrement expressions,
and function calls have side effects. (See Section 5.7 [Assignment Expressions],
page 81.)
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 Section 4.7
[Special File Names in gawk], page 67.)
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’. Con-
stant strings are written with double quotes in the awk language and may
contain escape sequences. (See Section 2.2 [Escape Sequences], page 25.)
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 sys-
tem 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.
Appendix D: GNU General Public License 309
GNU General Public License

Version 2, June 1991
Copyright
c 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
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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
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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
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Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this
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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:
a. You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you
changed the files and the date of any change.
b. 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.
c. 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:
a. 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,
b. 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 distri-
bution, 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,
c. Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute cor-
responding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial dis-
tribution 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 modifi-
cations 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 spe-
cial 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 contri-
butions 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 distri-
bution 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 Foun-
dation; 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 AP-
PLICABLE 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 IM-
PLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE EN-
TIRE 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.
Appendix D: GNU Free Documentation License 315
GNU Free Documentation License

Version 1.2, November 2002
Copyright 2000,2001,2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
c
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 non-
commercially. 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 com-
posed 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:
A. 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.
B. 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.
C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the
publisher.
D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.
E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other
copyright notices.
F. 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.
G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover
Texts given in the Document’s license notice.
H. Include an unaltered copy of this License.
I. 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 Docu-
ment, 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.
J. 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.
K. 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.
L. 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.
M. Delete any section Entitled “Endorsements”. Such a section may not be included
in the Modified Version.
N. Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled “Endorsements” or to conflict in
title with any Invariant Section.
O. 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
You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License,
under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you
include in the combination all of the Invariant Sections of all of the original documents,
unmodified, and list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its license
notice, and that you preserve all their Warranty Disclaimers.
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 vari-
ous 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
You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released
under this License, and replace the individual copies of this License in the various
documents with a single copy that is included in the collection, provided that you
follow the rules of this License for verbatim copying of each of the documents in all
other respects.
You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individu-
ally under this License, provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted
document, and follow this License in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of
that document.
7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent
documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called
an “aggregate” if the copyright resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the
legal rights of the compilation’s users beyond what the individual works permit. When
the Document is included an aggregate, this License does not apply to the other works
in the aggregate which are not themselves derivative works of the Document.
If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document,
then if the Document is less than one half of the entire aggregate, the Document’s Cover
Texts may be placed on covers that bracket the Document within the aggregate, or the
electronic equivalent of covers if the Document is in electronic form. Otherwise they
must appear on printed covers that bracket the whole aggregate.
8. TRANSLATION
Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations
of the Document under the terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with
translations requires special permission from their copyright holders, but you may
include translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the original versions
of these Invariant Sections. You may include a translation of this License, and all the
license notices in the Document, and any Warrany Disclaimers, provided that you
also include the original English version of this License and the original versions of
those notices and disclaimers. In case of a disagreement between the translation and
the original version of this License or a notice or disclaimer, the original version will
prevail.
If a section in the Document is Entitled “Acknowledgements”, “Dedications”, or “His-
tory”, the requirement (section 4) to Preserve its Title (section 1) will typically require
changing the actual title.
9. TERMINATION
You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly
provided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or
distribute the Document 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.
10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE
The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free
Documentation 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.
See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.
Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document
specifies that a particular numbered version of this License “or any later version”
applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that
specified version or of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by
the Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version number of
this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free
Software Foundation.
ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the
document and put the following copyright and license notices just after the title page:
Copyright (C) year your name.
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 no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
A copy of the license is included in the section entitled ‘‘GNU
Free Documentation License’’.
If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts, replace the
“with...Texts.” line with this:
with the Invariant Sections being list their titles, with
the Front-Cover Texts being list, and with the Back-Cover Texts
being list.
If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other combination of the
three, merge those two alternatives to suit the situation.
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.
Index
! *
! (exclamation point), ! operator . . . . . 88, 91, 218 * (asterisk), * operator, as multiplication operator
! (exclamation point), != operator . . . . . . . . . 86, 91 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
! (exclamation point), !~ operator . . 24, 32, 34, 74, * (asterisk), * operator, as regexp operator . . . . 28
86, 87, 91, 94 * (asterisk), * operator, null strings, matching
! operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95, 218 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
* (asterisk), ** operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80, 91, 176
* (asterisk), **= operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83, 92, 176
* (asterisk), *= operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83, 92
"
" (double quote) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 15
" (double quote), regexp constants . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
+
+ (plus sign) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
+ (plus sign), + operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
+ (plus sign), ++ operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84, 91
# + (plus sign), += operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82, 92
# (number sign), #! (executable scripts) . . . . . . . 13 + (plus sign), decrement/increment operators . . 83
# (number sign), #! (executable scripts),
portability issues with . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
# (number sign), commenting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
,
, (comma), in range patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
$ -
$ (dollar sign) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 - (hyphen), - operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
$ (dollar sign), $ field operator . . . . . . . . . . . . 39, 91 - (hyphen), -- (decrement/increment) operator
$ (dollar sign), incrementing fields and arrays . . 84 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
$ field operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 - (hyphen), -- operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
- (hyphen), -= operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83, 92
- (hyphen), filenames beginning with . . . . . . . . . 174
- (hyphen), in character lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
% --assign option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
% (percent sign), % operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 --compat option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
% (percent sign), %= operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83, 92 --copyleft option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
--copyright option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
--disable-lint configuration option . . . . . . . . . 264
--disable-nls configuration option . . . . . . . . . . 265
& --dump-variables option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175, 182
& (ampersand), && operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88, 91 --enable-portals configuration option . . 169, 264
& (ampersand), gsub/gensub/sub functions and --enable-switch configuration option. . . . . . . . 264
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 --field-separator option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
--file option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
--gen-po option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160, 175
’ --help option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
--lint option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173, 175
’ (single quote) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11, 13, 15 --lint-old option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
’ (single quote), vs. apostrophe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 --non-decimal-data option . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165, 175
’ (single quote), with double quotes . . . . . . . . . . . 15 --non-decimal-data option, strtonum function
and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
--posix option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
( --posix option, --traditional option and . . . 176
--profile option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169, 176
() (parentheses) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 --re-interval option. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
() (parentheses), pgawk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 --source option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176, 177
Appendix D: Index 323
--traditional option. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 >

--traditional option, --posix option and . . . 176 > (right angle bracket), > operator . . . . . . . . . 86, 91
--usage option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 > (right angle bracket), > operator (I/O) . . . . . . . 65
--version option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 > (right angle bracket), >= operator . . . . . . . . 86, 91
--with-included-gettext configuration option > (right angle bracket), >> operator (I/O) . . 66, 91
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164, 264
--with-included-gettext configuration option,
configuring gawk with . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264 ?
-f option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 173
? (question mark) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28, 31
-F option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45, 173
? (question mark), ?: operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
-F option, -Ft sets FS to TAB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
-f option, on command line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
-F option, troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 [
-mf/-mr options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
-v option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 [] (square brackets) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
-v option, variables, assigning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
-W option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
^
^ (caret) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27, 31
. ^ (caret), ^ operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91, 176
. (period) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 ^ (caret), ^= operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83, 92, 176
.mo files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 ^ (caret), in character lists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
.mo files, converting from .po . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
.mo files, specifying directory of . . . . . . . . . 157, 158
.po files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156, 159
.po files, converting to .mo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 _ (underscore), _ C macro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
_ (underscore), in names of private variables . . 182
_ (underscore), translatable string . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
_gr_init user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
/ _pw_init user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
/ (forward slash). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
/ (forward slash), / operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
/ (forward slash), /= operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83, 92 {
/ (forward slash), /= operator, vs. /=.../ regexp {} (braces), actions and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
constant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 {} (braces), pgawk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
/ (forward slash), patterns and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 {} (braces), statements, grouping . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
/= operator vs. /=.../ regexp constant. . . . . . . . 83
/dev/... special files (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
/inet/ files (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 \
/p files (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
\ (backslash) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 14, 15, 27
\ (backslash), \" escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
; \ (backslash), \’ operator (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
\ (backslash), \/ escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
; (semicolon) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 \ (backslash), \< operator (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
; (semicolon), AWKPATH variable and . . . . . . . . . . 270 \ (backslash), \> operator (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
; (semicolon), separating statements in actions \ (backslash), \‘ operator (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98, 99 \ (backslash), \a escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
\ (backslash), \b escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
\ (backslash), \B operator (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
< \ (backslash), \f escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
< (left angle bracket), < operator . . . . . . . . . . 86, 91 \ (backslash), \n escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
< (left angle bracket), < operator (I/O) . . . . . . . . 53 \ (backslash), \nnn escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . 25
< (left angle bracket), <= operator . . . . . . . . . 86, 91 \ (backslash), \r escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
\ (backslash), \t escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
\ (backslash), \v escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
= \ (backslash), \w operator (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
= (equals sign), = operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 \ (backslash), \W operator (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
= (equals sign), == operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86, 91 \ (backslash), \x escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
\ (backslash), \y operator (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 advanced features, piping into sh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

\ (backslash), as field separators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 advanced features, regexp constants . . . . . . . . . . . 83
\ (backslash), continuing lines and . . . . . . . . 21, 219 Aho, Alfred . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 258
\ (backslash), continuing lines and, comments and alarm clock example program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 alarm.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
\ (backslash), continuing lines and, in csh . . 20, 21 algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
\ (backslash), gsub/gensub/sub functions and Alpha (DEC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 amazing awk assembler (aaa) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
\ (backslash), in character lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 amazingly workable formatter (awf) . . . . . . . . . . 299
\ (backslash), in escape sequences . . . . . . . . . 25, 26 ambiguity, syntactic: /= operator vs. /=.../
\ (backslash), in escape sequences, POSIX and regexp constant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 amiga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
\ (backslash), regexp constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 ampersand (&), && operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
ampersand (&), &&operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
ampersand (&), gsub/gensub/sub functions and
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
| (vertical bar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 AND bitwise operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
| (vertical bar), | operator (I/O) . . . . . . . 54, 66, 91 and Boolean-logic operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
| (vertical bar), |& operator (I/O) . . 55, 66, 91, 166 and function (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
| (vertical bar), |& operator (I/O), pipes, closing ANSI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 archeologists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
| (vertical bar), |& operator (I/O), two-way ARGC/ARGV variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110, 113
communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 ARGC/ARGV variables, command-line arguments
| (vertical bar), || operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88, 91 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
ARGC/ARGV variables, portability and . . . . . . . . . . 14
ARGIND variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
~ ARGIND variable, command-line arguments . . . . 178
~ (tilde), ~ operator . . . . . 32, 34, 74, 86, 87, 91, 94 arguments, command-line . . . . . . . . . . 110, 113, 178
arguments, command-line, invoking awk . . . . . . 173
arguments, in function calls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
A arguments, processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
accessing fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 arguments, retrieving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
account information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201, 205 arithmetic operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
actions, control statements in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 arrays, as parameters to functions . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
actions, default . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 arrays, associative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
actions, empty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 arrays, associative, clearing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
adding, features to gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 arrays, associative, library functions and . . . . . . 182
adding, fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 arrays, deleting entire contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
adding, functions to gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282 arrays, elements, assigning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
advanced features, buffering . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141, 142 arrays, elements, deleting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
advanced features, close function . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 arrays, elements, installing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
advanced features, constants, values of . . . . . . . . 74 arrays, elements, order of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
advanced features, data files as single record . . . 38 arrays, elements, referencing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
advanced features, fixed-width data . . . . . . . . . . . 47 arrays, elements, retrieving number of . . . . . . . . 129
advanced features, FNR/NR variables . . . . . . . . . . 113 arrays, for statement and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
advanced features, gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 arrays, IGNORECASE variable and . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
advanced features, gawk, BSD portals . . . . . . . . 169 arrays, indexing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
advanced features, gawk, network programming arrays, merging into strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 arrays, multidimensional . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
advanced features, gawk, nondecimal input data arrays, multidimensional, scanning . . . . . . . . . . . 124
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 arrays, names of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
advanced features, gawk, processes, communicating arrays, scanning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
with . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 arrays, sorting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
advanced features, network connections, See Also arrays, sorting, IGNORECASE variable and . . . . . . 126
networks, connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 arrays, sparse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
advanced features, null strings, matching . . . . . 139 arrays, subscripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
advanced features, operators, precedence . . . . . . 84 arrays, subscripts, uninitialized variables as . . . 122
artificial intelligence, gawk and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 awk, versions of. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 252

ASCII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 awk, versions of, changes between SVR3.1 and
asort function (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124, 129 SVR4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
asort function (gawk), arrays, sorting . . . . . . . . 124 awk, versions of, changes between SVR4 and
asorti function (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 POSIX awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
assert function (C library) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 awk, versions of, changes between V7 and SVR3.1
assert user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
assertions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 awk, versions of, See Also Bell Laboratories awk
assignment operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
assignment operators, evaluation order . . . . . . . . 82 awk.h file (internal) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
assignment operators, lvalues/rvalues . . . . . . . . . . 81 awka compiler for awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
assignments as filenames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 AWKNUM internal type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
assoc_clear internal function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 AWKPATH environment variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
assoc_lookup internal function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 AWKPATH environment variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
associative arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 awkprof.out file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
asterisk (*), * operator, as multiplication operator awksed.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 awkvars.out file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
asterisk (*), * operator, as regexp operator . . . . 28
asterisk (*), * operator, null strings, matching
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 B
asterisk (*), ** operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80, 91, 176 backslash (\) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 14, 15, 27
asterisk (*), **= operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83, 92, 176 backslash (\), \" escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
asterisk (*), *= operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83, 92 backslash (\), \’ operator (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
atan2 function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 backslash (\), \/ escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
atari . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 backslash (\), \< operator (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
awf (amazingly workable formatter) program . . 299 backslash (\), \> operator (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
awk language, POSIX version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 backslash (\), \‘ operator (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
awk programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11, 13, 19 backslash (\), \a escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
awk programs, complex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 backslash (\), \b escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
awk programs, documenting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14, 181 backslash (\), \B operator (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
awk programs, examples of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 backslash (\), \f escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
awk programs, execution of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 backslash (\), \n escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
awk programs, internationalizing . . . . . . . . . 149, 158 backslash (\), \nnn escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . 25
awk programs, lengthy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 backslash (\), \r escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
awk programs, lengthy, assertions . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 backslash (\), \t escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
awk programs, location of. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 backslash (\), \v escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
awk programs, one-line examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 backslash (\), \w operator (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
awk programs, profiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 backslash (\), \W operator (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
awk programs, profiling, enabling . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 backslash (\), \x escape sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
awk programs, running . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11, 12 backslash (\), \y operator (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
awk programs, running, from shell scripts . . . . . . 11 backslash (\), as field separators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
awk programs, running, without input files . . . . . 12 backslash (\), continuing lines and . . . . . . . . 21, 219
awk programs, shell variables in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 backslash (\), continuing lines and, comments and
awk, function of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
awk, gawk and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 5 backslash (\), continuing lines and, in csh . . 20, 21
awk, history of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 backslash (\), gsub/gensub/sub functions and
awk, implementation issues, pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
awk, implementations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277 backslash (\), in character lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
awk, implementations, limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 backslash (\), in escape sequences . . . . . . . . . 25, 26
awk, invoking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 backslash (\), in escape sequences, POSIX and
awk, new vs. old . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
awk, new vs. old, OFMT variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 backslash (\), regexp constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
awk, POSIX and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 BBS-list file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
awk, POSIX and, See Also POSIX awk . . . . . . . . . . 3 Beebe, Nelson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
awk, regexp constants and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Beebe, Nelson H.F. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
awk, See Also gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 BEGIN pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36, 43, 96
awk, terms describing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 BEGIN pattern, assert user-defined function and
awk, uses for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 11, 22 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
BEGIN pattern, Boolean patterns and . . . . . . . . . . 94 built-in variables, user-modifiable . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

BEGIN pattern, exit statement and . . . . . . . . . . . 106
BEGIN pattern, getline and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
BEGIN pattern, headings, adding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 C
BEGIN pattern, next/nextfile statements and call by reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97, 105 call by value. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
BEGIN pattern, OFS/ORS variables, assigning values caret (^) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27, 31
to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 caret (^), ^ operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91, 176
BEGIN pattern, operators and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 caret (^), ^= operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83, 92, 176
BEGIN pattern, pgawk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 caret (^), in character lists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
BEGIN pattern, print statement and . . . . . . . . . . . 97 case keyword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
BEGIN pattern, pwcat program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 case sensitivity, array indices and . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
BEGIN pattern, running awk programs and . . . . 211 case sensitivity, converting case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
BEGIN pattern, TEXTDOMAIN variable and . . . . . . 159 case sensitivity, example programs . . . . . . . . . . . 181
beginfile user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 case sensitivity, gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Bell Laboratories awk extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254 case sensitivity, regexps and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32, 108
Benzinger, Michael. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 case sensitivity, string comparisons and . . . . . . . 108
BeOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 character encodings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Berry, Karl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 character lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27, 29
binary input/output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 character lists, character classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
bindtextdomain function (C library) . . . . . . . . . 157 character lists, collating elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
bindtextdomain function (gawk) . . . . . . . . . 149, 158 character lists, collating symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
bindtextdomain function (gawk), portability and character lists, complemented . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 character lists, equivalence classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
BINMODE variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107, 270 character lists, non-ASCII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
bits2str user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 character lists, range expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
bitwise, complement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 character sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
bitwise, operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 character sets (machine character encodings) . . 300
bitwise, shift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 character sets, See Also character lists . . . . . . . . . 27
body, in actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 characters, counting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
body, in loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 characters, transliterating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Boolean expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 characters, values of as numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Boolean expressions, as patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Chassell, Robert J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Boolean operators, See Boolean expressions . . . . 88 chdir function, implementing in gawk . . . . . . . . 286
Bourne shell, quoting rules for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 chem utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
braces ({}), actions and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 chr user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
braces ({}), pgawk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Cliff random numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
braces ({}), statements, grouping . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 cliff_rand user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
bracket expressions, See character lists . . . . . . . . 27 close function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54, 70, 140
break statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 close function, return values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Brennan, Michael . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121, 166, 243, 277 close function, two-way pipes and . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Broder, Alan J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Close, Diane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 258
Brown, Martin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 258, 276 collating elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
BSD portals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 collating symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
BSD-based operating systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 columns, aligning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Buening, Andreas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 259 columns, cutting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
buffering, input/output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142, 167 comma (,), in range patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
buffering, interactive vs. noninteractive . . . . . . . 141 command line, arguments . . . . . . . . . . 110, 113, 178
buffers, flushing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140, 142 command line, formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
buffers, operators for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 command line, FS on, setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
bug reports, email address, bug-gawk@gnu.org command line, invoking awk from . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 command line, options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 45, 173
bug-gawk@gnu.org bug reporting address . . . . . 276 command line, options, end of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
built-in functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 command line, variables, assigning on . . . . . . . . . 76
built-in functions, evaluation order . . . . . . . . . . . 127 command-line options, processing . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
built-in variables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 command-line options, string extraction . . . . . . 160
built-in variables, -v option, setting with . . . . . 174 commenting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
built-in variables, conveying information . . . . . . 110 commenting, backslash continuation and . . . . . . . 22
comp.lang.awk newsgroup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 dark corner, command-line arguments . . . . . . . . . 77

comparison expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 dark corner, continue statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
comparison expressions, as patterns . . . . . . . . . . . 93 dark corner, CONVFMT variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
comparison expressions, string vs. regexp . . . . . . 87 dark corner, escape sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
compatibility mode (gawk), extensions . . . . . . . . 255 dark corner, escape sequences, for metacharacters
compatibility mode (gawk), file names . . . . . . . . . 70 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
compatibility mode (gawk), hexadecimal numbers dark corner, exit statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 dark corner, field separators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
compatibility mode (gawk), octal numbers . . . . . 74 dark corner, FILENAME variable . . . . . . . . . . . 56, 111
compatibility mode (gawk), specifying . . . . . . . . 174 dark corner, FNR/NR variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
compiled programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294, 301 dark corner, format-control characters . . . . . . . . . 61
compl function (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 dark corner, FS as null string . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
complement, bitwise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 dark corner, input files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
compound statements, control statements and . . 99 dark corner, invoking awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
concatenating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 dark corner, multiline records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
conditional expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 dark corner, NF variable, decrementing . . . . . . . . . 42
configuration option, --disable-lint . . . . . . . . 264 dark corner, OFMT variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
configuration option, --disable-nls . . . . . . . . . 265
dark corner, regexp constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
configuration option, --enable-portals . . . . . . 264
dark corner, regexp constants, /= operator and
configuration option, --enable-switch . . . . . . . 264
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
configuration option, --with-included-gettext
dark corner, regexp constants, as arguments to
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164, 264
user-defined functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
configuration options, gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
dark corner, split function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
constants, nondecimal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
dark corner, strings, storing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
constants, types of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
data, fixed-width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
continue statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
data-driven languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
control statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
converting, case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 database, group, reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
converting, dates to timestamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 database, users, reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
converting, during subscripting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 date utility, GNU. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
converting, numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 date utility, POSIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
converting, numbers, to strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 dates, converting to timestamps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
converting, strings to numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 dates, information related to, localization . . . . . 158
CONVFMT variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77, 108 Davies, Stephen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258, 277
CONVFMT variable, array subscripts and . . . . . . . 121 dcgettext function (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149, 158
coprocesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66, 166 dcgettext function (gawk), portability and . . . 161
coprocesses, closing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 dcngettext function (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149, 158
coprocesses, getline from . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 dcngettext function (gawk), portability and . . 161
cos function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 deadlocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
counting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 debugging gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
csh utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 debugging gawk, bug reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
csh utility, |& operator, comparison with . . . . . 166 decrement operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
csh utility, backslash continuation and . . . . . . . . 20 default keyword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
csh utility, POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable Deifik, Scott . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 258, 276
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 delete statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
ctime user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 deleting elements in arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
currency symbols, localization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 deleting entire arrays. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
custom.h file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 differences in awk and gawk, ARGC/ARGV variables
cut utility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
cut.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 differences in awk and gawk, ARGIND variable . . 110
differences in awk and gawk, array elements,
deleting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
D differences in awk and gawk, AWKPATH environment
d.c., See dark corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
dark corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 62, 83, 85, 301 differences in awk and gawk, BEGIN/END patterns
dark corner, array subscripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
dark corner, break statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 differences in awk and gawk, BINMODE variable
dark corner, close function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108, 270
differences in awk and gawk, close function . . . 71, E

72 EBCDIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
differences in awk and gawk, ERRNO variable . . . 111 egrep utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29, 215
differences in awk and gawk, error messages . . . . 68 egrep.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
differences in awk and gawk, FIELDWIDTHS variable elements in arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 elements in arrays, assigning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
differences in awk and gawk, function arguments elements in arrays, deleting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
(gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 elements in arrays, order of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
differences in awk and gawk, getline command elements in arrays, scanning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 email address for bug reports, bug-gawk@gnu.org
differences in awk and gawk, IGNORECASE variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 EMISTERED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
differences in awk and gawk, implementation empty pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56, 67 empty strings, See null strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
differences in awk and gawk, input/output END pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55, 66 END pattern, assert user-defined function and
differences in awk and gawk, line continuations . . 89 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
differences in awk and gawk, LINT variable . . . . 109 END pattern, backslash continuation and . . . . . . 219
differences in awk and gawk, match function . . . 131 END pattern, Boolean patterns and . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
differences in awk and gawk, next/nextfile END pattern, exit statement and . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 END pattern, next/nextfile statements and . . . 97,
differences in awk and gawk, print/printf 105
statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 END pattern, operators and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
differences in awk and gawk, PROCINFO array. . . 112 END pattern, pgawk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
differences in awk and gawk, record separators . . 38 END pattern, print statement and . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
differences in awk and gawk, regexp constants . . 75 endfile user-defined function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
differences in awk and gawk, regular expressions endgrent function (C library) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 endgrent user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
differences in awk and gawk, RS/RT variables . . . . 38 endpwent function (C library) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
differences in awk and gawk, RT variable . . . . . . . 113 endpwent user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
differences in awk and gawk, single-character fields ENVIRON variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 environment variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
differences in awk and gawk, split function . . . 132 epoch, definition of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
differences in awk and gawk, strings . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 equals sign (=), = operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
differences in awk and gawk, strings, storing . . . . 39 equals sign (=), == operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86, 91
differences in awk and gawk, strtonum function EREs (Extended Regular Expressions) . . . . . . . . 29
(gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 ERRNO variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51, 111, 285
error handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
differences in awk and gawk, TEXTDOMAIN variable
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 error handling, ERRNO variable and . . . . . . . . . . . 111
error output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
differences in awk and gawk, trunc-mod operation
escape processing, gsub/gensub/sub functions
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
directories, changing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
escape sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
directories, searching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178, 250
escape sequences, unrecognized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
evaluation order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
do-while statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24, 101 evaluation order, concatenation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
documentation, of awk programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 evaluation order, functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
documentation, online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 examining fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
documents, searching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 exclamation point (!), ! operator . . . . . 88, 91, 218
dollar sign ($) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 exclamation point (!), != operator . . . . . . . . . 86, 91
dollar sign ($), $ field operator . . . . . . . . . . . . 39, 91 exclamation point (!), !~ operator . . 24, 32, 34, 74,
dollar sign ($), incrementing fields and arrays . . 84 86, 87, 91, 94
double quote (") . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 15 exit statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
double quote ("), regexp constants . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 exp function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
double-precision floating-point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 expand utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Drepper, Ulrich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
dupnode internal function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 expressions, as patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
dupword.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 expressions, assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
expressions, Boolean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 files, .mo, specifying directory of . . . . . . . . . 157, 158

expressions, comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 files, .po . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156, 159
expressions, conditional . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 files, .po, converting to .mo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
expressions, matching, See comparison expressions files, /dev/... special files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 files, /inet/ (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
expressions, selecting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 files, /p (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Extended Regular Expressions (EREs) . . . . . . . . 29 files, as single records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
extension function (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290 files, awk programs in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
extensions, Bell Laboratories awk . . . . . . . . . . . . 254 files, awkprof.out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
extensions, in gawk, not in POSIX awk . . . . . . . 255 files, awkvars.out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
extensions, mawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277 files, closing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
extract.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 files, descriptors, See file descriptors . . . . . . . . . . . 68
extraction, of marked strings (internationalization) files, for process information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 files, group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
files, information about, retrieving . . . . . . . . . . . 286
files, initialization and cleanup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
F files, input, See input files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
false, logical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 files, log, timestamps in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
FDL (Free Documentation License) . . . . . . . . . . 315 files, managing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
features, adding to gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 files, managing, data file boundaries . . . . . . . . . . 192
features, advanced, See advanced features. . . . . 179 files, message object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
features, deprecated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 files, message object, converting from portable
features, undocumented . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 object files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Fenlason, Jay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 258 files, message object, specifying directory of . . 157,
fflush function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 158
fflush function, unsupported . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 files, multiple passes over . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
field numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 files, multiple, duplicating output into . . . . . . . . 223
field operator $ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 files, output, See output files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
field operators, dollar sign as . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 files, password . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
field separators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43, 108, 109 files, portable object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156, 159
field separators, choice of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 files, portable object, converting to message object
field separators, FIELDWIDTHS variable and . . . . 108 files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
field separators, in multiline records . . . . . . . . . . . 49 files, portable object, generating . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
field separators, on command line . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 files, portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
field separators, POSIX and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39, 46 files, processing, ARGIND variable and . . . . . . . . . 110
field separators, regular expressions as . . . . . 43, 44 files, reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
field separators, See Also OFS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 files, reading, multiline records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
field separators, spaces as . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 files, searching for regular expressions . . . . . . . . 215
fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36, 39, 295 files, skipping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
fields, adding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 files, source, search path for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
fields, changing contents of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 files, splitting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
fields, cutting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 files, Texinfo, extracting programs from . . . . . . 240
fields, examining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Fish, Fred . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258, 276
fields, number of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 fixed-width data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
fields, numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 flag variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88, 223
fields, printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 floating-point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
fields, separating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 floating-point, numbers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
fields, single-character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 floating-point, numbers, AWKNUM internal type
FIELDWIDTHS variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47, 108 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
file descriptors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 FNR variable. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36, 111
file names, distinguishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 FNR variable, changing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
file names, in compatibility mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 for statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
file names, standard streams in gawk . . . . . . . . . . 68 for statement, in arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
FILENAME variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36, 111 force_number internal function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
FILENAME variable, getline, setting with . . . . . . 56 force_string internal function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
filenames, assignments as . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 format specifiers, mixing regular with positional
files, .mo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 specifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
files, .mo, converting from .po . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 format specifiers, printf statement . . . . . . . . . . . 60
format specifiers, strftime function (gawk) . . . 144 G

format strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 G-d . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
formats, numeric output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Garfinkle, Scott . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
formatting output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 gawk, awk and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3, 5
forward slash (/). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 gawk, bitwise operations in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
forward slash (/), / operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 gawk, break statement in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
forward slash (/), /= operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83, 92 gawk, built-in variables and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
forward slash (/), /= operator, vs. /=.../ regexp gawk, character classes and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
constant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 gawk, coding style in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
forward slash (/), patterns and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 gawk, command-line options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Free Documentation License (FDL) . . . . . . . . . . 315 gawk, comparison operators and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Free Software Foundation (FSF) . . . . . . 7, 260, 303 gawk, configuring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
free_temp internal macro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 gawk, configuring, options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
gawk, continue statement in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
FreeBSD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
gawk, debugging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
FS variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43, 108
gawk, distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
FS variable, --field-separator option and . . . 173
gawk, escape sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
FS variable, as null string . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 gawk, extensions, disabling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
FS variable, as TAB character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 gawk, features, adding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
FS variable, changing value of . . . . . . . . . . . . 43, 180 gawk, features, advanced . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
FS variable, running awk programs and . . . . . . . 211 gawk, fflush function in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
FS variable, setting from command line . . . . . . . . 45 gawk, field separators and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
FSF (Free Software Foundation) . . . . . . 7, 260, 303 gawk, FIELDWIDTHS variable in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
function calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 gawk, file names in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
functions, arrays as parameters to . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 gawk, format-control characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
functions, built-in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89, 127 gawk, function arguments and. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
functions, built-in, adding to gawk . . . . . . . . . . . 282 gawk, functions, adding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
functions, built-in, evaluation order . . . . . . . . . . 127 gawk, hexadecimal numbers and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
functions, defining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 gawk, IGNORECASE variable in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
gawk, implementation issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
functions, library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
gawk, implementation issues, debugging. . . . . . . 279
functions, library, assertions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
gawk, implementation issues, downward
functions, library, associative arrays and . . . . . . 182
compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
functions, library, C library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 gawk, implementation issues, limits . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
functions, library, character values as numbers gawk, implementation issues, pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 gawk, installing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
functions, library, Cliff random numbers . . . . . . 188 gawk, internals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
functions, library, command-line options . . . . . . 196 gawk, internationalization and, See
functions, library, example program for using . . 244 internationalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
functions, library, group database, reading . . . . 205 gawk, interpreter, adding code to . . . . . . . . 290, 293
functions, library, managing data files . . . . . . . . 192 gawk, interval expressions and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
functions, library, managing time . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 gawk, line continuation in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
functions, library, merging arrays into strings . . 190 gawk, LINT variable in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
functions, library, nextfile statement . . . . . . . . 183 gawk, list of contributors to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
functions, library, rounding numbers . . . . . . . . . 187 gawk, MS-DOS version of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
functions, library, user database, reading . . . . . 201 gawk, newlines in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
functions, names of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116, 150 gawk, next file statement in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
gawk, nextfile statement in . . . . . . . . . . . . 106, 183
functions, recursive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
gawk, octal numbers and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
functions, return values, setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
gawk, OS/2 version of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
functions, string-translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 gawk, regexp constants and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
functions, undefined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 gawk, regular expressions, case sensitivity . . . . . . 32
functions, user-defined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 gawk, regular expressions, operators . . . . . . . . . . . 31
functions, user-defined, calling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 gawk, regular expressions, precedence . . . . . . . . . . 29
functions, user-defined, counts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 gawk, See Also awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
functions, user-defined, library of . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 gawk, source code, obtaining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
functions, user-defined, next/nextfile statements gawk, splitting fields and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105, 106 gawk, string-translation functions . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
gawk, timestamps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Grigera, Juan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258, 277

gawk, uses for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 group database, reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
gawk, versions of, information about, printing group file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 groups, information about . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
gawk, word-boundary operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 gsub function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75, 134
General Public License (GPL) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 gsub function, arguments of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
General Public License, See GPL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 gsub function, escape processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
gensub function (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75, 135
gensub function (gawk), escape processing . . . . 136
get_actual_argument internal function. . . . . . . 284 H
get_argument internal function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 Hankerson, Darrel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 258, 276
get_array_argument internal macro. . . . . . . . . . 284 Hartholz, Elaine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
get_curfunc_arg_count internal function . . . . 283 Hartholz, Marshall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
get_scalar_argument internal macro . . . . . . . . 284 Hasegawa, Isamu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 259
getgrent function (C library) . . . . . . . . . . . 205, 209 hexadecimal numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
getgrent user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . 205, 209 hexadecimal values, enabling interpretation of
getgrgid function (C library) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
getgrgid user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 histsort.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
getgrnam function (C library) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 Hughes, Phil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
getgrnam user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 HUP signal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
getgruser function (C library) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 hyphen (-), - operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
getgruser function, user-defined . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 hyphen (-), -- (decrement/increment) operators
getline command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
getline command, _gr_init user-defined function hyphen (-), -- operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 hyphen (-), -= operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83, 92
getline command, _pw_init function . . . . . . . . 204 hyphen (-), filenames beginning with . . . . . . . . . 174
getline command, coprocesses, using from. . . . 55, hyphen (-), in character lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
70
getline command, deadlock and . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
getline command, explicit input with . . . . . . . . 51 I
getline command, FILENAME variable and . . . . . 56 id utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
getline command, return values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 id.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
getline command, variants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 if statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24, 99
getopt function (C library) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 if statement, actions, changing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
getopt user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 igawk.sh program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
getpwent function (C library) . . . . . . . . . . . 201, 204 IGNORECASE variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32, 108
getpwent user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . 201, 204 IGNORECASE variable, array sorting and . . . . . . . 126
getpwnam function (C library) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 IGNORECASE variable, array subscripts and . . . . 117
getpwnam user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 IGNORECASE variable, in example programs . . . . 181
getpwuid function (C library) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 implementation issues, gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
getpwuid user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 implementation issues, gawk, limits . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
getservbyname function (C library) . . . . . . . . . . 168 implementation issues, gawk, debugging. . . . . . . 279
gettext function (C library). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 implementation issues, gawk, limits . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
gettext library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 in operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86, 91, 220
gettext library, locale categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 in operator, arrays and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117, 119
gettimeofday user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . 191 increment operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
GNITS mailing list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 index function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
GNU awk, See gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 indexing arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
GNU Free Documentation License . . . . . . . . . . . 315 initialization, automatic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
GNU General Public License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 input files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
GNU Lesser General Public License . . . . . . . . . . 304 input files, closing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
GNU long options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 input files, counting elements in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
GNU long options, printing list of . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 input files, examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
GNU Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 303 input files, reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
GNU/Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 163, 264, 274, 307 input files, running awk without . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
GPL (General Public License) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 303 input files, skipping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
GPL (General Public License), printing . . . . . . 174 input files, variable assignments and . . . . . . . . . . 178
grcat program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 input pipeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
input redirection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 L
input, data, nondecimal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 labels.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
input, explicit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 languages, data-driven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
input, files, See input files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 LC_ALL locale category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
input, multiline records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 LC_COLLATE locale category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
input, splitting into records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 LC_CTYPE locale category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
input, standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 68 LC_MESSAGES locale category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
input/output, binary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 LC_MESSAGES locale category, bindtextdomain
input/output, from BEGIN and END . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 function (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
input/output, two-way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 LC_MONETARY locale category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
insomnia, cure for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 LC_NUMERIC locale category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
installation, amiga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 LC_RESPONSE locale category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
installation, atari . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 LC_TIME locale category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
installation, beos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 left angle bracket (<), < operator . . . . . . . . . . 86, 91
installation, tandem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 left angle bracket (<), < operator (I/O) . . . . . . . . 53
installation, vms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 left angle bracket (<), <= operator . . . . . . . . . 86, 91
installing gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260 left shift, bitwise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
int function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 leftmost longest match . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
INT signal (MS-DOS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 length function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
integers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Lesser General Public License (LGPL) . . . . . . . 304
integers, unsigned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 LGPL (Lesser General Public License) . . . . . . . 304
interacting with other programs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 libraries of awk functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
libraries of awk functions, assertions . . . . . . . . . . 186
internationalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149, 156
libraries of awk functions, associative arrays and
internationalization, localization . . . . . . . . . 110, 156
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
internationalization, localization, character classes
libraries of awk functions, character values as
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
internationalization, localization, gawk and. . . . 156
libraries of awk functions, command-line options
internationalization, localization, locale categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 libraries of awk functions, example program for
internationalization, localization, marked strings using . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 libraries of awk functions, group database, reading
internationalization, localization, portability and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 libraries of awk functions, managing, data files
internationalizing a program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
interpreted programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294, 304 libraries of awk functions, managing, time . . . . . 190
interval expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 libraries of awk functions, merging arrays into
inventory-shipped file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
ISO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304 libraries of awk functions, nextfile statement
ISO 8859-1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
ISO Latin-1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 libraries of awk functions, rounding numbers . . 187
libraries of awk functions, user database, reading
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
J line breaks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Jacobs, Andrew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 line continuations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Jaegermann, Michal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 258 line continuations, gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Jedi knights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 line continuations, in print statement . . . . . . . . . 58
join user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 line continuations, with C shell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
lines, blank, printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
lines, counting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
K lines, duplicate, removing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
lines, matching ranges of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Kahrs, Jürgen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 258 lines, skipping between markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Kenobi, Obi-Wan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 lint checking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Kernighan, Brian . . . 4, 7, 9, 80, 254, 258, 277, 296 lint checking, array elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
kill command, dynamic profiling . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 lint checking, array subscripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Knights, jedi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 lint checking, empty programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Kwok, Conrad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258 lint checking, issuing warnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
lint checking, POSIXLY_CORRECT environment N

variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 names, arrays/variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116, 181
lint checking, undefined functions . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 names, functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150, 181
LINT variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 namespace issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116, 181
Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 163, 264, 274, 307 namespace issues, functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
locale categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 nawk utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
localization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 negative zero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
localization, See internationalization, localization NetBSD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 networks, programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
log files, timestamps in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 networks, support for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
log function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 newlines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20, 88, 176
logical false/true . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 newlines, as field separators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
logical operators, See Boolean expressions . . . . . 88 newlines, as record separators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
login information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 newlines, in dynamic regexps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
long options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 newlines, in regexp constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 newlines, printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
loops, continue statements and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 newlines, separating statements in actions . . 98, 99
loops, count for header . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 next file statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
loops, exiting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 next file statement, deprecated . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
loops, See Also while statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 next file statement, in gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Lost In Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282 next statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89, 105
ls utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 next statement, BEGIN/END patterns and . . . . . . . 97
lshift function (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 next statement, user-defined functions and . . . 105
lvalues/rvalues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 nextfile statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
nextfile statement, BEGIN/END patterns and . . 97
nextfile statement, implementing . . . . . . . . . . . 183
M nextfile statement, in gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
mailing labels, printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 nextfile statement, next file statement and
mailing list, GNITS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
make_builtin internal function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 nextfile statement, user-defined functions and
make_number internal function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
make_string internal function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 nextfile user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
mark parity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 NF variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39, 111
marked string extraction (internationalization) NF variable, decrementing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 noassign.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
marked strings, extracting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 NODE internal type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Marx, Groucho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 nodes, duplicating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
match function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 not Boolean-logic operator. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
match function, RSTART/RLENGTH variables . . . . 131 NR variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36, 112
matching, expressions, See comparison expressions NR variable, changing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 null strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37, 44, 85, 296
matching, leftmost longest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 null strings, array elements and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
matching, null strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 null strings, as array subscripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
mawk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277 null strings, converting numbers to strings . . . . . 77
McPhee, Patrick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 null strings, matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
memory, releasing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 null strings, quoting and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
memory, setting limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 number sign (#), #! (executable scripts) . . . . . . . 13
message object files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 number sign (#), #! (executable scripts),
message object files, converting from portable portability issues with . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
object files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 number sign (#), commenting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
message object files, specifying directory of . . . 157, numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
158 numbers, as array subscripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
metacharacters, escape sequences for . . . . . . . . . . 27 numbers, as values of characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
mktime function (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 numbers, Cliff random . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
modifiers, in format specifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 numbers, converting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
monetary information, localization . . . . . . . . . . . 157 numbers, converting, to strings . . . . . 108, 109, 148
msgfmt utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 numbers, floating-point. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
numbers, floating-point, AWKNUM internal type output field separator, See OFS variable . . . . . . . . 41
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 output record separator, See ORS variable . . . . . . 59
numbers, hexadecimal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 output redirection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
numbers, NODE internal type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 output, buffering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140, 142
numbers, octal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 output, duplicating into files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
numbers, random . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 output, files, closing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
numbers, rounding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 output, format specifier, OFMT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
numeric, constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 output, formatted. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
numeric, output format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 output, pipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
numeric, strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 output, printing, See printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
numeric, values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 output, records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
output, standard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
O
oawk utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 P
obsolete features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 P1003.2 POSIX standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
octal numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 param_cnt internal variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
octal values, enabling interpretation of . . . . . . . 175 parameters, number of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
OFMT variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59, 78, 109 parentheses () . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
OFMT variable, POSIX awk and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 parentheses (), pgawk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
OFS variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41, 59, 109 password file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
OpenBSD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 patterns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
operating systems, BSD-based . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 169 patterns, comparison expressions as . . . . . . . . . . . 93
operating systems, PC, gawk on . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270 patterns, counts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
operating systems, PC, gawk on, installing . . . . 267 patterns, default . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
operating systems, porting gawk to . . . . . . . . . . . 281 patterns, empty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
operating systems, See Also GNU/Linux, PC patterns, expressions as . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
operating systems, Unix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260 patterns, ranges in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
operations, bitwise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 patterns, regexp constants as . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
operators, arithmetic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 patterns, types of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
operators, assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 pawk profiling Bell Labs awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
operators, assignment, evaluation order . . . . . . . . 82 PC operating systems, gawk on . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
operators, Boolean, See Boolean expressions . . . 88 PC operating systems, gawk on, installing. . . . . 267
operators, decrement/increment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 percent sign (%), % operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
operators, GNU-specific . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 percent sign (%), %= operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83, 92
operators, input/output . . . . . 53, 54, 55, 65, 66, 91 period (.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
operators, logical, See Boolean expressions . . . . . 88 PERL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
operators, precedence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84, 90 Peters, Arno . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
operators, relational, See operators, comparison Peterson, Hal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 pgawk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
operators, short-circuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 pgawk program, awkprof.out file . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
operators, string . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 pgawk program, dynamic profiling . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
operators, string-matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 pipes, closing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
operators, string-matching, for buffers . . . . . . . . . 31 pipes, input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
operators, word-boundary (gawk). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 pipes, output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
options, command-line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 45, 173 plus sign (+) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
options, command-line, end of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 plus sign (+), + operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
options, command-line, invoking awk . . . . . . . . . 173 plus sign (+), ++ operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84, 91
options, command-line, processing . . . . . . . . . . . 196 plus sign (+), += operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82, 92
options, deprecated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 plus sign (+), decrement/increment operators . . 83
options, long . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 portability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
options, printing list of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 portability, #! (executable scripts) . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
OR bitwise operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 portability, ** operator and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
or Boolean-logic operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 portability, **= operator and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
or function (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 portability, ARGV variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
ord user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 portability, backslash continuation and . . . . . . . . 21
order of evaluation, concatenation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 portability, backslash in escape sequences . . . . . . 26
ORS variable. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59, 109 portability, close function and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
portability, data files as single record . . . . . . . . . . 38 POSIX mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176, 177

portability, deleting array elements . . . . . . . . . . . 121 POSIX, awk and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
portability, example programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 POSIX, gawk extensions not included in . . . . . . 255
portability, fflush function and . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 POSIX, programs, implementing in awk . . . . . . 210
portability, functions, defining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable . . . . . . . 177
portability, gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 precedence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84, 90
portability, gettext library and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 precedence, regexp operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
portability, internationalization and . . . . . . . . . . 161 print statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
portability, length function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 print statement, BEGIN/END patterns and. . . . . . 97
portability, new awk vs. old awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 print statement, commas, omitting . . . . . . . . . . . 58
portability, next statement in user-defined print statement, I/O operators in . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 print statement, line continuations and . . . . . . . 58
portability, NF variable, decrementing . . . . . . . . . . 42 print statement, OFMT variable and . . . . . . . . . . 109
portability, operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 print statement, See Also redirection, of output
portability, operators, not in POSIX awk. . . . . . . 92 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
portability, POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable print statement, sprintf function and . . . . . . . 187
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 printf statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57, 60
portability, substr function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 printf statement, columns, aligning . . . . . . . . . . 58
portable object files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156, 159 printf statement, format-control characters . . . 60
portable object files, converting to message object printf statement, I/O operators in . . . . . . . . . . . 91
files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 printf statement, modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
portable object files, generating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 printf statement, positional specifiers . . . . 62, 160
portal files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 printf statement, positional specifiers, mixing
porting gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 with regular formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
positional specifiers, printf statement . . . . . . . . . 62 printf statement, See Also redirection, of output
positional specifiers, printf statement. . . . . . . . 160 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
positional specifiers, printf statement, mixing printf statement, sprintf function and . . . . . . 187
with regular formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 printf statement, syntax of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
positive zero. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
POSIX awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5, 83 printing, list of options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
POSIX awk, **= operator and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 printing, mailing labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
POSIX awk, < operator and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 printing, unduplicated lines of text . . . . . . . . . . . 224
POSIX awk, | I/O operator and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 printing, user information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
POSIX awk, arithmetic operators and . . . . . . . . . 79 private variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
POSIX awk, backslashes in string constants . . . . 26 process information, files for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
POSIX awk, BEGIN/END patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 processes, two-way communications with . . . . . 166
POSIX awk, break statement and . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 processing data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
POSIX awk, changes in awk versions . . . . . . . . . . 253 PROCINFO array . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70, 112, 201, 205
POSIX awk, character lists and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 profiling awk programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
POSIX awk, character lists and, character classes profiling awk programs, dynamically . . . . . . . . . . 172
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30, 31 profiling gawk, See pgawk program. . . . . . . . . . . . 169
POSIX awk, continue statement and . . . . . . . . . 105 program, definition of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
POSIX awk, CONVFMT variable and . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 programmers, attractiveness of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
POSIX awk, date utility and. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 programming conventions, --non-decimal-data
POSIX awk, field separators and . . . . . . . . . . . 39, 46 option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
POSIX awk, FS variable and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 programming conventions, ARGC/ARGV variables
POSIX awk, function keyword in . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
POSIX awk, functions and, gsub/sub . . . . . . . . . 137 programming conventions, exit statement . . . . 107
POSIX awk, functions and, length . . . . . . . . . . . 130 programming conventions, function parameters
POSIX awk, GNU long options and . . . . . . . . . . 173 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
POSIX awk, interval expressions in . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 programming conventions, functions, calling . . 127
POSIX awk, next/nextfile statements and . . 105 programming conventions, functions, writing . . 150
POSIX awk, numeric strings and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 programming conventions, gawk internals. . . . . 288,
POSIX awk, OFMT variable and . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60, 78 290
POSIX awk, period (.), using . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 programming conventions, nextfile statement
POSIX awk, printf format strings and . . . . . . . . 64 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
POSIX awk, regular expressions and . . . . . . . . . . . 29 programming conventions, private variable names
POSIX awk, timestamps and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
programming language, recipe for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 regular expressions, computed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

programming languages, data-driven vs. regular expressions, constants, See regexp
procedural . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
programming, basic steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 regular expressions, dynamic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
programming, concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
pwcat program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 regular expressions, dynamic, with embedded
newlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
regular expressions, gawk, command-line options
Q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
question mark (?) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28, 31 regular expressions, interval expressions and . . 176
question mark (?), ?: operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 regular expressions, leftmost longest match . . . . 33
QUIT signal (MS-DOS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 regular expressions, operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24, 27
quoting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 13, 14
regular expressions, operators, for buffers . . . . . . 31
quoting, rules for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
quoting, tricks for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 regular expressions, operators, for words . . . . . . . 31
regular expressions, operators, gawk . . . . . . . . . . . 31
regular expressions, operators, precedence of . . . 29
R regular expressions, searching for . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Rakitzis, Byron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 relational operators, See comparison operators . . 85
rand function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
return statement, user-defined functions . . . . . 154
random numbers, Cliff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
random numbers, rand/srand functions . . . . . . 128 return values, close function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
random numbers, seed of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 rev user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
range expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 rewind user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
range patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 right angle bracket (>), > operator . . . . . . . . . 86, 91
Rankin, Pat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 82, 258, 277
right angle bracket (>), > operator (I/O) . . . . . . . 65
raw sockets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
readable data files, checking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 right angle bracket (>), >= operator . . . . . . . . 86, 91
readable.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 right angle bracket (>), >> operator (I/O) . . 66, 91
recipe for a programming language . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 right shift, bitwise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
record separators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36, 109 Ritchie, Dennis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
record separators, changing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
record separators, regular expressions as . . . . . . . 38 RLENGTH variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
record separators, with multiline records . . . . . . . 49 RLENGTH variable, match function and. . . . . . . . . 131
records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36, 295 Robbins, Arnold . . . 46, 54, 202, 231, 259, 276, 291
records, multiline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Robbins, Bill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
records, printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Robbins, Harry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
records, splitting input into . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
records, terminating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Robbins, Jean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
records, treating files as . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Robbins, Miriam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 54, 202
recursive functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 Robinson, Will . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
redirection of input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 robot, the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
redirection of output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Rommel, Kai Uwe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9, 258
reference counting, sorting arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
regexp constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25, 74, 87 round user-defined function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
regexp constants, /=.../, /= operator and . . . . . 83 rounding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
regexp constants, as patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 rounding numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
regexp constants, in gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 RS variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36, 109
regexp constants, slashes vs. quotes . . . . . . . . . . . 34
RS variable, multiline records and . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
regexp constants, vs. string constants . . . . . . . . . 34
regexp, See regular expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 rshift function (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
regular expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 RSTART variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
regular expressions as field separators . . . . . . . . . 43 RSTART variable, match function and . . . . . . . . . . 131
regular expressions, anchors in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 RT variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38, 51, 113
regular expressions, as field separators . . . . . . . . . 44
regular expressions, as patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . 24, 93 Rubin, Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 258
regular expressions, as record separators . . . . . . . 38 rule, definition of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
regular expressions, case sensitivity . . . . . . . 32, 108 rvalues/lvalues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
S source code, Bell Laboratories awk . . . . . . . . . . . 277

scalar values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 source code, gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Schreiber, Bert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 source code, mawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Schreiber, Rita . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 source code, mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
search paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270, 273 source files, search path for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
search paths, for source files . . . . . . . . 178, 250, 273 sparse arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
searching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Spencer, Henry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
searching, files for regular expressions . . . . . . . . 215 split function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
searching, for words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 split function, array elements, deleting . . . . . . 121
sed utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47, 243, 299 split utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
semicolon (;) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 split.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
semicolon (;), AWKPATH variable and . . . . . . . . . . 270 sprintf function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59, 133
semicolon (;), separating statements in actions sprintf function, OFMT variable and . . . . . . . . . . 109
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98, 99 sprintf function, print/printf statements and
separators, field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108, 109 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
separators, field, FIELDWIDTHS variable and . . . 108 sqrt function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
separators, field, POSIX and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 square brackets ([]) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
separators, for records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36, 37 srand function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
separators, for records, regular expressions as . . 38 Stallman, Richard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 9, 258, 303
separators, for statements in actions . . . . . . . . . . . 98 standard input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 68
separators, record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 standard output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
separators, subscript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 stat function, implementing in gawk . . . . . . . . . 286
set_value internal function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 statements, compound, control statements and
shells, piping commands into . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
shells, quoting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 statements, control, in actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
shells, quoting, rules for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 statements, multiple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
shells, scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 stlen internal variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
shells, variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 stptr internal variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
shift, bitwise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 stream editors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47, 243
short-circuit operators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 strftime function (gawk). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
side effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80, 83, 84 string constants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
side effects, array indexing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 string constants, vs. regexp constants . . . . . . . . . 34
side effects, asort function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 string extraction (internationalization) . . . . . . . 160
side effects, assignment expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 string operators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
side effects, Boolean operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 string-matching operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
side effects, conditional expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
side effects, decrement/increment operators . . . . 83 strings, converting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
side effects, FILENAME variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 strings, converting, numbers to . . . . . 108, 109, 148
side effects, function calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 strings, empty, See null strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
side effects, statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 strings, extracting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
signals, HUP/SIGHUP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 strings, for localization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
signals, INT/SIGINT (MS-DOS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 strings, length of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
signals, QUIT/SIGQUIT (MS-DOS) . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 strings, merging arrays into . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
signals, USR1/SIGUSR1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 strings, NODE internal type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
sin function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 strings, null . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
single quote (’) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11, 13, 15 strings, numeric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
single quote (’), vs. apostrophe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 strings, splitting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
single quote (’), with double quotes . . . . . . . . . . . 15 strtonum function (gawk). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
single-character fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 strtonum function (gawk), --non-decimal-data
single-precision floating-point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 option and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Skywalker, Luke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 sub function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75, 133
sleep utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 sub function, arguments of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
sockets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 sub function, escape processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
sort function, arrays, sorting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 subscript separators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
sort utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 subscripts in arrays, multidimensional . . . . . . . . 122
sort utility, coprocesses and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 subscripts in arrays, multidimensional, scanning
sorting characters in different languages . . . . . . 157 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
source code, awka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 subscripts in arrays, numbers as . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
subscripts in arrays, uninitialized variables as troubleshooting, function call syntax . . . . . . . . . . 90

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 troubleshooting, gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180, 279
SUBSEP variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 troubleshooting, gawk, bug reports . . . . . . . . . . . 276
SUBSEP variable, multidimensional arrays . . . . . 122 troubleshooting, gawk, fatal errors, function
substr function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Sumner, Andrew. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
troubleshooting, getline function . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
switch statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
syntactic ambiguity: /= operator vs. /=.../ troubleshooting, gsub/sub functions . . . . . . . . . . 134
regexp constant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 troubleshooting, match function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
system function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 troubleshooting, print statement, omitting
systime function (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 commas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
troubleshooting, printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
troubleshooting, quotes with file names . . . . . . . . 68
T troubleshooting, readable data files . . . . . . . . . . . 194
tandem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 troubleshooting, regexp constants vs. string
Tcl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
TCP/IP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 troubleshooting, string concatenation . . . . . . . . . . 80
TCP/IP, support for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 troubleshooting, substr function . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
tee utility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 troubleshooting, system function . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
tee.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
troubleshooting, typographical errors, global
terminating records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
testbits.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Texinfo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6, 181, 230, 240, 262, 280 true, logical . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Texinfo, chapter beginnings in files . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Trueman, David . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 9, 258
Texinfo, extracting programs from source files trunc-mod operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 truth values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
text, printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 type conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
text, printing, unduplicated lines of . . . . . . . . . . 224 type internal variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
textdomain function (C library) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
TEXTDOMAIN variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110, 158
TEXTDOMAIN variable, BEGIN pattern and . . . . . . 159
TEXTDOMAIN variable, portability and . . . . . . . . . 161 U
tilde (~), ~ operator . . 24, 32, 34, 74, 86, 87, 91, 94 undefined functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
time, alarm clock example program . . . . . . . . . . 231
underscore (_), _ C macro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
time, localization and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
time, managing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 underscore (_), in names of private variables . . 182
time, retrieving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 underscore (_), translatable string . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
timestamps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142, 143 undocumented features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
timestamps, converting dates to. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 uninitialized variables, as array subscripts . . . . 122
timestamps, formatted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 uniq utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
tmp_number internal function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 uniq.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
tmp_string internal function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 Unix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
tolower function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 Unix awk, backslashes in escape sequences . . . . . 26
toupper function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Unix awk, close function and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
tr utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
translate.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 Unix awk, password files, field separators and . . 46
troubleshooting, --non-decimal-data option . . 175 Unix, awk scripts and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
troubleshooting, -F option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 unsigned integers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
troubleshooting, == operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 update_ERRNO internal function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
troubleshooting, awk uses FS not IFS . . . . . . . . . . 43 user database, reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
troubleshooting, backslash before nonspecial user-defined, functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 user-defined, functions, counts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
troubleshooting, division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
user-defined, variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
troubleshooting, fatal errors, field widths,
specifying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 user-modifiable variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
troubleshooting, fatal errors, printf format strings users, information about, printing . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 users, information about, retrieving . . . . . . . . . . 201
troubleshooting, fflush function . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 USR1 signal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
V W
values, numeric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 w utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
values, string . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Wall, Larry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
variable typing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 warnings, issuing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22, 295 wc utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
variables, assigning on command line . . . . . . . . . . 76 wc.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
variables, built-in. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76, 107 Weinberger, Peter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 258
variables, built-in, -v option, setting with . . . . . 174 while statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24, 100
whitespace, as field separators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
variables, built-in, conveying information . . . . . 110
whitespace, functions, calling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
variables, flag. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
whitespace, newlines as . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
variables, getline command into, using . . . 52, 53,
Williams, Kent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
55
Woods, John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
variables, global, for library functions . . . . . . . . 181 word boundaries, matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
variables, global, printing list of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 word, regexp definition of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
variables, initializing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 word-boundary operator (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
variables, names of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 wordfreq.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
variables, private . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 words, counting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
variables, setting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 words, duplicate, searching for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
variables, shadowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 words, usage counts, generating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
variables, types of. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
variables, types of, comparison expressions and
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 X
variables, uninitialized, as array subscripts . . . . 122 xgettext utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
variables, user-defined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 XOR bitwise operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
vertical bar (|) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 xor function (gawk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
vertical bar (|), | operator (I/O) . . . . . . . . . . 54, 91
vertical bar (|), |& I/O operator (I/O) . . . . . . . 166
vertical bar (|), |& operator (I/O) . . . . . . . . . 55, 91 Z
vertical bar (|), |& operator (I/O), two-way Zaretskii, Eli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 zero, negative vs. positive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
vertical bar (|), || operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88, 91 zerofile.awk program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
vname internal variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 Zoulas, Christos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

GAWK: E Ective AWK Programming

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GAWK: Effective AWK Programming

A User’s Guide for GNU Awk

Free Software Foundation

Cover art by Etienne Suvasa.

To Chana, for the joy you bring us.

To Rivka, for the exponential increase.

To Nachum, for the added dimension.

To Malka, for the new beginning.

1 Getting Started with awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3 Reading Input Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

6 Patterns, Actions, and Variables . . . . . . . . . . . 93

7 Arrays in awk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

9 Internationalization with gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

10 Advanced Features of gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

11 Running awk and gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

12 A Library of awk Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

13 Practical awk Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

13.3 A Grab Bag of awk Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Appendix A The Evolution of the awk Language

Appendix B Installing gawk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

B.4.2 Installing gawk on a Tandem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Appendix C Implementation Notes . . . . . . . . 279

Appendix D Basic Programming Concepts . . 294

GNU General Public License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

GNU Free Documentation License . . . . . . . . . . . 315

History of awk and gawk

A Rose by Any Other Name

Using This Book

The GNU Project and This Book

GNU/Linux distributions are often available in computer stores or bundled on CD-ROMs

Department at UC San Diego, pinpointed several issues relevant both to awk

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

BEGIN { print "Don’t Panic!" }

1.1.4 Executable awk Programs

BEGIN { print "Don’t Panic!" }

Advanced Notes: Portability Issues with ‘#!’

1.1.5 Comments in awk Programs

1.1.6 Shell-Quoting Issues

$ awk ’BEGIN { print "Here is a single quote <’\’’>" }’

1.2 Data Files for the Examples

1.3 Some Simple Examples

• Count the lines in a file:

1.4 An Example with Two Rules

1.5 A More Complex Example

1.6 awk Statements Versus Lines

awk ’/12/ { print $0 }

1.7 Other Features of awk

1.8 When to Use awk

2.1 How to Use Regular Expressions

2.2 Escape Sequences

Advanced Notes: Backslash Before Regular Characters

Advanced Notes: Escape Sequences for Metacharacters

2.3 Regular Expression Operators

^ This matches the beginning of a string. For example, ‘^@chapter’ matches

two numbers separated by a comma, the preceding regexp is repeated n to m