1. Installation and Documentation
1. Installation and Documentation ๊ด๋ จ
The command name awk is derived from its developers โ Alfred V. Aho, Peter J. Weinberger, and Brian W. Kernighan. Over the years, it has been adapted and modified by various other developers. See gawk manual: History for more details.
This chapter will show how to install or upgrade awk followed by details related to documentation.
Installation
If you are on a Unix-like system, you will most likely have some version of awk already installed. This book is primarily about GNU awk. As there are syntax and feature differences between various implementations, make sure to use GNU awk to follow along the examples presented in this book.
GNU awk is part of the text creation and manipulation commands and usually comes by default on GNU/Linux distributions. To install a particular version, visit gnu: gawk software. See also release notes for an overview of changes between versions.
wget https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gawk/gawk-5.2.2.tar.xz
tar -Jxf gawk-5.2.2.tar.xz
cd gawk-5.2.2/
# see https://askubuntu.com/q/237576 if you get compiler not found error
./configure
make
sudo make install
awk --version | head -n1
# GNU Awk 5.2.2, API 3.2, PMA Avon 8-g1
If you are not using a Linux distribution, you may be able to access GNU awk using an option below:
- Git for Windows โ provides a Bash emulation used to run Git from the command line
- Windows Subsystem for Linux โ compatibility layer for running Linux binary executables natively on Windows
- brew โ Package Manager for macOS (or Linux)
Info
See also gawk manual: Installation for advanced options and instructions to install awk on other platforms.
Documentation
It is always good to know where to find documentation. From the command line, you can use man awk for a short manual and info awk for the full documentation. I prefer using the online gnu awk manual, which feels much easier to use and navigate.
Here's a snippet from man awk:
man awk
# GAWK(1) Utility Commands GAWK(1)
#
# NAME
# gawk - pattern scanning and processing language
#
# SYNOPSIS
# gawk [ POSIX or GNU style options ] -f program-file [ -- ] file ...
# gawk [ POSIX or GNU style options ] [ -- ] program-text file ...
#
# DESCRIPTION
# Gawk is the GNU Project's implementation of the AWK programming lanโ
# guage. It conforms to the definition of the language in the POSIX
# 1003.1 Standard. This version in turn is based on the description in
# The AWK Programming Language, by Aho, Kernighan, and Weinberger. Gawk
# provides the additional features found in the current version of Brian
# Kernighan's awk and numerous GNU-specific extensions.
Options overview
For a quick overview of all the available options, use awk --help from the command line.
awk --help
# Usage: awk [POSIX or GNU style options] -f progfile [--] file ...
# Usage: awk [POSIX or GNU style options] [--] 'program' file ...
# POSIX options: GNU long options: (standard)
# -f progfile --file=progfile
# -F fs --field-separator=fs
# -v var=val --assign=var=val
# Short options: GNU long options: (extensions)
# -b --characters-as-bytes
# -c --traditional
# -C --copyright
# -d[file] --dump-variables[=file]
# -D[file] --debug[=file]
# -e 'program-text' --source='program-text'
# -E file --exec=file
# -g --gen-pot
# -h --help
# -i includefile --include=includefile
# -I --trace
# -l library --load=library
# -L[fatal|invalid|no-ext] --lint[=fatal|invalid|no-ext]
# -M --bignum
# -N --use-lc-numeric
# -n --non-decimal-data
# -o[file] --pretty-print[=file]
# -O --optimize
# -p[file] --profile[=file]
# -P --posix
# -r --re-interval
# -s --no-optimize
# -S --sandbox
# -t --lint-old
# -V --version
