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Question : Question Case 5.4 Assigning Modifiers A. What the meaning of each of : 420899

Case 5.4 Assigning Modifiers

A. What is the meaning of each of the modifiers used in the following case example? A multitrauma patient had a bilateral knee procedure as part of team surgery following a motorcycle crash. The orthopedic surgeon also reconstructed the patient’s pelvis and left wrist.

Supply the correct codes and modifiers for these cases.

B. A surgeon administers a regional Bier block and then monitors the patient and the block while repairing the flexor tendon of the forearm.

C. Primary care provider performs a frontal and lateral chest X-ray and observes a mass. The patient is sent to a pulmonologist, who, on the same day, repeats the frontal and lateral chest X-ray. How should the pulmonologist report the X-ray service?

D. A day after surgery for a knee replacement, the patient develops an infection in the surgical area and is returned to the operating room for debridement. Which modifier is attached to the second procedure?

Solution 1 (1 Ratings )

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Coder's Guide to ASC and Physician Practice Modifiers

Modifiers (usually 2-digits) are added to the main procedure code to signify that the procedure has been altered by a distinct factor. Modifiers are accepted by most payors. Modifiers can increase or decrease reimbursement. They can also cause claims not to pay properly or deny if used incorrectly or not used, when necessary. Some modifiers are for use by ASCs only, some for physician practices and some are for use by both provider types. Correct modifier usage is under close review by Medicare at the present time.

Note: The ASC’s “global period” or “postoperative period” is 24 hours from the time the surgery begins. It is not 10 or 90 days as it is for physicians. Some payors may consider the global period to be 48-72 hours for ASCs. Here is a guide to the modifiers used by ASCs and physician practices. The letter ‘A’ will be placed next to the modifier description, in parentheses, for those modifiers used by ASCs; the letter ‘P’ will designate those modifiers used by physician practices. ‘A&P’ will designate modifiers used by both types of providers. -50 — Bilateral procedures (A&P) Use this modifier when an identical procedure is performed on both the right and left sides of the body. The policies each payor follows for the use of modifiers for reporting bilateral procedures can vary widely, so the ASC facility should check with each payor to which they submit claims for their preferred method of billing bilateral procedures. Modifier -50 identifies a procedure performed identically on the opposite side of the body (mirror image). Some payors prefer the use of the -50 modifier, and others require the use of the -RT anatomic modifier on one code and the -LT modifier on the other code. Don’t mix the use of -50 and -RT or -LT modifiers on the same code. Many payors will reduce the second procedure by one-half when using the -50 modifier. Don’t use bilateral modifiers on those CPT codes with descriptions designated as “bilateral” or “unilateral or bilateral”. -51 — Multiple procedures (P) ASCs should not use the -51 modifier on their codes, unless the payor requires its use. When more than one procedure (excluding E&M codes) is performed on the same day during the same encounter by the same physician, modifier -51 should be appended to the subsequent procedures on the physician’s claim. The exception to this guideline is if the CPT code is an add-on code, or if it is –51 modifier-exempt. -52 — Reduced services (A&P) This modifier is used to indicate that a procedure was partially reduced or eliminated at the physician’s discretion. Usually, the procedure fee is reduced to reflect the reduced services provided. -58 — Staged or related procedure or service by the same physician during the postoperative period (A&P) Use this modifier to indicate the performance of a procedure or service during the post-operative period that was:

More extensive than the original procedure; or
For therapy following a diagnostic surgical procedure.

-59 — Distinct procedural service (A&P) Use this modifier to indicate the procedure or service was distinct or independent from other services performed on the same day, to identify procedures not normally reported together (due to CCI edits or “separate procedure” status in the CPT book), but which are appropriate under the circumstances or to represent a different session, different procedure or surgery, different site or organ system, separate incision/excision, separate lesion or separate injury not normally encountered or performed on the same day by the same surgeon. This modifier may override edits in the payor’s system, which would normally deny the code (i.e., unbundling, etc.), but under special circumstances, the modifier can be used to make the service payable — thus, the -59 modifier has a higher audit potential with Medicare and other payors. Note: Do not use a -59 modifier on the first code listed on the claim form. Claims filed with this modifier may be under close review by Medicare. Do not use this modifier unless it is absolutely necessary (such as a situation where CPT codes are unbundled and will be denied without use of the -59 modifier). Do not use the -59 modifier like the -51 modifier to merely to indicate an additional procedure was performed. -73 — Discontinued outpatient hospital/ASC procedure prior to the administration of anesthesia (A) This modifier is appended to the CPT code for the intended procedure(s) to indicate that a procedure was terminated due to medical complications after the patient had been prepared for surgery and taken to the OR, but before anesthesia was induced. The ASC must have “expended significant resources” to charge for the scheduled procedures using this modifier, and the patient must be physically located in the OR or the procedure room where the procedure was to be performed in order to bill Medicare — the pre-op area is not allowed. -74 — Discontinued outpatient hospital/ASC procedure after the administration of anesthesia (A) This modifier is appended to the CPT code for the intended procedure(s) to indicate that a procedure was terminated due to medical complications after anesthesia for the procedure was induced. -76 — Repeat procedure or service by same physician (A&P) Use this modifier only if an identical procedure is being performed following the initial procedure. The time frame for this usually falls during the usual physician’s global period for the surgery. -77 — Repeat procedure or service by another physician (A&P) This modifier is used in the situation where a physician repeats a procedure that had previously been performed by another physician. It is usually assumed to occur on the same day that the initial procedure was performed. -78 — Return to the OR for a related procedure during the postoperative period (A&P) This modifier will result in reduced reimbursement for the physician as the payment will reflect the surgery component only. However, failure to use this modifier, when necessary, will probably result in a claim denial. An example of the correct use of this modifier would be when a patient has a postoperative bleed and has to be taken back to the OR for a control of bleeding procedure. -79 —Unrelated procedure or service by the same physician during the post-operative period (A&P) This modifier is to be used to indicate that an unrelated procedure was performed by the same physician during the postoperative period. It is best to usually use modifier -78 for this situation, as it reimburses at a higher rate. This modifier is meant for situations where a patient presents (during the postoperative period) for a problem requiring a service or procedure that is not related to the surgery that was previously performed. -RT — Right side; -LT (Left side) (A&P) It is extremely important to use the -RT and -LT anatomic modifiers on eye procedures and for podiatric procedures. Many orthopedic procedures require the use of these modifiers as well. Not using them when they are necessary can have a profound effect on reimbursement. If you bill a procedure that will be done bilaterally without the modifier for that side, when you bill the other side later, it may (needlessly) be denied as a duplicate claim, which will have to be appealed. Do no use these modifiers on skin codes from the 10000 section, except for breast procedures. Note: It is extremely important to append the appropriate -RT and -LT anatomic modifiers to CPT codes on claims, when needed (e.g., orthopedic services). When a patient has a bilateral problem (such as bunions on both feet), the surgeries to correct the problem may be done one side at a time, with the patient returning months later for the repeat procedure on the other side. If the claim for the first surgery is submitted without the appropriate -LT or -RT modifier, oftentimes when the payor (or Medicare) receives the claim for the second surgery, they will deny it as a duplicate claim. It saves a great deal of time, energy and money to append the appropriate modifier on the claim the first time through and thus avoid these types of unnecessary denials. -TC — Technical component (A&P) The –TC modifier reflects that the technical component only of an X-ray is being billed for by the ASC. This is billing for the taking of the X-ray or use of fluoroscopy by the facility. Digit Modifiers (A&P) Left hand -FA Left hand, thumb -F1 Left hand, second digit -F2 Left hand, third digit -F3 Left hand, fourth digit -F4 Left hand, fifth digit Right hand -F5 Right hand, thumb -F6 Right hand, second digit -F7 Right hand, third digit -F8 Right hand, fourth digit -F9 Right hand, fifth digit Left foot -TA Left foot, great toe -T1 Left foot, second digit -T2 Left foot, third digit -T3 Left foot, fourth digit -T4 Left foot, fifth digit Right foot -T5 Right foot, great toe -T6 Right foot, second toe -T7 Right foot, third digit -T8 Right foot, fourth digit -T9 Right foot, fifth digit Note: Do not use –RT or –LT modifiers with these codes. Also, it is not necessary to use -59 modifier with the digit modifiers unless you need to report more than one procedure on the same toe or finger when it is separately billable. -SG — ASC facility service (A) For dates of service through Dec. 31, 2007, ASCs needed to use the -SG modifier on each CPT code billed on claims filed to Medicare. The changes to the Medicare program for ASCs now has Medicare requiring that, for dates of service starting Jan. 1, 2008, that ASCs are not to use the -SG modifier. This modifier may still be required by some payors on claims filed on CMS-1500 claim forms (such as Medicaid claims, if required). You should continue using –SG for payors who have previously required its use until they direct you to do otherwise. It is not necessary to use the -SG modifier on codes listed on claims filed on UB-04 claim forms going to other payors unless the payor requires its use. Do not use the –SG modifier on HCPCS codes billed for implants for radiology codes unless otherwise directed by the payor. -GA — Waiver of liability on file (A&P) While ASCs used to use the -GA modifier in the past to indicate to Medicare that a patient was having a procedure not covered in an ASC, ASCs should not be using this Modifier any longer. CMS changed the rules in 2001 preventing ASCs from pursuing ABNs for non-covered procedures performed in the ASC setting when that procedure is covered by Medicare in another setting, such as the hospital. -GY — Statutorily excluded (A&P) If your facility is trying to bill all payors with the same codes in the same manner — since some payors other than Medicare may get mad if you bill them for something you don’t bill to Medicare — it can be challenging since some payors (especially Medicare) do not cover all billed codes for procedures performed. When billing a CPT code to a payor you know is not covered by that payor (for example, billing 77003 (fluoroscopy) to Medicare), append the -GY modifier. This lets the payor know you that you are aware that they don’t cover the service and you expect a denial for that charge. This code would be billed to Medicare as 77003-GY-TC. There is verbiage change for the -GY modifier that became effective July 1, 2007. Prior to July 2007, the verbiage stated that “the –GY modifier is to be used when providers need to indicate that the item or service they are billing is statutorily non-covered or is not a Medicare benefit.” As of July 1, 2007 the verbiage states that “the –GY modifier is to be used when physicians, practitioners or suppliers who want to indicate an item or service is statutorily excluded, does not meet the definition of any Medicare benefit or mon-Medicare insurers, is not a contract benefit.” Multiple modifiers When using more than one modifier on a CPT code, append those modifiers which affect payment (i.e., modifiers -GY, -59, -73, -74, -50, -52, etc.) before those modifiers which are informative in nature only (i.e., -LT, -T3, -78, -TC, etc.). For Medicare facility claims, the -SG Modifier is always placed first on the CPT codes, and followed by other modifiers. If you run out of space for all necessary modifiers in the usual field on the claim form, append the first or second essential modifier, followed by the -99 multiple modifiers modifier, and then continue the other modifiers in the other modifier field (field 19 on a CMS-1500) on the claim form. Note: CPT codes are copyright by the American Medical Association. --Stephanie Ellis, RN, CPC, is president of Ellis Medical Consulting. Learn more about Ellis Medical Consulting by visiting www.ellismedical.com .

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Timely Topics in Payment and Practice Management

Anesthesia Payment Basics Series Codes and Modifiers

To properly and accurately report anesthesia services, one must know and adhere to rules and guidelines that are specific to anesthesia care. Additionally, the formula used to determine payment for anesthesia services is unique to anesthesia. These rules and formula may be misunderstood or improperly applied. This ASA Timely Topic is the first of a series that will break the components of anesthesia billing and payment down into individual components and provide explanation on what the components represent. Codes and Modifiers Any claim for a professional healthcare service must clearly communicate what service/procedure was performed and why is was done. To provide clarity and standardization, the Administrative Simplifications provisions within the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) requires all covered entities to use specially designated code sets on claims for services. Procedures and services are reported with codes and modifiers from the CPT® code set. CPT stands for Common Procedural Terminology and this code set is owned and maintained by the American Medical Association (AMA). Anesthesia codes – sometimes referred to as “ASA codes” are part of the CPT code set. Examples of CPT codes applicable to anesthesia include:

As you can observe from these examples, some CPT Anesthesia codes are broad and encompass anesthesia care for a range of diagnostic or therapeutic services (eg, 00790) while others are more narrow and describe anesthesia care for limited and specific services (eg, 01402). CPT Modifier 22 – Increased Procedural Services is an example of a CPT modifier that may be used with anesthesia codes. As explained in the ASA Relative Value Guide ® (RVG™), this modifier is used to report instances of field avoidance and the increased work and complexity that follows when an anesthesiologist has limited access to the patient’s airway. The Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) includes codes and modifiers that may also be used to report services or drugs and supplies when appropriate. The HCPCS code set includes several modifiers that are specific to anesthesia care and are required on claims submitted to Medicare and many other payers.

Physician anesthesiologists report AA, AD, QK, or QY. A CRNA or Anesthesiologist Assistant reports QK; Modifier QZ is specific to CRNAs. Payers may also require HCPCS modifiers to denote monitored anesthesia care (MAC):

CPT Code 00790 - Anesthesia for intraperitoneal procedures in upper abdomen including laparoscopy; not otherwise specified HCPCS Modifiers Dr A reports QK - Medical Direction of two, three or four concurrent anesthesia procedures involving qualified individuals CRNA A reports the same CPT code with modifier QX - Qualified nonphysician anesthetist service: With medical direction by a physician ICD-10-CM Code K80.01 - Calculus of gallbladder with acute cholecystitis with obstruction

On June 1, 2019, Dr. B personally provides anesthesia care for a patient undergoing a total right knee replacement.

CPT Code 01402 - Anesthesia for total knee arthroplasty HCPCS Modifier AA - Anesthesia Services performed personally by the anesthesiologist ICD-10-CM Code M17.11 - Unilateral primary osteoarthritis, right knee

The use of a modifier on a Medicare claim provides additional information for the code being billed and, if approved, may determine the payment for the code.

Why is the correct use of a modifier important?

Several of the top billing errors involve the incorrect use of modifiers. Correct modifier use is an important part of avoiding fraud and abuse or noncompliance issues, especially in coding and billing processes involving government programs.

How does a modifier affect payment?

In some cases, addition of a modifier may directly affect payment. Placement of a modifier after a CPT® or HCPCS code does not ensure reimbursement. Medical documentation may be requested to support the use of the assigned modifier. If the service is not documented or the documentation does not contain all pertinent information and an adequate definition of the procedure or service, it may not be considered appropriate to report the modifier.

What should be understood about modifiers?

The critical thing to remember is that, just because a service is “covered”, it does not necessarily mean that service is “reimbursable”. A clear understanding of Medicare’s rules is necessary to assign modifiers correctly. It is the responsibility of any provider submitting claims to stay informed of Medicare program requirements. Modifier # Modifier description

21 Prolonged Evaluation and Management Services

22 Unusual Procedural Services

23 Unusual Anesthesia

24 Unrelated Evaluation and Management Service by the Same Physician During a Postoperative Period

25 Significant, Separately Identifiable Evaluation and Management Service by the Same Physician on the Same Day of the Procedure or Other Service

26 Professional Component

32 Mandated Services

47 Anesthesia by Surgeon

50 Bilateral Procedures

51 Multiple Procedures

52 Reduced Services

53 Discontinued Procedure

54 Surgical Care Only

55 Postoperative Management Only

56 Preoperative Management Only

57 Decision for Surgery

58 Staged or Related Procedure or Service by the Same Physician During the Postoperative Period

59 Distinct Procedural Service

62 Two Surgeons

63 Procedure Performed on Infants less than 4 kg.

66 Surgical Team

76 Repeat Procedure by Same Physician

77 Repeat Procedure by Another Physician

78 Return to the Operating Room for a Related Procedure During the Postoperative Period

79 Unrelated Procedure or Service by the Same Physician During the Postoperative Period

80 Assisted Surgeons

81 Minimum Assistant Surgeons

82 Assistant Surgeon (when qualified surgeon no available)

90 Reference (Outside) Laboratory

91 Repeat Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory Test

99 Multiple Modifiers

P1 A normal healthy patient

P2 A patient with mild systemic disease

P3 A patient with severe systemic disease

P4 A patient with severe systemic disease that is a constant threat to life

P5 A moribund patient who is not expected to survive without the operation

P6 A declared brain-dead patient whose orgins are being removed for donor purposes

27 Multiple Outpatient Hospital E/M Encounters on the Same Date

73 Discontinued Out-Patitent Hosptial/Amburlatory Surgery Center (ASC) Procedure Prior to the Administration of Anesthisia

74 Discontinue Out-Patient Hospital/Ambulatory Surgery Cener (ASC) Procedure After Administration of Anesthesia

E1 Upper left, eyelid

E2 Lower left, eyelid

E3 Upper right, eyelid

E4 Lower right, eyelid

F1 Left hand, second digit

F2 Left hand, third digit

F3 Left hand, fourth digit

F4 Left hand, fifth digit

F5 Right hand, thumb

F6 Right hand, second digit

F7 Right hand, third digit

F8 Right hand, fourth digit

F9 Right hand, fifth digit

FA Left hand, thumb

GG Performance and payment of a screening mammogram and diagnostic mammogram on the same patient, same day

GH Diagnostic mammogram converted from screening mammogram on same day

LC Left circumflex coronary artery (Hospitals use with code 92980-92984, 92995, 92996

LD Left anterior descending coronary artery (Hospitals use with codes 92980-92984, 92995, 92996

LT Left side (used to identify procedures performed on the left side of the body)

QM Ambulance service provided under arrangement by a provider of services

QN Ambulance service furnished directly by a provider of services

RC Right coronary artery (hospital use with codes 92980-92984, 92995, 92996

RT Right side (used to identify procedures performed on the right side of the body

T1 Left foot, second digit

T2 Left foot, third digit

AA- Anesthesia services performed by anesthesiologist.

AD- Medical supervision by a physician, more than four concurrent anesthesia procedures.

AH- Clinical Psychologist (CP) Services. [Used when a medical group employs a CP and bills for the CP’s service.

AJ- Clinical Social Worker (CSW). [Used when a medical group employs a

CSW and bills for the CSW’s service.

AM- Physician, team member service

AS- Physician Assistant, Nurse Practitioner, or Clinical Nurse Specialist services for assistant at surgery.

AT- Acute treatment. [This modifier should be used when reporting a spinal manipulation service

CC- Procedure code changed. [This modifier is used when the submitted procedure code is changed either for administrative reasons or because an incorrect code was filed.

G1- Most recent urea reduction ratio (URR) reading of less Than 60.

G2- Most recent urea reduction ratio (URR) reading of 60 to 64.9.

G3- Most recent urea reduction ratio (URR) of 65 to 69.9.

G4- Most recent urea reduction ratio (URR) of 70 to 74.9.

G5- Most recent urea reduction ratio (URR) reading of 75 or greater.

G6- ESRD patient for whom less than six dialysis sessions have been provided in a month.

G7- Pregnancy resulted from rape or incest or pregnancy certified by physician as life threatening.

G8- Monitored Anesthesia Care (MAC) for deep complex, complicated, or markedly invasive surgical procedure.

G9- Monitored Anesthesia Care (MAC) for patient who has history of severe cardio- pulmonary condition.

GA- Waiver of Liability Statement on file. (Effective for dates of service on or after October 1, 1995, a physician or supplier should use this modifier to note that the patient has been advised of the possibility of noncoverage.)

GB- Claim being re-submitted for payment because it is no longer covered under a global payment demonstration.

GC- This service has been performed in part by a resident under the direction of a teaching physician.

GE- This service has been performed by a resident without the presence of a teaching physician under the primary care exception.

GJ- “Opt Out” physician or practitioner emergency or urgent service.

GM- Multiple patients on one ambulance trip.

GN- Service delivered personally by a speech-language pathologist or under an outpatient speech-language pathology plan of care.

GO- Service delivered personally by an occupational therapist or under an outpatient occupational therapy plan of care.

GP- Service delivered personally by a physical therapist or under an outpatient physical therapy plan of care.

GQ- Via asynchronous telecommunications system

GV- Attending physician not employed or paid under arrangement by the patient’s hospice provider.

GW- Service not related to the hospice patient’s terminal condition.

GY- Item or service statutorily excluded or does not meet the definition of any Medicare benefit.

GZ- Item or service expected to be denied as not reasonable and necessary.

KO- Single drug unit dose formulation.

KP – First drug of a multiple drug unit dose formulation.

KQ- Second or subsequent drug of a multiple drug unit dose formulation.

LC- Left circumflex coronary artery.

LD- Left anterior descending coronary artery.

LR- Laboratory round trip.

LS- FDA-monitored intraocular lens implant.

LT- Left Side. (Used to identify procedures performed on the left side of the body.)

Q3- Live kidney donor – Services associated with postoperative medical complications directly related to the donation.

Q4- Service for ordering/referring physician qualifies as a service exemption.

Q5- Service furnished by a substitute physician under a reciprocal billing arrangement.

Q6- Service furnished by a locum tenens physician.

Q7- One Class A Finding.

Q8- Two Class B findings.

Q9- One Class B and Two Class C findings.

QA- FDA investigational device exemption.

QB- Physician providing service in a rural Health Professional Shortage area

GT- Via interactive audio and video telecommunication systems.

QC- Single channel monitoring.

QD- Recording and storage in solid state memory by digital recorder.

QK- Medical direction of two, three, or four concurrent anesthesia procedures involving qualified individuals.

QL- Patient pronounced dead after ambulance called.

QM- Ambulance service provided under arrangement by a provider of services.

QN- Ambulance service furnished directly by a provider of services.

QS- Monitored anesthesia care service.

QT- Recording and storage on a tape by an analog tape recorder.

QU- Physician providing service in an urban Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA).

QV- Item or service provided as routine care in a Medicare qualifying clinical trial.

QW- Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendment (CLIA) waived test (modifier used to identify waived tests).

QX- CRNA service with medical direction by a physician.

QY- Anesthesiologist medically directs one CRNA.

QZ- CRNA service without medical direction by a physician.

RC- Right coronary artery.

RT- Right Side (used to identify procedures performed on the right side of the body).

SF- Second opinion ordered by a Professional Review Organization (PRO)

SG- Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) facility service.

TC- Technical Component.

U1 Perinatal care provider completed prenatal or postpartum depression screening and behavioral health need identified (positive screen)

U2 Perinatal care provider completed prenatal or postpartum depression screening with no behavioral health need identified (negative screen)

U3 Pediatric provider completed postpartum depression screening during well-child or infant episodic visit and behavioral health need identified (positive screen)

U4 Pediatric provider completed postpartum depression screening during well-child or infant episodic visit with no behavioral health need identified (negative screen)

HQ Group counseling, at least 60-90 minutes

TF Intermediate level of care, at least 45 minutes

HA Service Code 90791 must be accompanied by this modifier to indicate that the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths is included in the assessment. This modifier may be billed only by psychiatrists.

PA Surgical or other invasive procedure on wrong body part

PB Surgical or other invasive procedure on wrong patient

PC Wrong surgery or other invasive procedure on patient

PT modifier – Colorectal cancer screening test; converted to diagnostic test or other procedure.

Modifier Usage Guidelines

To ensure you receive the most accurate payment for services you render, Blue Cross recommends using modifiers when you file claims. For Blue Cross claims filing, modifiers, when applicable, always should be used by placing the valid CPT or HCPCS modifier(s) in Block 24D of the CMS-1500 claim form. A complete list of valid modifiers is listed in the most current CPT or HCPCS code book. Please ensure that your office is using the current edition of the code book reflective of the date of service of the claim. If necessary, please submit medical records with your claim to support the use of a modifier.

Please use the following tips to avoid the possibility of rejected claims:

• Use valid modifiers. Blue Cross considers only CPT and HCPCS modifiers that appear in the current CPT and HCPCS books as valid.

• Indicate the valid modifier in Block 24D of the CMS-1500. We collect up to four modifiers per CPT and/or HCPCS code.

• Do not use other descriptions in this section of the claim form. In some cases, our system may read the description as a set of modifiers and this could result in lower payment for you.

• Avoid excessive spaces between each modifier.

• Do not use dashes, periods, commas, semicolons or any other punctuation in the modifier portion of Block 24D.

Most Used Modifier with detailed description

22—Increased Procedural Services: Documentation is required when billing with this modifier. A short explanation of why this modifier was applied will also help expedite the processing of claims. 24—Unrelated E&M Service by Same Physician During a Postoperative Period: Used when a physician performs an E&M service during a postoperative period for a reason(s) unrelated to the original procedure. 25—Significant, Separately Identifiable E&M Service by the Same Physician on the Same Day of the Procedure or Other Service: Used by provider to indicate that on the same date of service, the provider performed two significant, separately identifiable services that are not “unbundled”. 26 or PC—Professional Component: Certain procedures are a combination of a physician component and a technical component, and this modifier is used when the physician is providing only the interpretation portion. TC—Technical Component : Certain procedures are a combination of a provider component and a technical component, and this modifier is used when the provider is performing only the technical portion of a service. 32—Mandated Services : Services related to mandated consultation and/or related services (e.g., third party payer, governmental, legislative, or regulatory requirement) may be identified by adding modifier 32 to the basic procedure. 47—Anesthesia by Surgeon: Regional or general anesthesia provided by a surgeon may be reported by adding this modifier to the surgical procedure. Amount allowed is 25% of the surgical procedure allowance.

82 Insurance Health Plans Revised September 9, 2016. Replaces all prior versions.

62—Two Surgeons (MD, DMD, DO): When two surgeons work together as primary surgeons performing distinct part(s) of a single procedure, each surgeon should add modifier 62 to the Procedure code. The combined allowable for co-surgeons is 125% of the full Procedure allowable. This amount will be split 50-50 between the two surgeons, unless otherwise indicated on the claim form. 63—Procedure Performed on Infants less than 4kg: Documentation is required when billing with this modifier. A short explanation of why this modifier was applied will also help expedite the processing of claims. 66—Surgical Team (MD, DO, PA, CRNFA, RN, SA): When a team of surgeons (two or more) are required to perform a specific procedure, each surgeon bills the procedure with modifier 66. Fee allowance is increased to 120% of the basic fee allowance for the procedure.

76—Repeat Procedure by Same Physician: This modifier is used to indicate that a repeat procedure on the same day was necessary, or a repeat procedure was necessary and it is not a duplicate bill for the original surgery or service. 77—Repeat Procedure by Another Physician : This modifier is used to indicate that a procedure already performed by another physician is being repeated by a different physician. This sometimes occurs on the same date of service. 78—Return to the OR for a Related Procedure During the Post-op Period: Indicates that a surgical procedure was performed during the post-op period of the initial procedure, was related to the first procedure, and required use of the operating room. This modifier also applies to patients returned to the operating room after the initial procedure, for one or more additional procedures as a result of complications. Documentation is required when billing with this modifier. 79—Unrelated Procedure or Service by the Same Physician During the Post-op Period: Indicates that an unrelated procedure was performed by the same physician during the post-op period of the original procedure.

80—Assistant Surgeon (MD, DMD, DO): Only one first assistant may be reimbursed for a Procedure code, except for open-heart surgery, where two assistants are allowed. Payment will be allowed only if an assistant surgeon is allowed by our claims editing system. The fee allowance is automatically reduced to 20% of the surgical fee allowance as billed by the primary surgeon. Refer to Surgical Assistant Guidelines 11.5.3 of the Provider Manual.

50—Bilateral Procedures: Bilateral surgeries are procedures performed on both sides of the body during the same operative session or on the same day. Unless otherwise identified, bilateral procedures should be identified with this modifier. A separate procedure code should be billed for each procedure, using modifier -50 on the second one. Refer to Bilateral Procedures 11.5.1 of the Provider Manual.

51—Multiple Procedures: Procedures performed at the same operative session, which significantly increase time. Multiple procedures should be listed according to value. The primary procedure should be of the greatest value and should not have modifier -51 added. Subsequent procedures should be listed using modifier -51 in decreasing value. Refer to Bilateral Procedures 11.5.2 of the Provider Manual. 52—Reduced Services: Allowed amount to be reduced to 80% (cut by 20%), then processed according to the contract benefits. 53—Discontinued Procedure: Under certain circumstances, the physician may elect to terminate a surgical or diagnostic procedure. Allowed amount will be reduced to 75% (cut by 25%), then processed according to contract benefits. 54—Surgical Care Only: Used with surgery procedure codes with a global surgery period only. Fee allowance is reduced to 70% of the original allowed. See modifiers 55 and 56 below for additional details on pre- and post-op care only. 55—Postoperative Management Only: Reimbursement is limited to the post-op management services only. Used with the surgery Procedure code, auto adjudication reduces fee allowance to 30% of the total allowed. 56—Preoperative Management Only: Reimbursement is limited to the pre-op management services only. Used with the surgery Procedure code, auto adjudication reduces fee allowance to 10% of the total allowed.

57—Decision for Surgery: This modifier identifies an E&M service(s) that resulted in the initial decision for surgery and are not included in the “global” surgical package.

59—Distinct Procedural Service: Indicates that a procedure or service was distinct or independent from other services performed on the same day. Example: An E&M service for an ear infection and a surgical code billed for removal of a wart at the same visit. 81—Minimum Assistant Surgeon (CNM, CRNFA, NP, PA, RN, SA): Use this modifier when the services of a second or third assistant surgeon are required during a procedure. Use with surgical Procedure codes only. The allowance is automatically reduced to 10% of the surgical fee allowance as billed by the primary surgeon.

82—Assistant Surgeon: This modifier is used when a qualified resident surgeon is not available. This is a rare occurrence. The fee allowance is automatically reduced to 20% of the surgical fee allance as billed by the primary surgeon. 90—Reference (Outside) Laboratory: This modifier is used when laboratory procedures are performed by a party other than the treating or reporting physician. Allowed should fall to contracted lab fees. 91—Repeat Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory Test: This modifier is used when a provider needs to obtain additional test results to administer or perform the same test(s) on the same day and same patient. It should not be used when the test(s) are rerun due to specimen or equipment error or malfunction. Nor should this code be used when basic procedure code(s) (such as Procedure 82951) indicate that a series of test results are to be obtained.

99—Multiple Modifiers: Under certain circumstances two or more modifiers may be necessary to completely describe a service.

JW —JW Modifier is now billable for single dose medications purchased for a specific patient when a portion must be discarded.

SG—Ambulatory Surgery Center: This modifier is used when the services billed were provided at an Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC).

SU —Procedure performed in physician’s office (to denote use of facility and equipment) CMS has defined four new HCPCS modifiers to selectively identify subsets of Distinct Procedural Services (-59 modifier) as follows (effective January 1, 2015):

• XE—Separate Encounter, A Service That Is Distinct Because It Occurred During A Separate Encounter

• XS—Separate Structure, A Service That Is Distinct Because It Was Performed On A Separate Organ/ Structure

• XP—Separate Practitioner, A Service That Is Distinct Because It Was Performed By A Different Practitioner

• XU—Unusual Non-Overlapping Service, The Use Of A Service That Is Distinct Because It Does Not Overlap Usual Components Of The Main Service Your Insurance Provider Service Representative is available any time you have a question or concern.

Level I (CPT) Modifiers

-25, -27, -50, -52, -58, -59, -73, -74, -76, -77, -78, -79, -91

Level II (HCPCS) Modifiers

-CA, -E1, -E2, -E3, -E4, -FA, -FB, -FC, -F1, -F2, -F3, -F4, -F5, -F6, -F7, -F8, -F9, -GA, -GG, -GH, -GY, -GZ, -LC, -LD, -LT, -QL, -QM, -RC, -RT, -TA, -T1, -T2, -T3, -T4, -T5, -T6, -T7, -T8, -T9

Therapy Modifiers

Used to identify type of therapy service and level of functional impairment

Outpatient Therapy Code Modifiers – Identify discipline of plan of care under which service is delivered

Modifier Modifier Description GN Services delivered under an outpatient speech language pathology plan of care GO Services delivered under an outpatient occupational therapy plan of care GP Services delivered under an outpatient physical therapy plan of care KX Used to indicate the services rendered are medically necessary

Therapy Functional Modifiers – Used in conjunction with function related G series codes for physical therapy (PT), occupation therapy (OT) and speech language pathology (SLP) to indicate severity/complexity of beneficiary’s percentage of functional impairment as determined by clinician furnishing therapy services

Modifier Modifier Description

CH 0 percent impaired, limited or restricted CI At least 1 percent but less than 20 percent impaired, limited or restricted CJ At least 1 percent but less than 20 percent impaired, limited or restricted CK At least 40 percent but less than 60 percent impaired, limited or restricted CL At least 60 percent but less than 80 percent impaired, limited or restricted CM At least 80 percent but less than 100 percent impaired, limited or restricted CN 100 percent impaired, limited or restricted PORTABLE XRAY HCPCS Modifier Description

UN Two patients served (used with procedure R0075)

UP Three patients served (used with procedure R0075)

UQ Four patients served (used with procedure R0075)

UR Five patients served (used with procedure R0075)

US Six or more patients served (used with procedure R0075)

POSITION EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY (PET) SCAN HCPCS Modifier Description

PI Initial Anti-tumor Treatment Strategy

PS Subsequent Treatment Strategy

PROSTHETICS HCPCS Modifier Description

Ls FDA monitored Intraocular Lens Implant

Common Modifier usage

Modifier 22 can be used on any procedure within the Anesthesia, Surgery, Radiology, Laboratory/Pathology and Medicine series of codes. However, this modifier should not be used on E&M services. E&M codes with a modifier 22 will be denied. If modifier 22 is used on any surgical procedure, then it must only be used on surgeries which have a global period of 000, 010, 090, or YYY identified on the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Relative Value File

26 50, 62, 66, TC If billing for the global component (professional & technical) of a procedure, modifiers 26 and TC should not be used. Modifier 26 can only be used by professional providers. It should not be used by a hospital. KMAP uses the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Relative Value file to determine which procedures are appropriately billed with modifier 26. KMAP uses the PT/TC indicator field on the file as a basis to determine proper usage of modifier 26. The following determination has been made based on the individual indicators.

Modifier 47 – This modifier should be appended only to the surgical procedure code when applicable. It is not appropriate to use this modifier on anesthesia procedure codes. The anesthesiologist would not use this modifier. Do not report modifier 47 when the physician reports moderate (conscious) sedation. 50 26, LT, RT, TC KMAP uses the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Relative Value file to determine which procedures are appropriately billed with modifier 50. KMAP uses the Bilat Surg indicator field on the file as a basis to determine proper usage of modifier 50. 54 55, 56, 80, 81, 82, AS When one physician performs a surgical procedure and another provides preoperative and/or postoperative management, surgical codes can be identified by adding the modifier 54. Physicians who perform the surgery and furnish all of the usual pre- and post-operative work bill for the global package by entering the appropriate CPT® KMAP uses the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Relative Value file to determine which procedures are appropriately billed with modifier 54. code for the surgical procedure only; therefore, modifiers 54 and 55 cannot be combined on a single detail line item. KMAP uses the Glob Days field on the file as a basis to determine proper usage of modifier 54. The following determinations have been made based on the individual indicators.

58 80, 81, 82, AS It may be necessary to indicate the performance of a procedure or service during the postoperative period was (a) planned or anticipated (staged); (b) more extensive than the original procedure; or (c) for therapy following a surgical procedure. Complications from surgery which do not require a return trip to the operating room are considered part of the global surgery package from the original surgery and are not payable separately. Modifier 58 is not appropriate in this situation.

66 26, 62, 80, 81, 82, AS, TC Under some circumstances, highly complex procedures (requiring the concomitant services of several physicians, often of different specialties, plus other highly skilled, specially trained personnel, various types of complex equipment) are carried out under the “surgical team” concept. Such circumstances can be identified by each participating physician with the addition of modifier 66 to the basic procedure code used for reporting services. 73 Submit modifier 73 for ASC facility charges when the surgical procedure is discontinued before anesthesia is administered. This modifier cannot be submitted by the operating surgeon. Only ASCs can submit this modifier. Surgeons can refer to modifier 53.

Modifier 73 is used by the facility to indicate a surgical or diagnostic procedure requiring anesthesia was terminated due to extenuating circumstances or to circumstances that threatened the well being of the patient after the patient had been prepared for the procedure (including procedural premedication when provided) and taken to the room where the procedure was to be performed but prior to administration of anesthesia. This modifier code was created so the costs incurred by the hospital to prepare the patient for the procedure and the resources expended in the procedure room and recovery room (if needed) can be recognized for payment even though the procedure was discontinued. 74 Submit modifier 74 for ASC facility charges when the surgical procedure is discontinued after anesthesia is administered. This modifier cannot be submitted by the operating surgeon. Only ASCs can submit this modifier. Surgeons can refer to modifier 53.

Modifier 76 is used when the procedure is repeated by the same physician subsequent to the original service. The repeat service must be identical to the initial service provided. This modifier is separate and distinct from modifiers 58, 78, and 79. Please refer to details for these modifiers.

If the same procedures are performed on the same day, they must be billed on the same claim. If the duplicative service is not billed on the same claim, a duplicate denial of the service will occur. Although valid, this modifier does not document payable services during the global period, therefore rendering this modifier invalid for use with a surgical code. Repeat procedures for treatment of complications can be billed with modifier 78 .

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What Are CPT Modifiers And Why Medical Billing Companies Use Them?

Since medical procedures and services are often complex, we sometimes need to supply additional information when we’re coding . CPT modifiers may describe whether multiple procedures were performed, why that procedure was necessary, where the procedure was performed on the body, how many surgeons worked on the patient, and lots of other information that may be critical to a claim’s status with the insurance payer.

Some of the common reasons for using a Modifier are:

The procedure was more complicated than anticipated
Another procedure was required during the same procedure
The same diagnostic test had to be re-run on the same day
The X-Ray was done in one facility and the results were read in a different facility

Consider this example: while doing surgery for a wrist repair – 25607, during the same procedure, a carpal tunnel release – 64721 is done. You need to append modifier 51 to show the secondary procedure was performed.

CPT Modifiers are always two characters and may be numeric or alphanumeric. Most of the CPT modifiers you’ll see are numeric, but there are a few alphanumeric Anesthesia modifiers also. CPT modifiers are added to the end of a CPT code with a hyphen. In the case of more than one modifier, you code the “functional” modifier first, and the “informational” modifier second. The distinction between the two is simple: you always want to list the modifiers that most directly affect the reimbursement process first.

Take, for example, the partial mastectomy of the left breast (code 19302-LT-53). If you were to swap out the -53 (discontinued procedure) with the functional modifier -52 (for reduced services), you would then code the whole procedure 19302-52-LT. Note that the functional modifier (-52) now comes before the informational modifier (-LT). If the informational modifier is listed first in a claim, an insurance company will deny that claim and return it to the healthcare provider.

In CMS-1500 and UB-04 forms, the two most common claim forms, have space for four modifiers, payers don’t always look at modifiers after the first two. Because of this, you always want the most important modifiers to be visible.

Let’s take a quick look at an example of a CPT modifier in action.

A surgeon performs a procedure to remove a bone cyst in the upper arm of a patient. The procedure also includes obtaining a graft from elsewhere in the body. Due to minor complications, the surgeon is unable to fully excise the bone cyst. For the procedure, we’d code 23140 for “excision or curettage of bone cyst or benign tumor, humerus; with autograft (includes obtaining the graft).” Since the procedure was completed but not fully successful, we’d add the -52 modifier, for reduced services, to the code, and we’d end up with 23140-52.

Certain modifiers also have guidelines specific to them. The modifier -51, for multiple procedures, is one of the more commonly used CPT modifiers. In the instance of multiple procedures provided by the same specialist or healthcare provider, a coder would list the initial procedure’s CPT code, then append the modifier -51 to the end of the code for the additional procedure or procedures. Certain procedures, however, are listed in the CPT book as “-51 exempt,” and coders must be aware of this distinction.

Note that some modifiers can be used in conjunction with each other (like -23, unusual anesthesia, and -47, for anesthesia by the surgeon). Others contradict one another and cannot be included in the same code, For example, the modifier –LT (procedure on the left of two paired appendages or organs) cannot be coded with the modifier -50, which describes a bilateral procedure.

Payers have what is called reimbursement edits for reporting code combinations. If using two codes are stand-alone codes they may be subject to multiple procedure payment reductions. You would append modifier 51 to the procedure that has less value than the primary procedure. You need to be aware of special rules that are applied when using modifiers.

Using the appropriate modifiers can substantially impact reimbursement. If you do not report a modifier and the procedure allows a modifier you will not be paid for the procedure. There are industry standards related to the use of modifiers and reimbursement. While some modifiers change the payment rates some are for informational use only or impacts bundling edits. It pays to understand and get familiar with modifiers and how they are used. Modifiers have different pricing, some pay 10% of the fee schedule and some pay 100%.

These are just a few examples to show the impact of modifiers:

References:.

Centre of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Global Surgery Booklet (Sept 2018). Retrieved from https://www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Medicare-Learning-Network-MLN/MLNProducts/downloads/GloballSurgery-ICN907166.pdf
Ingenix Coding Lab-Understanding Modifiers. Retrieved from https://www.optum360coding.com/upload/pdf/3989/ICL-Understanding%20Modifiers.pdf

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Next: Foreword to the Third Edition , Up: (dir) [ Contents ][ Index ]

General Introduction ¶

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

This is Edition 5.3 of GAWK: Effective AWK Programming: A User’s Guide for GNU Awk , for the 5.3.0 (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 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the Invariant Sections being “GNU General Public License”, with the Front-Cover Texts being “A GNU Manual”, and with the Back-Cover Texts as in (a) below. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License”.

The FSF’s Back-Cover Text is: “You have the freedom to copy and modify this GNU manual.”

Short Table of Contents

Foreword to the Third Edition
Foreword to the Fourth Edition
1 Getting Started with awk
2 Running awk and gawk
3 Regular Expressions
4 Reading Input Files
5 Printing Output
6 Expressions
7 Patterns, Actions, and Variables
8 Arrays in awk
9 Functions
10 A Library of awk Functions
11 Practical awk Programs
12 Advanced Features of gawk
13 Internationalization with gawk
14 Debugging awk Programs
15 Namespaces in gawk
16 Arithmetic and Arbitrary-Precision Arithmetic with gawk
17 Writing Extensions for gawk
Appendix A The Evolution of the awk Language
Appendix B Installing gawk
Appendix C Implementation Notes
Appendix D Basic Programming Concepts
GNU General Public License
GNU Free Documentation License

History of awk and gawk
A Rose by Any Other Name
Using This Book
Dark Corners
The GNU Project and This Book
How to Contribute
Acknowledgments
1.1.1 One-Shot Throwaway awk Programs
1.1.2 Running awk Without Input Files
1.1.3 Running Long Programs
1.1.4 Executable awk Programs
1.1.5 Comments in awk Programs
1.1.6.1 Quoting in MS-Windows Batch Files
1.2 Data files for the Examples
1.3 Some Simple Examples
1.4 An Example with Two Rules
1.5 A More Complex Example
1.6 awk Statements Versus Lines
1.7 Other Features of awk
1.8 When to Use awk
1.9 Summary
2.1 Invoking awk
2.2 Command-Line Options
2.3 Other Command-Line Arguments
2.4 Naming Standard Input
2.5.1 The AWKPATH Environment Variable
2.5.2 The AWKLIBPATH Environment Variable
2.5.3 Other Environment Variables
2.6 gawk ’s Exit Status
2.7 Including Other Files into Your Program
2.8 Loading Dynamic Extensions into Your Program
2.9 Obsolete Options and/or Features
2.10 Undocumented Options and Features
2.11 Summary
3.1 How to Use Regular Expressions
3.2 Escape Sequences
3.3.1 Regexp Operators in awk
3.3.2 Some Notes On Interval Expressions
3.4 Using Bracket Expressions
3.5 How Much Text Matches?
3.6 Using Dynamic Regexps
3.7 gawk -Specific Regexp Operators
3.8 Case Sensitivity in Matching
3.9 Summary
4.1.1 Record Splitting with Standard awk
4.1.2 Record Splitting with gawk
4.2 Examining Fields
4.3 Nonconstant Field Numbers
4.4 Changing the Contents of a Field
4.5.1 Whitespace Normally Separates Fields
4.5.2 Using Regular Expressions to Separate Fields
4.5.3 Making Each Character a Separate Field
4.5.4 Working With Comma Separated Value Files
4.5.5 Setting FS from the Command Line
4.5.6 Making the Full Line Be a Single Field
4.5.7 Field-Splitting Summary
4.6.1 Processing Fixed-Width Data
4.6.2 Skipping Intervening Fields
4.6.3 Capturing Optional Trailing Data
4.6.4 Field Values With Fixed-Width Data
4.7.1 More on CSV Files
4.7.2 FS Versus FPAT : A Subtle Difference
4.8 Checking How gawk Is Splitting Records
4.9 Multiple-Line Records
4.10.1 Using getline with No Arguments
4.10.2 Using getline into a Variable
4.10.3 Using getline from a File
4.10.4 Using getline into a Variable from a File
4.10.5 Using getline from a Pipe
4.10.6 Using getline into a Variable from a Pipe
4.10.7 Using getline from a Coprocess
4.10.8 Using getline into a Variable from a Coprocess
4.10.9 Points to Remember About getline
4.10.10 Summary of getline Variants
4.11 Reading Input with a Timeout
4.12 Retrying Reads After Certain Input Errors
4.13 Directories on the Command Line
4.14 Summary
4.15 Exercises
5.1 The print Statement
5.2 print Statement Examples
5.3 Output Separators
5.4 Controlling Numeric Output with print
5.5.1 Introduction to the printf Statement
5.5.2 Format-Control Letters
5.5.3 Modifiers for printf Formats
5.5.4 Examples Using printf
5.6 Redirecting Output of print and printf
5.7 Special Files for Standard Preopened Data Streams
5.8.1 Accessing Other Open Files with gawk
5.8.2 Special Files for Network Communications
5.8.3 Special File name Caveats
5.9.1 Using close() ’s Return Value
5.10 Speeding Up Pipe Output
5.11 Enabling Nonfatal Output
5.12 Summary
5.13 Exercises
6.1.1.1 Numeric and String Constants
6.1.1.2 Octal and Hexadecimal Numbers
6.1.1.3 Regular Expression Constants
6.1.2.1 Standard Regular Expression Constants
6.1.2.2 Strongly Typed Regexp Constants
6.1.3.1 Using Variables in a Program
6.1.3.2 Assigning Variables on the Command Line
6.1.4.1 How awk Converts Between Strings and Numbers
6.1.4.2 Locales Can Influence Conversion
6.2.1 Arithmetic Operators
6.2.2 String Concatenation
6.2.3 Assignment Expressions
6.2.4 Increment and Decrement Operators
6.3.1 True and False in awk
6.3.2.1 String Type versus Numeric Type
6.3.2.2 Comparison Operators
6.3.2.3 String Comparison Based on Locale Collating Order
6.3.3 Boolean Expressions
6.3.4 Conditional Expressions
6.4 Function Calls
6.5 Operator Precedence (How Operators Nest)
6.6 Where You Are Makes a Difference
6.7 Summary
7.1.1 Regular Expressions as Patterns
7.1.2 Expressions as Patterns
7.1.3 Specifying Record Ranges with Patterns
7.1.4.1 Startup and Cleanup Actions
7.1.4.2 Input/Output from BEGIN and END Rules
7.1.5 The BEGINFILE and ENDFILE Special Patterns
7.1.6 The Empty Pattern
7.2 Using Shell Variables in Programs
7.3 Actions
7.4.1 The if - else Statement
7.4.2 The while Statement
7.4.3 The do - while Statement
7.4.4 The for Statement
7.4.5 The switch Statement
7.4.6 The break Statement
7.4.7 The continue Statement
7.4.8 The next Statement
7.4.9 The nextfile Statement
7.4.10 The exit Statement
7.5.1 Built-in Variables That Control awk
7.5.2 Built-in Variables That Convey Information
7.5.3 Using ARGC and ARGV
7.6 Summary
8.1.1 Introduction to Arrays
8.1.2 Referring to an Array Element
8.1.3 Assigning Array Elements
8.1.4 Basic Array Example
8.1.5 Scanning All Elements of an Array
8.1.6 Using Predefined Array Scanning Orders with gawk
8.2 Using Numbers to Subscript Arrays
8.3 Using Uninitialized Variables as Subscripts
8.4 The delete Statement
8.5.1 Scanning Multidimensional Arrays
8.6 Arrays of Arrays
8.7 Summary
9.1.1 Calling Built-in Functions
9.1.2 Generating Boolean Values
9.1.3 Numeric Functions
9.1.4.1 More about ‘ \ ’ and ‘ & ’ with sub() , gsub() , and gensub()
9.1.5 Input/Output Functions
9.1.6 Time Functions
9.1.7 Bit-Manipulation Functions
9.1.8 Getting Type Information
9.1.9 String-Translation Functions
9.2.1 Function Definition Syntax
9.2.2 Function Definition Examples
9.2.3.1 Writing a Function Call
9.2.3.2 Controlling Variable Scope
9.2.3.3 Passing Function Arguments by Value Or by Reference
9.2.3.4 Other Points About Calling Functions
9.2.4 The return Statement
9.2.5 Functions and Their Effects on Variable Typing
9.3 Indirect Function Calls
9.4 Summary
10.1 Naming Library Function Global Variables
10.2.1 Converting Strings to Numbers
10.2.2 Assertions
10.2.3 Rounding Numbers
10.2.4 The Cliff Random Number Generator
10.2.5 Translating Between Characters and Numbers
10.2.6 Merging an Array into a String
10.2.7 Managing the Time of Day
10.2.8 Reading a Whole File at Once
10.2.9 Quoting Strings to Pass to the Shell
10.2.10 Checking Whether A Value Is Numeric
10.2.11 Producing CSV Data
10.3.1 Noting Data file Boundaries
10.3.2 Rereading the Current File
10.3.3 Checking for Readable Data files
10.3.4 Checking for Zero-Length Files
10.3.5 Treating Assignments as File names
10.4 Processing Command-Line Options
10.5 Reading the User Database
10.6 Reading the Group Database
10.7 Traversing Arrays of Arrays
10.8 Summary
10.9 Exercises
11.1 Running the Example Programs
11.2.1 Cutting Out Fields and Columns
11.2.2 Searching for Regular Expressions in Files
11.2.3 Printing Out User Information
11.2.4 Splitting a Large File into Pieces
11.2.5 Duplicating Output into Multiple Files
11.2.6 Printing Nonduplicated Lines of Text
11.2.7.1 Modern Character Sets
11.2.7.2 A Brief Introduction To Extensions
11.2.7.3 Code for wc.awk
11.3.1 Finding Duplicated Words in a Document
11.3.2 An Alarm Clock Program
11.3.3 Transliterating Characters
11.3.4 Printing Mailing Labels
11.3.5 Generating Word-Usage Counts
11.3.6 Removing Duplicates from Unsorted Text
11.3.7 Extracting Programs from Texinfo Source Files
11.3.8 A Simple Stream Editor
11.3.9 An Easy Way to Use Library Functions
11.3.10 Finding Anagrams from a Dictionary
11.3.11 And Now for Something Completely Different
11.4 Summary
11.5 Exercises
12.1 Allowing Nondecimal Input Data
12.2 Boolean Typed Values
12.3.1 Controlling Array Traversal
12.3.2 Sorting Array Values and Indices with gawk
12.4 Two-Way Communications with Another Process
12.5 Using gawk for Network Programming
12.6 Profiling Your awk Programs
12.7 Preserving Data Between Runs
12.8 Builtin Features versus Extensions
12.9 Summary
13.1 Internationalization and Localization
13.2 GNU gettext
13.3 Internationalizing awk Programs
13.4.1 Extracting Marked Strings
13.4.2 Rearranging printf Arguments
13.4.3 awk Portability Issues
13.5 A Simple Internationalization Example
13.6 gawk Can Speak Your Language
13.7 Summary
14.1.1 Debugging in General
14.1.2 Debugging Concepts
14.1.3 awk Debugging
14.2.1 How to Start the Debugger
14.2.2 Finding the Bug
14.3.1 Control of Breakpoints
14.3.2 Control of Execution
14.3.3 Viewing and Changing Data
14.3.4 Working with the Stack
14.3.5 Obtaining Information About the Program and the Debugger State
14.3.6 Miscellaneous Commands
14.4 Readline Support
14.5 Limitations
14.6 Summary
15.1 Standard awk ’s Single Namespace
15.2 Qualified Names
15.3 The Default Namespace
15.4 Changing The Namespace
15.5 Namespace and Component Naming Rules
15.6 Internal Name Management
15.7 Namespace Example
15.8 Namespaces and Other gawk Features
15.9 Summary
16.1 A General Description of Computer Arithmetic
16.2 Other Stuff to Know
16.3.1 Arbitrary Precision Arithmetic is On Parole!
16.3.2 Arbitrary Precision Introduction
16.4.1.1 Many Numbers Cannot Be Represented Exactly
16.4.1.2 Be Careful Comparing Values
16.4.1.3 Errors Accumulate
16.4.1.4 Floating Point Values They Didn’t Talk About In School
16.4.2 Getting the Accuracy You Need
16.4.3 Try a Few Extra Bits of Precision and Rounding
16.4.4 Setting the Precision
16.4.5 Setting the Rounding Mode
16.5 Arbitrary-Precision Integer Arithmetic with gawk
16.6 How To Check If MPFR Is Available
16.7 Standards Versus Existing Practice
16.8 Summary
17.1 Introduction
17.2 Extension Licensing
17.3 How It Works at a High Level
17.4.1 Introduction
17.4.2 General-Purpose Data Types
17.4.3 Memory Allocation Functions and Convenience Macros
17.4.4 Constructor Functions
17.4.5 Managing MPFR and GMP Values
17.4.6.1 Registering An Extension Function
17.4.6.2 Registering An Exit Callback Function
17.4.6.3 Registering An Extension Version String
17.4.6.4 Customized Input Parsers
17.4.6.5 Customized Output Wrappers
17.4.6.6 Customized Two-way Processors
17.4.7 Printing Messages
17.4.8 Updating ERRNO
17.4.9 Requesting Values
17.4.10 Accessing and Updating Parameters
17.4.11.1 Variable Access and Update by Name
17.4.11.2 Variable Access and Update by Cookie
17.4.11.3 Creating and Using Cached Values
17.4.12.1 Array Data Types
17.4.12.2 Array Functions
17.4.12.3 Working With All The Elements of an Array
17.4.12.4 How To Create and Populate Arrays
17.4.13 Accessing and Manipulating Redirections
17.4.14.1 API Version Constants and Variables
17.4.14.2 GMP and MPFR Version Information
17.4.14.3 Informational Variables
17.4.15 Boilerplate Code
17.4.16 Changes From Version 1 of the API
17.5 How gawk Finds Extensions
17.6.1 Using chdir() and stat()
17.6.2 C Code for chdir() and stat()
17.6.3 Integrating the Extensions
17.7.1 File-Related Functions
17.7.2 Interface to fnmatch()
17.7.3 Interface to fork() , wait() , and waitpid()
17.7.4 Enabling In-Place File Editing
17.7.5 Character and Numeric values: ord() and chr()
17.7.6 Reading Directories
17.7.7 Reversing Output
17.7.8 Two-Way I/O Example
17.7.9 Dumping and Restoring an Array
17.7.10 Reading an Entire File
17.7.11 Extension Time Functions
17.7.12 API Tests
17.8 The gawkextlib Project
17.9 Summary
17.10 Exercises
A.1 Major Changes Between V7 and SVR3.1
A.2 Changes Between SVR3.1 and SVR4
A.3 Changes Between SVR4 and POSIX awk
A.4 Extensions in Brian Kernighan’s awk
A.5 Extensions in gawk Not in POSIX awk
A.6 History of gawk Features
A.7 Common Extensions Summary
A.8 Regexp Ranges and Locales: A Long Sad Story
A.9 Major Contributors to gawk
A.10 Summary
B.1.1 Getting the gawk Distribution
B.1.2 Extracting the Distribution
B.1.3 Contents of the gawk Distribution
B.2.1.1 Building With MPFR
B.2.2 Shell Startup Files
B.2.3 Additional Configuration Options
B.2.4 The Configuration Process
B.2.5 Compiling from Git
B.2.6 Building the Documentation
B.3.1.1 Installing a Prepared Distribution for MS-Windows Systems
B.3.1.2 Compiling gawk for PC Operating Systems
B.3.1.3 Using gawk on PC Operating Systems
B.3.1.4 Using gawk In The Cygwin Environment
B.3.1.5 Using gawk In The MSYS Environment
B.3.2.1 Compiling gawk on OpenVMS
B.3.2.2 Compiling gawk Dynamic Extensions on OpenVMS
B.3.2.3 Installing gawk on OpenVMS
B.3.2.4 Running gawk on OpenVMS
B.3.2.5 The OpenVMS GNV Project
B.4.1 Defining What Is and What Is Not A Bug
B.4.2 Submitting Bug Reports
B.4.3 Please Don’t Post Bug Reports to USENET
B.4.4 What To Do If You Think There Is A Performance Issue
B.4.5 Where To Send Non-bug Questions
B.4.6 Reporting Problems with Non-Unix Ports
B.5 Other Freely Available awk Implementations
B.6 Summary
C.1 Downward Compatibility and Debugging
C.2.1 Accessing The gawk Git Repository
C.2.2 Adding New Features
C.2.3 Porting gawk to a New Operating System
C.2.4 Why Generated Files Are Kept In Git
C.3 Probable Future Extensions
C.4 Some Limitations of the Implementation
C.5.1 Problems With The Old Mechanism
C.5.2 Goals For A New Mechanism
C.5.3 Other Design Decisions
C.5.4 Room For Future Growth
C.6 Summary
D.1 What a Program Does
D.2 Data Values in a Computer
ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents

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Foreword to the Third Edition ¶

Arnold Robbins and I are good friends. We were introduced in 1990 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. Alfred V. Aho, Brian W. Kernighan, and Peter J. Weinberger’s 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 a 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 gray book. I discovered that my computer had “old awk ” and the 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 GNU/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 Programming Language .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Foreword to the Fourth Edition ¶

Some things don’t change. Thirteen years ago I wrote: “If you use AWK or want to learn how, then read this book.” True then, and still true today.

Learning to use a programming language is about more than mastering the syntax. One needs to acquire an understanding of how to use the features of the language to solve practical programming problems. A focus of this book is many examples that show how to use AWK.

Some things do change. Our computers are much faster and have more memory. Consequently, speed and storage inefficiencies of a high-level language matter less. Prototyping in AWK and then rewriting in C for performance reasons happens less, because more often the prototype is fast enough.

Of course, there are computing operations that are best done in C or C++. With gawk 4.1 and later, you do not have to choose between writing your program in AWK or in C/C++. You can write most of your program in AWK and the aspects that require C/C++ capabilities can be written in C/C++, and then the pieces glued together when the gawk module loads the C/C++ module as a dynamic plug-in. Writing Extensions for gawk , has all the details, and, as expected, many examples to help you learn the ins and outs.

I enjoy programming in AWK and had fun (re)reading this book. I think you will too.

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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. Such jobs are often easy 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 ; if you invoke it with the proper options or environment variables, it is fully compatible with the POSIX 1 specification of the awk language and with the Unix version of awk maintained by Brian Kernighan. This means that all properly written awk programs should work with gawk . So most of the time, we don’t distinguish between gawk and other awk implementations.

Using awk you can:

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
Perform simple network communications
Profile and debug awk programs
Extend the language with functions written in C or C++

This Web page teaches you about the awk language and how you can use it effectively. You should already be familiar with basic system commands, such as cat and ls , 2 as well as basic shell facilities, such as input/output (I/O) redirection and pipes.

Implementations of the awk language are available for many different computing environments. This Web page, while describing the awk language in general, also describes the particular implementation of awk called gawk (which stands for “GNU awk ”). gawk runs on a broad range of Unix systems, ranging from Intel-architecture PC-based computers up through large-scale systems. gawk has also been ported to macOS, z/OS, Microsoft Windows (all versions), and OpenVMS. 3

Typographical Conventions

Next: A Rose by Any Other Name , Up: Preface [ Contents ][ Index ]

History of awk and gawk ¶

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

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

After 35 more years, add Unicode and CSV support, sprinkle lightly with a few choice features from gawk , document very well again, and release.

The name awk comes from the initials of its designers: Alfred V. Aho, Peter J. Weinberger, and Brian W. Kernighan. The original version of awk was written in 1977 at AT&T Bell Laboratories. In 1985, a new version made the programming language more powerful, introducing user-defined functions, multiple input streams, and computed regular expressions. This new version became widely available with Unix System V Release 3.1 (1987). The version in System V Release 4 (1989) added some new features and cleaned up the behavior in some of the “dark corners” of the language. The specification for awk in the POSIX Command Language and Utilities standard further clarified the language. Both the gawk designers and the original awk designers at Bell Laboratories provided feedback for the POSIX specification.

Paul Rubin wrote 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 1994, I became the primary maintainer. Current development focuses on bug fixes, performance improvements, standards compliance, and, occasionally, new features.

In May 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.

John Haque rewrote the gawk internals, in the process providing an awk -level debugger. This version became available as gawk version 4.0 in 2011.

See Major Contributors to gawk for a full list of those who have made important contributions to gawk .

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A Rose by Any Other Name ¶

The awk language has evolved over the years. Full details are provided in The Evolution of the awk Language . The language described in this Web page is often referred to as “new awk .” By analogy, the original version of awk is referred to as “old awk .”

On most current systems, when you run the awk utility you get some version of new awk . 4 If your system’s standard awk is the old one, you will see something like this if you try the following test program:

In this case, you should find a version of new awk , or just install gawk !

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

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Using This Book ¶

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

Primarily, this Web page explains the features of awk as defined in the POSIX standard. It does so in the context of the gawk implementation. While doing so, it also attempts to describe important differences between gawk and other awk implementations. 5 Finally, it notes any gawk features that are not in the POSIX standard for awk .

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

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

Most of the time, the examples use complete awk programs. Some of the more advanced sections show only the part of the awk program that illustrates the concept being described.

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

This Web page is split into several parts, as follows:

Getting Started with awk , provides the essentials you need to know to begin using awk .
Running awk and gawk , describes how to run gawk , the meaning of its command-line options, and how it finds awk program source files.
Regular Expressions , introduces regular expressions in general, and in particular the flavors supported by POSIX awk and gawk .
Reading Input Files , describes how awk reads your data. It introduces the concepts of records and fields, as well as the getline command. I/O redirection is first described here. Network I/O is also briefly introduced here.
Printing Output , describes how awk programs can produce output with print and printf .
Expressions , describes expressions, which are the basic building blocks for getting most things done in a program.
Patterns, Actions, and Variables , describes how to write patterns for matching records, actions for doing something when a record is matched, and the predefined variables awk and gawk use.
Arrays in awk , covers awk ’s one-and-only data structure: the associative array. Deleting array elements and whole arrays is described, as well as sorting arrays in gawk . The chapter also describes how gawk provides arrays of arrays.
Functions , describes the built-in functions awk and gawk provide, as well as how to define your own functions. It also discusses how gawk lets you call functions indirectly.
A Library of awk Functions , provides a number of functions meant to be used from main awk programs.
Practical awk Programs , provides many sample awk programs.

Reading these two chapters allows you to see awk solving real problems.

Advanced Features of gawk , describes a number of advanced features. Of particular note are the abilities to control the order of array traversal, have two-way communications with another process, perform TCP/IP networking, and profile your awk programs.
Internationalization with gawk , describes special features for translating program messages into different languages at runtime.
Debugging awk Programs , describes the gawk debugger.
Namespaces in gawk , describes how gawk allows variables and/or functions of the same name to be in different namespaces.
Arithmetic and Arbitrary-Precision Arithmetic with gawk , describes advanced arithmetic facilities.
Writing Extensions for gawk , describes how to add new variables and functions to gawk by writing extensions in C or C++.
The Evolution of the awk Language , describes how the awk language has evolved since its first release to the present. It also describes how gawk has acquired features over time.
Installing gawk , describes how to get gawk , how to compile it on POSIX-compatible systems, and how to compile and use it on different non-POSIX systems. It also describes how to report bugs in gawk and where to get other freely available awk implementations.
Implementation Notes , describes how to disable gawk ’s extensions, as well as how to contribute new code to gawk , and some possible future directions for gawk development.
Basic Programming Concepts , provides some very cursory background material for those who are completely unfamiliar with computer programming.
The Glossary , defines most, if not all, of the significant terms used throughout the Web page. If you find terms that you aren’t familiar with, try looking them up here.
GNU General Public License , and GNU Free Documentation License , present the licenses that cover the gawk source code and this Web page, respectively.

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Typographical Conventions ¶

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

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

In the text, almost anything related to programming, such as command names, variable and function names, and string, numeric and regexp constants appear in this font . Code fragments appear in the same font and quoted, ‘ like this ’. Things that are replaced by the user or programmer appear in this font . Options look like this: -f . File names are indicated like this: /path/to/ourfile . 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.

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.

For the sake of brevity, throughout this Web page, we refer to Brian Kernighan’s version of awk as “BWK awk .” (See Other Freely Available awk Implementations for information on his and other versions.)

Dark Corners ¶

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

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

But, as noted by the opening quote, any coverage of dark corners is by definition incomplete.

Extensions to the standard awk language that are supported by more than one awk implementation are marked “(c.e.),” and listed in the index under “common extensions” and “extensions, common.”

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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 GNU 6 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 its software’s source code is always available to the end user. A copy of the GPL is included in this Web page for your reference (see GNU General Public License ). The GPL applies to the C language source code for gawk . To find out more about the FSF and the GNU Project online, see the GNU Project’s home page . This Web page may also be read from GNU’s website .

A shell, an editor (Emacs), highly portable optimizing C, C++, and Objective-C compilers, a symbolic debugger and dozens of large and small utilities (such as gawk ), have all been completed and are freely available. The GNU operating system kernel (the HURD), has been released but remains 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, Power Architecture, Sun SPARC, IBM S/390, and other systems. 7 Many GNU/Linux distributions are available for download from the Internet.

The Web page you are reading is actually free—at least, the information in it is free to anyone. The machine-readable source code for the Web page comes with gawk . (Take a moment to check the Free Documentation License in GNU Free Documentation License .)

The Web page itself has gone through multiple previous editions. Paul Rubin wrote the very first draft of The GAWK Manual ; it was around 40 pages long. Diane Close and Richard Stallman improved it, yielding a version that was around 90 pages 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 the previous editions. For FSF edition 4.0, the content was thoroughly reviewed and updated. All references to gawk versions prior to 4.0 were removed. Of significant note for that edition was the addition of Debugging awk Programs .

For FSF edition 5.0, the content has been reorganized into parts, and the major new additions are Arithmetic and Arbitrary-Precision Arithmetic with gawk , and Writing Extensions for gawk .

This Web page will undoubtedly continue to evolve. If you find an error in the Web page, please report it! See Reporting Problems and Bugs for information on submitting problem reports electronically.

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How to Contribute ¶

As the maintainer of GNU awk , I once thought that I would be able to manage a collection of publicly available awk programs and I even solicited contributions. Making things available on the Internet helps keep the gawk distribution down to manageable size.

The initial collection of material, such as it is, is still available at ftp://ftp.freefriends.org/arnold/Awkstuff .

In the hopes of doing something broader, I acquired the awklang.org domain. Late in 2017, a volunteer took on the task of managing it.

If you have written an interesting awk program that you would like to share with the rest of the world, please see http://www.awklang.org and use the “Contact” link.

If you have written a gawk extension, please see The gawkextlib Project .

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Acknowledgments ¶

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

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

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

Earlier editions of this Web page had the following acknowledgements:

The following people (in alphabetical order) provided helpful comments on various versions of this book: Rick Adams, Dr. Nelson H.F. Beebe, Karl Berry, Dr. Michael Brennan, Rich Burridge, Claire Cloutier, Diane Close, Scott Deifik, Christopher (“Topher”) Eliot, Jeffrey Friedl, Dr. Darrel Hankerson, Michal Jaegermann, Dr. Richard J. LeBlanc, Michael Lijewski, Pat Rankin, Miriam Robbins, Mary Sheehan, and Chuck Toporek. Robert J. Chassell provided much valuable advice on the use of Texinfo. He also deserves special thanks for convincing me not to title this Web page How to Gawk Politely . Karl Berry helped significantly with the TeX part of Texinfo. I would like to thank Marshall and Elaine Hartholz of Seattle and Dr. Bert and Rita Schreiber of Detroit for large amounts of quiet vacation time in their homes, which allowed me to make significant progress on this Web page and on gawk itself. Phil Hughes of SSC contributed in a very important way by loaning me his laptop GNU/Linux system, not once, but twice, which allowed me to do a lot of work while away from home. David Trueman deserves special credit; he has done a yeoman job of evolving gawk so that it performs well and without bugs. Although he is no longer involved with gawk , working with him on this project was a significant pleasure. The intrepid members of the GNITS mailing list, and most notably Ulrich Drepper, provided invaluable help and feedback for the design of the internationalization features. Chuck Toporek, Mary Sheehan, and Claire Cloutier of O’Reilly & Associates contributed significant editorial help for this Web page for the 3.1 release of gawk .

Dr. Nelson Beebe, Andreas Buening, Dr. Manuel Collado, Antonio Colombo, Stephen Davies, Scott Deifik, Akim Demaille, Daniel Richard G., Juan Manuel Guerrero, Darrel Hankerson, Michal Jaegermann, Jürgen Kahrs, Stepan Kasal, John Malmberg, Chet Ramey, Pat Rankin, Andrew Schorr, Corinna Vinschen, and Eli Zaretskii (in alphabetical order) make up the current gawk “crack portability team.” Without their hard work and help, gawk would not be nearly the robust, portable program it is today. It has been and continues to be a pleasure working with this team of fine people.

Notable code and documentation contributions were made by a number of people. See Major Contributors to gawk for the full list.

Thanks to Michael Brennan for the Forewords.

Thanks to Patrice Dumas for the new makeinfo program. Thanks to Karl Berry for his past work on Texinfo, and to Gavin Smith, who continues to work to improve the Texinfo markup language.

Robert P.J. Day, Michael Brennan, and Brian Kernighan kindly acted as reviewers for the 2015 edition of this Web page. Their feedback helped improve the final work.

I would also like to thank Brian Kernighan for his invaluable assistance during the testing and debugging of gawk , and for his ongoing help and advice 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.

Brian is in a class by himself as a programmer and technical author. I have to thank him (yet again) for his ongoing friendship and for being a role model to me for over 30 years! Having him as a reviewer is an exciting privilege. It has also been extremely humbling ...

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, 2020

Next: Running awk and gawk , Previous: Preface , Up: General Introduction [ Contents ][ Index ]

Part I: The awk Language ¶

Getting Started with awk
Running awk and gawk
Regular Expressions
Reading Input Files
Printing Output
Expressions
Patterns, Actions, and Variables
Arrays in awk

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 continues to process 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 (i.e., 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 should take. When working with procedural languages, it is usually much harder to clearly describe the data your program will process. For this reason, awk programs are often refreshingly easy to read and write.

When you run awk , you specify an awk program that tells awk what to do. The program consists of a series of rules (it may also contain function definitions , an advanced feature that we will ignore for now; see User-Defined Functions ). 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 braces to separate it from the pattern. Newlines usually separate rules. Therefore, an awk program looks like this:

How to Run awk Programs
Data files for the Examples
Some Simple Examples
An Example with Two Rules
A More Complex Example
awk Statements Versus Lines
Other Features of awk
When to Use awk

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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:

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

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

One-Shot Throwaway awk Programs
Running awk Without Input Files
Running Long Programs
Executable awk Programs
Comments in awk Programs
Shell Quoting Issues

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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:

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.

Later in this chapter, in Some Simple Examples , we’ll see examples of several short, self-contained programs.

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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 applies the program to the standard input , which usually means whatever you type on the keyboard. This continues until you indicate end-of-file by typing Ctrl-d . (On non-POSIX operating systems, the end-of-file character may be different.)

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:

awk executes statements associated with BEGIN before reading any input. If there are no other statements in your program, as is the case here, awk just stops, instead of trying to read input it doesn’t know how to process. The ‘ \47 ’ is a magic way (explained later) of getting a single quote into the program, without having to engage in ugly shell quoting tricks.

NOTE: If you use Bash as your shell, you should execute the command ‘ set +H ’ before running this program interactively, to disable the C shell-style command history, which treats ‘ ! ’ as a special character. We recommend putting this command into your personal startup file.

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):

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1.1.3 Running Long Programs ¶

Sometimes awk programs are very long. In these cases, 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:

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

into the file advice . Then this command:

does the same thing as this one:

This was explained earlier (see Running awk Without Input Files ). 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. (Also, placing the program in a file allows us to use a literal single quote in the program text, instead of the magic ‘ \47 ’.)

If you want to clearly identify an awk program file 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.

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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 systems. 8 For example, you could update the file advice to look like this:

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

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 .

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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 number 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 number sign. For example, we could have put the following into advice :

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

CAUTION: As mentioned in One-Shot Throwaway awk Programs , you can enclose short to medium-sized 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 'BEGIN { 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, because backslashes are not special inside single quotes. The next subsection describes the shell’s quoting rules.

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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:

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 the C shell, you’re on your own.

Before diving into the rules, we introduce a concept that appears throughout this Web page, which is that of the null , or empty, 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: "" . In the shell, it can be written using single or double quotes: "" or '' . Although the null string has no characters in it, it does exist. For example, consider this command:

Here, the echo utility receives a single argument, even though that argument has no characters in it. In the rest of this Web page, we use the terms null string and empty string interchangeably. Now, on to the quoting rules:

Quoted items can be concatenated with nonquoted items as well as with other quoted items. The shell turns everything into one argument for the command.
Preceding any single character with a backslash (‘ \ ’) quotes that character. The shell removes the backslash and passes the quoted character on to the command.
Single quotes protect everything between the opening and closing quotes. The shell does no interpretation of the quoted text, passing it on verbatim to the command. It is impossible to embed a single quote inside single-quoted text. Refer back to Comments in awk Programs for an example of what happens if you try.

Because 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 Running awk Without Input Files :

could instead be written this way:

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

Don’t use this:

In the second case, awk attempts 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:

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

This can be “simplified” to:

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:

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

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

This works nicely, but you should comment clearly what the escape sequences mean.

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

(Here, the two string constants and the value of sq are concatenated into a single string that is printed by print .)

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.

Quoting in MS-Windows Batch Files

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1.1.6.1 Quoting in MS-Windows Batch Files ¶

Although this Web page generally only worries about POSIX systems and the POSIX shell, the following issue arises often enough for many users that it is worth addressing.

The “shells” on Microsoft Windows systems use the double-quote character for quoting, and make it difficult or impossible to include an escaped double-quote character in a command-line script. The following example, courtesy of Jeroen Brink, shows how to escape the double quotes from this one liner script that prints all lines in a file surrounded by double quotes:

In an MS-Windows command-line the one-liner script above may be passed as follows:

In this example the ‘ \042 ’ is the octal code for a double-quote; gawk converts it into a real double-quote for output by the print statement.

In MS-Windows escaping double-quotes is a little tricky because you use backslashes to escape double-quotes, but backslashes themselves are not escaped in the usual way; indeed they are either duplicated or not, depending upon whether there is a subsequent double-quote. The MS-Windows rule for double-quoting a string is the following:

For each double quote in the original string, let N be the number of backslash(es) before it, N might be zero. Replace these N backslash(es) by 2* N +1 backslash(es)
Let N be the number of backslash(es) tailing the original string, N might be zero. Replace these N backslash(es) by 2* N backslash(es)
Surround the resulting string by double-quotes.

So to double-quote the one-liner script ‘ { print "\"" $0 "\"" } ’ from the previous example you would do it this way:

However, the use of ‘ \042 ’ instead of ‘ \\\" ’ is also possible and easier to read, because backslashes that are not followed by a double-quote don’t need duplication.

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1.2 Data files for the Examples ¶

Many of the examples in this Web page take their input from two sample data files. The first, mail-list , represents a list of peoples’ names together with their email addresses and information about those people. The second data file, called inventory-shipped , contains information about monthly shipments. In both files, each line is considered to be one record .

In mail-list , each record contains the name of a person, his/her phone number, his/her email address, and a code for his/her relationship with the author of the list. The columns are aligned using spaces. An ‘ A ’ in the last column means that the person is an acquaintance. An ‘ F ’ in the last column means that the person is a friend. An ‘ R ’ means that the person is a relative:

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. An empty line separates the data for the two years:

The sample files are included in the gawk distribution, in the directory awklib/eg/data .

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1.3 Some Simple Examples ¶

The following command runs a simple awk program that searches the input file mail-list for the character string ‘ li ’ (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”):

When lines containing ‘ li ’ 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 ‘ li ’ in the awk program. The slashes indicate that ‘ li ’ is the pattern to search for. This type of pattern is called a regular expression , which is covered in more detail later (see Regular Expressions ). 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:

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 braces) in the previous example and the result would be the same: awk prints all lines matching the pattern ‘ li ’. By comparison, omitting the print statement but retaining the braces makes an empty action that does nothing (i.e., no lines are printed).

Many practical awk programs are just a line or two long. 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 you’ll need to read the rest of the Web page to become an awk expert!) Most of the examples use a data file named data . This is just a placeholder; if you use these programs yourself, substitute your own file names for data .

Some of the following examples use the output of ‘ ls -l ’ as input. ls is a system command that gives you a listing of the files in a directory. With the -l option, this listing includes each file’s size and the date the file was last modified. Its output looks like this:

The first field contains read-write permissions, the second field contains the number of links to the file, and the third field identifies the file’s owner. The fourth field identifies the file’s group. The fifth field contains the file’s size 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 file name.

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:

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

The code associated with END executes after all input has been read; it’s the other side of the coin to BEGIN .

This example differs slightly from the previous one: the input is processed by the expand utility to change TABs into spaces, so the widths compared are actually the right-margin columns, as opposed to the number of input characters on each line.

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 / 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

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

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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 rule. If several patterns match, then several actions execute in the order in which they appear in the awk program. If no patterns match, then no actions run.

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

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, mail-list and inventory-shipped :

Note how the line beginning with ‘ Jean-Paul ’ in mail-list was printed twice, once for each rule.

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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:

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).

As a reminder, the output of ‘ ls -l ’ gives you a listing of the files in a directory, including each file’s size and the date the file was last modified. The first field contains read-write permissions, the second field contains the number of links to the file, and the third field identifies the file’s owner. The fourth field identifies the file’s group. The fifth field contains the file’s size 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 file name.

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, awk performs the action ‘ sum += $5 ’. 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 Actions ). 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.

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1.6 awk Statements Versus Lines ¶

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

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

A newline at any other point is considered the end of the statement. 9

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 followed by a newline is allowed anywhere in the statement, even in the middle of a string or regular expression. For example:

We have generally not used backslash continuation in our sample programs. gawk places 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 programs presented throughout the Web page.

Backslash continuation is most useful when your awk program is in a separate source file instead of entered from the command line. You should also note that many awk implementations are more particular about where you may use backslash continuation. For example, they may not allow you to split a string constant using backslash continuation. Thus, for maximum portability of your awk programs, it is best not to split your lines in the middle of a regular expression or a string.

CAUTION: Backslash continuation does not work as described with the C shell. It works for awk programs in files and for one-shot programs, provided you are using a POSIX-compliant shell, such as the Unix Bourne shell or Bash. But the C shell behaves differently! There you must use two backslashes in a row, followed by a newline. Note also that when using the C shell, every newline in your awk program must be escaped with a backslash. To illustrate: % awk 'BEGIN { \ ? print \\ ? "hello, world" \ ? }' -| hello, world Here, the ‘ % ’ and ‘ ? ’ are the C shell’s primary and secondary prompts, analogous to the standard shell’s ‘ $ ’ and ‘ > ’. Compare the previous example to how it is done with a POSIX-compliant shell: $ awk 'BEGIN { > print \ > "hello, world" > }' -| hello, world

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

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

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.

Backslash continuation comes into play in an additional, unexpected situation. Consider:

This command line assigns a value to FS . But what value? There are several possibilities, and in fact different versions of awk do different things. gawk treats this as if it were written:

In short, the backslash and newline are removed, assigning "a" to FS . This same treatment applies to variable assignments made with the -v option (see Command-Line Options ) and to regular command-line variable assignments (see Assigning Variables on the Command Line ).

If you’re interested, see https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gawk/2022-10/msg00025.html for a source code patch that allows lines to be continued when inside parentheses. This patch was not added to gawk since it would quietly decrease the portability of awk programs.

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:

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

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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, for runtime string translation (internationalization), determining the type of a variable, and array sorting.

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

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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 A More Complex Example .)

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

Complex programs have been written in awk , including a complete retargetable assembler for eight-bit microprocessors (see Glossary , for more information), and a microcode assembler for a special-purpose Prolog computer. The original awk ’s capabilities were strained by tasks of such complexity, but modern versions are more capable.

If you find yourself writing awk scripts of more than, say, a few hundred lines, you might consider using a different programming language. The shell is good at string and pattern matching; in addition, it allows powerful use of the system utilities. Python offers a nice balance between high-level ease of programming and access to system facilities. 10

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1.9 Summary ¶

Programs in awk consist of pattern – action pairs.
An action without a pattern always runs. The default action for a pattern without one is ‘ { print $0 } ’.
Use either ‘ awk ' program ' files ’ or ‘ awk -f program-file files ’ to run awk .
You may use the special ‘ #! ’ header line to create awk programs that are directly executable.
Comments in awk programs start with ‘ # ’ and continue to the end of the same line.
Be aware of quoting issues when writing awk programs as part of a larger shell script (or MS-Windows batch file).
You may use backslash continuation to continue a source line. Lines are automatically continued after a comma, open brace, question mark, colon, ‘ || ’, ‘ && ’, do , and else .

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2 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 nonoption arguments. It then proceeds to cover how gawk searches for source files, reading standard input along with other files, gawk ’s environment variables, gawk ’s exit status, using include files, and obsolete and undocumented options and/or features.

Many of the options and features described here are discussed in more detail later in the Web page; feel free to skip over things in this chapter that don’t interest you right now.

Invoking awk
Command-Line Options
Other Command-Line Arguments
Naming Standard Input
The Environment Variables gawk Uses
gawk ’s Exit Status
Including Other Files into Your Program
Loading Dynamic Extensions into Your Program
Obsolete Options and/or Features
Undocumented Options and Features

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2.1 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:

In addition to traditional one-letter POSIX-style options, gawk also supports GNU long options.

It is possible to invoke awk with an empty program:

Doing so makes little sense, though; awk exits silently when given an empty program. (d.c.) If --lint has been specified on the command line, gawk issues a warning that the program is empty.

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2.2 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, either the keyword is immediately followed by an equals sign (‘ = ’) and the argument’s value, or the keyword and the argument’s value are separated by whitespace (spaces or TABs). If a particular option with a value is given more than once, it is (usually) the last value that counts.

Each long option for gawk has a corresponding POSIX-style short option. The long and short options are interchangeable in all contexts. The following list describes options mandated by the POSIX standard:

Set the FS variable to fs (see Specifying How Fields Are Separated ).

Read the awk program source from source-file instead of in the first nonoption argument. This option may be given multiple times; the awk program consists of the concatenation of the contents of each specified source-file .

Files named with -f are treated as if they had ‘ @namespace "awk" ’ at their beginning. See Changing The Namespace , for more information on this advanced feature.

Set the variable var to the value val before execution of the program begins. Such variable values are available inside the BEGIN rule (see Other Command-Line Arguments ).

The -v option can only set one variable, but it can be used more than once, setting another variable each time, like this: ‘ awk -v foo=1 -v bar=2 … ’.

CAUTION: Using -v to set the values of the built-in variables may lead to surprising results. awk will reset the values of those variables as it needs to, possibly ignoring any initial value you may have given.

Provide an implementation-specific option. This is the POSIX convention for providing implementation-specific options. 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.

Signal 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 ‘ - ’. It is also useful for passing options on to the awk program; see Processing Command-Line Options .

The following list describes gawk -specific options:

Cause gawk to treat all input data as single-byte characters. In addition, all output written with print or printf is treated as single-byte characters.

Normally, gawk follows the POSIX standard and attempts to process its input data according to the current locale (see Where You Are Makes a Difference ). This can often involve converting multibyte characters into wide characters (internally), and can lead to problems or confusion if the input data does not contain valid multibyte characters. This option is an easy way to tell gawk , “Hands off my data!”

Specify compatibility mode , in which the GNU extensions to the awk language are disabled, so that gawk behaves just like BWK awk . See Extensions in gawk Not in POSIX awk , which summarizes the extensions. Also see Downward Compatibility and Debugging .

Print the short version of the General Public License and then exit.

Print a sorted list of global variables, their types, and final values to file . If no file is provided, print this list to a file named awkvars.out in the current directory. No space is allowed between the -d and file , if file is supplied.

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.)

Enable debugging of awk programs (see Introduction to the gawk Debugger ). By default, the debugger reads commands interactively from the keyboard (standard input). The optional file argument allows you to specify a file with a list of commands for the debugger to execute noninteractively. No space is allowed between the -D and file , if file is supplied.

Provide program source code in the program-text . This option allows you to mix source code in files with source code that you enter on the command line. This is particularly useful when you have library functions that you want to use from your command-line programs (see The AWKPATH Environment Variable ).

Note that gawk treats each string as if it ended with a newline character (even if it doesn’t). This makes building the total program easier.

CAUTION: Prior to version 5.0, there was no requirement that each program-text be a full syntactic unit. I.e., the following worked: $ gawk -e 'BEGIN { a = 5 ;' -e 'print a }' -| 5 However, this is no longer true. If you have any scripts that rely upon this feature, you should revise them. This is because each program-text is treated as if it had ‘ @namespace "awk" ’ at its beginning. See Changing The Namespace , for more information.

Similar to -f , read awk program text from file . There are two differences from -f :

This option terminates option processing; anything else on the command line is passed on directly to the awk program.
Command-line variable assignments of the form ‘ var = value ’ are disallowed.

This option is particularly necessary for World Wide Web CGI applications that pass arguments through the URL; using this option prevents a malicious (or other) user from passing in options, assignments, or awk source code (via -e ) to the CGI application. 11 This option should be used with ‘ #! ’ scripts (see Executable awk Programs ), like so:

Analyze the source program and generate a GNU gettext portable object template file on standard output for all string constants that have been marked for translation. See Internationalization with gawk , for information about this option.

Print a “usage” message summarizing the short- and long-style options that gawk accepts and then exit.

Read an awk source library from source-file . This option is completely equivalent to using the @include directive inside your program. It is very similar to the -f option, but there are two important differences. First, when -i is used, the program source is not loaded if it has been previously loaded, whereas with -f , gawk always loads the file. Second, because this option is intended to be used with code libraries, gawk does not recognize such files as constituting main program input. Thus, after processing an -i argument, gawk still expects to find the main source code via the -f option or on the command line.

Files named with -i are treated as if they had ‘ @namespace "awk" ’ at their beginning. See Changing The Namespace , for more information.

Print the internal byte code names as they are executed when running the program. The trace is printed to standard error. Each “op code” is preceded by a + sign in the output.

Enable special processing for files with comma separated values (CSV). See Working With Comma Separated Value Files . This option cannot be used with --posix . Attempting to do causes a fatal error.

Load a dynamic extension named ext . Extensions are stored as system shared libraries. This option searches for the library using the AWKLIBPATH environment variable. The correct library suffix for your platform will be supplied by default, so it need not be specified in the extension name. The extension initialization routine should be named dl_load() . An alternative is to use the @load keyword inside the program to load a shared library. This advanced feature is described in detail in Writing Extensions for gawk .

Warn about constructs that are dubious or nonportable to other awk implementations. No space is allowed between the -L and value , if value is supplied. Some warnings are issued when gawk first reads your program. Others are issued at runtime, as your program executes. The optional argument may be one of the following:

Cause lint warnings become fatal errors. This may be drastic, but its use will certainly encourage the development of cleaner awk programs.

Only issue warnings about things that are actually invalid are issued. (This is not fully implemented yet.)

Disable warnings about gawk extensions.

Some warnings are only printed once, even if the dubious constructs they warn about occur multiple times in your awk program. Thus, when eliminating problems pointed out by --lint , you should take care to search for all occurrences of each inappropriate construct. As awk programs are usually short, doing so is not burdensome.

Select arbitrary-precision arithmetic on numbers. This option has no effect if gawk is not compiled to use the GNU MPFR and MP libraries (see Arithmetic and Arbitrary-Precision Arithmetic with gawk ).

As of version 5.2, the arbitrary precision arithmetic features in gawk are “on parole.” The primary maintainer is no longer willing to support this feature, but another member of the development team has stepped up to take it over. As long as this situation remains stable, MPFR will be supported. If it changes, the MPFR support will be removed from gawk .

Enable automatic interpretation of octal and hexadecimal values in input data (see Allowing Nondecimal Input Data ).

CAUTION: This option can severely break old programs. Use with care. Also note that this option may disappear in a future version of gawk .

Force the use of the locale’s decimal point character when parsing numeric input data (see Where You Are Makes a Difference ).

Enable pretty-printing of awk programs. Implies --no-optimize . By default, the output program is created in a file named awkprof.out (see Profiling Your awk Programs ). The optional file argument allows you to specify a different file name for the output. No space is allowed between the -o and file , if file is supplied.

NOTE: In the past, this option would also execute your program. This is no longer the case.

Enable gawk ’s default optimizations on the internal representation of the program. At the moment, this includes just simple constant folding.

Optimization is enabled by default. This option remains primarily for backwards compatibility. However, it may be used to cancel the effect of an earlier -s option (see later in this list).

Enable profiling of awk programs (see Profiling Your awk Programs ). Implies --no-optimize . 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. No space is allowed between the -p and file , if file is supplied.

The profile contains execution counts for each statement in the program in the left margin, and function call counts for each function.

Operate in strict POSIX mode. This disables all gawk extensions (just like --traditional ) and disables all extensions not allowed by POSIX. See Common Extensions Summary for a summary of the extensions in gawk that are disabled by this option. Also, the following additional restrictions apply:

Newlines are not allowed after ‘ ? ’ or ‘ : ’ (see Conditional Expressions ).
Specifying ‘ -Ft ’ on the command line does not set the value of FS to be a single TAB character (see Specifying How Fields Are Separated ).
The locale’s decimal point character is used for parsing input data (see Where You Are Makes a Difference ).

If you supply both --traditional and --posix on the command line, --posix takes precedence. gawk issues a warning if both options are supplied.

Allow interval expressions (see Regular Expression Operators ) in regexps. This is now gawk ’s default behavior. Nevertheless, this option remains for backward compatibility.

Disable gawk ’s default optimizations on the internal representation of the program.

Disable the system() function, input redirections with getline , output redirections with print and printf , and dynamic extensions. Also, disallow adding file names to ARGV that were not there when gawk started running. This is particularly useful when you want to run awk scripts from questionable sources and need to make sure the scripts can’t access your system (other than the specified input data files).

Warn about constructs that are not available in the original version of awk from Version 7 Unix (see Major Changes Between V7 and SVR3.1 ).

Print 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 Reporting Problems and Bugs ).

Mark the end of all options. Any command-line arguments following -- are placed in ARGV , even if they start with a minus sign.

In compatibility mode, 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 Specifying How Fields Are Separated ).

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 in each individual program. The -i option is similar in this regard. (As mentioned in Function Definition Syntax , function names must be unique.)

With standard awk , library functions can still be used, even if the program is entered at the keyboard, by specifying ‘ -f /dev/tty ’. After typing your program, type Ctrl-d (the end-of-file character) to terminate it. (You may also use ‘ -f - ’ to read program source from the standard input, but then you will not be able to also use the standard input as a source of data.)

Because it is clumsy using the standard awk mechanisms to mix source file and command-line awk programs, gawk provides the -e option. This does not require you to preempt the standard input for your source code, and it allows you to easily mix command-line and library source code (see The AWKPATH Environment Variable ). As with -f , the -e and -i options may also be used multiple times on the command line.

If no -f option (or -e option for gawk ) is specified, then awk uses the first nonoption command-line argument as the text of the program source code. Arguments on the command line that follow the program text are entered into the ARGV array; awk does not continue to parse the command line looking for options.

If the environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT exists, then gawk behaves in strict POSIX mode, exactly as if you had supplied --posix . Many GNU programs look for this environment variable to suppress extensions that conflict with POSIX, but gawk behaves differently: it suppresses all extensions, even those that do not conflict with POSIX, and behaves in 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:

For a C shell-compatible shell, 12 you would add this line to the .login file in your home directory:

Having POSIXLY_CORRECT set is not recommended for daily use, but it is good for testing the portability of your programs to other environments.

Next: Naming Standard Input , Previous: Command-Line Options , Up: Running awk and gawk [ Contents ][ Index ]

2.3 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. (See Assigning Variables on the Command Line .) In the following example, ‘ count=1 ’ is a variable assignment, not a file name:

As a side point, should you really need to have awk process a file named count=1 (or any file whose name looks like a variable assignment), precede the file name with ‘ ./ ’, like so:

All the command-line arguments are made available to your awk program in the ARGV array (see Predefined Variables ). Command-line options and the program text (if present) are omitted from ARGV . All other arguments, including variable assignments, are included. As each element of ARGV is processed, gawk sets ARGIND to the index in ARGV of the current element. ( gawk makes the full command line, including program text and options, available in PROCINFO["argv"] ; see Built-in Variables That Convey Information .)

Changing ARGC and ARGV in your awk program lets you control how awk processes the input files; this is described in more detail in Using ARGC and ARGV .

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 The BEGIN and END Special Patterns ), because such rules are run before awk begins scanning the argument list.

The variable values given on the command line are processed for escape sequences (see Escape Sequences ). (d.c.)

In some very early 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:

Given the variable assignment feature, the -F option for setting the value of FS is not strictly necessary. It remains for historical compatibility.

Next: The Environment Variables gawk Uses , Previous: Other Command-Line Arguments , Up: Running awk and gawk [ Contents ][ Index ]

2.4 Naming Standard Input ¶

Often, you may wish to read standard input together with other files. For example, you may wish to read one file, read standard input coming from a pipe, and then read another file.

The way to name the standard input, with all versions of awk , is to use a single, standalone minus sign or dash, ‘ - ’. For example:

Here, awk first reads file1 , then it reads the output of some_command , and finally it reads file2 .

You may also use "-" to name standard input when reading files with getline (see Using getline from a File ). And, you can even use "-" with the -f option to read program source code from standard input (see Command-Line Options ).

In addition, gawk allows you to specify the special file name /dev/stdin , both on the command line and with getline . Some other versions of awk also support this, but it is not standard. (Some operating systems provide a /dev/stdin file in the filesystem; however, gawk always processes this file name itself.)

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2.5 The Environment Variables gawk Uses ¶

A number of environment variables influence how gawk behaves.

The AWKPATH Environment Variable
The AWKLIBPATH Environment Variable
Other Environment Variables

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2.5.1 The AWKPATH Environment Variable ¶

In most awk implementations, you must supply a precise pathname for each program file, unless the file is in the current directory. But with gawk , if the file name supplied to the -f or -i options does not contain a directory separator ‘ / ’, 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. 13 gawk gets its search path from the AWKPATH environment variable. If that variable does not exist, or if it has an empty value, gawk uses a default path (described shortly).

The search path feature is particularly helpful 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, you would have to type the full file name for each file.

By using the -i or -f options, your command-line awk programs can use facilities in awk library files (see A Library of awk Functions ). Path searching is not done if gawk is in compatibility mode. This is true for both --traditional and --posix . See Command-Line Options .

If the source code file is not found after the initial search, the path is searched again after adding the suffix ‘ .awk ’ to the file name.

gawk ’s path search mechanism is similar to the shell’s. (See The Bourne-Again SHell manual .) It treats a null entry in the path as indicating the current directory. (A null entry is indicated by starting or ending the path with a colon or by placing two colons next to each other [‘ :: ’].)

NOTE: To include the current directory in the path, either place . as an entry in the path or write a null entry in the path. Different past versions of gawk would also look explicitly in the current directory, either before or after the path search. As of version 4.1.2, this no longer happens; if you wish to look in the current directory, you must include . either as a separate entry or as a null entry in the search path.

The default value for AWKPATH is ‘ .:/usr/local/share/awk ’. 14 Since . is included at the beginning, gawk searches first in the current directory and then in /usr/local/share/awk . In practice, this means that you will rarely need to change the value of AWKPATH .

See Shell Startup Files , for information on functions that help to manipulate the AWKPATH variable.

gawk places the value of the search path that it used into ENVIRON["AWKPATH"] . This provides access to the actual search path value from within an awk program.

Although you can change ENVIRON["AWKPATH"] within your awk program, this has no effect on the running program’s behavior. This makes sense: the AWKPATH environment variable is used to find the program source files. Once your program is running, all the files have been found, and gawk no longer needs to use AWKPATH .

Next: Other Environment Variables , Previous: The AWKPATH Environment Variable , Up: The Environment Variables gawk Uses [ Contents ][ Index ]

2.5.2 The AWKLIBPATH Environment Variable ¶

The AWKLIBPATH environment variable is similar to the AWKPATH variable, but it is used to search for loadable extensions (stored as system shared libraries) specified with the -l option rather than for source files. If the extension is not found, the path is searched again after adding the appropriate shared library suffix for the platform. For example, on GNU/Linux systems, the suffix ‘ .so ’ is used. The search path specified is also used for extensions loaded via the @load keyword (see Loading Dynamic Extensions into Your Program ).

If AWKLIBPATH does not exist in the environment, or if it has an empty value, gawk uses a default path; this is typically ‘ /usr/local/lib/gawk ’, although it can vary depending upon how gawk was built. 15

See Shell Startup Files , for information on functions that help to manipulate the AWKLIBPATH variable.

gawk places the value of the search path that it used into ENVIRON["AWKLIBPATH"] . This provides access to the actual search path value from within an awk program.

Although you can change ENVIRON["AWKLIBPATH"] within your awk program, this has no effect on the running program’s behavior. This makes sense: the AWKLIBPATH environment variable is used to find any requested extensions, and they are loaded before the program starts to run. Once your program is running, all the extensions have been found, and gawk no longer needs to use AWKLIBPATH .

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2.5.3 Other Environment Variables ¶

A number of other environment variables affect gawk ’s behavior, but they are more specialized. Those in the following list are meant to be used by regular users:

Specifies the interval between connection retries, in milliseconds. On systems that do not support the usleep() system call, the value is rounded up to an integral number of seconds.

Specifies the backing file to use for persistent storage of gawk ’s variables and arrays. See Preserving Data Between Runs .

Specifies the time, in milliseconds, for gawk to wait for input before returning with an error. See Reading Input with a Timeout .

Controls the number of times gawk attempts to retry a two-way TCP/IP (socket) connection before giving up. See Using gawk for Network Programming . Note that when nonfatal I/O is enabled (see Enabling Nonfatal Output ), gawk only tries to open a TCP/IP socket once.

Controls the verbosity of the persistent memory allocator. See Preserving Data Between Runs .

Causes gawk to switch to POSIX-compatibility mode, disabling all traditional and GNU extensions. See Command-Line Options .

The environment variables in the following list are meant for use by the gawk developers for testing and tuning. They are subject to change. The variables are:

This variable only affects gawk on POSIX-compliant systems. With a value of ‘ exact ’, gawk uses the size of each input file as the size of the memory buffer to allocate for I/O. Otherwise, the value should be a number, and gawk uses that number as the size of the buffer to allocate. (When this variable is not set, gawk uses the smaller of the file’s size and the “default” blocksize, which is usually the filesystem’s I/O blocksize.)

If this variable exists with a value of ‘ gst ’, gawk switches to using the hash function from GNU Smalltalk for managing arrays. With a value of ‘ fnv1a ’, gawk uses the FNV1-A hash function . These functions may be marginally faster than the standard function.

If this variable exists, gawk switches to reading source files one line at a time, instead of reading in blocks. This exists for debugging problems on filesystems on non-POSIX operating systems where I/O is performed in records, not in blocks.

If this variable exists, gawk includes the file name and line number within the gawk source code from which warning and/or fatal messages are generated. Its purpose is to help isolate the source of a message, as there are multiple places that produce the same warning or error message.

Specifies the location of compiled message object files for gawk itself. This is passed to the bindtextdomain() function when gawk starts up.

If this variable exists, gawk does not use the DFA regexp matcher for “does it match” kinds of tests. This can cause gawk to be slower. Its purpose is to help isolate differences between the two regexp matchers that gawk uses internally. (There aren’t supposed to be differences, but occasionally theory and practice don’t coordinate with each other.)

This specifies the amount by which gawk should grow its internal evaluation stack, when needed.

This specifies intended maximum number of items gawk will maintain on a hash chain for managing arrays indexed by integers.

This specifies intended maximum number of items gawk will maintain on a hash chain for managing arrays indexed by strings.

If this variable exists, gawk uses the mtrace() library calls from the GNU C library to help track down possible memory leaks. This cannot be used together with the persistent memory allocator.

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2.6 gawk ’s Exit Status ¶

If the exit statement is used with a value (see The exit Statement ), then gawk exits with the numeric value given to it.

Otherwise, if there were no problems during execution, gawk exits with the value of the C constant EXIT_SUCCESS . This is usually zero.

If an error occurs, gawk exits with the value of the C constant EXIT_FAILURE . This is usually one.

If gawk exits because of a fatal error, the exit status is two. On non-POSIX systems, this value may be mapped to EXIT_FAILURE .

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2.7 Including Other Files into Your Program ¶

This section describes a feature that is specific to gawk .

The @include keyword can be used to read external awk source files. This gives you the ability to split large awk source files into smaller, more manageable pieces, and also lets you reuse common awk code from various awk scripts. In other words, you can group together awk functions used to carry out specific tasks into external files. These files can be used just like function libraries, using the @include keyword in conjunction with the AWKPATH environment variable. Note that source files may also be included using the -i option.

Let’s see an example. We’ll start with two (trivial) awk scripts, namely test1 and test2 . Here is the test1 script:

and here is test2 :

Running gawk with test2 produces the following result:

gawk runs the test2 script, which includes test1 using the @include keyword. So, to include external awk source files, you just use @include followed by the name of the file to be included, enclosed in double quotes.

NOTE: Keep in mind that this is a language construct and the file name cannot be a string variable, but rather just a literal string constant in double quotes.

The files to be included may be nested; e.g., given a third script, namely test3 :

Running gawk with the test3 script produces the following results:

The file name can, of course, be a pathname. For example:

are both valid. The AWKPATH environment variable can be of great value when using @include . The same rules for the use of the AWKPATH variable in command-line file searches (see The AWKPATH Environment Variable ) apply to @include also.

This is very helpful in constructing gawk function libraries. If you have a large script with useful, general-purpose awk functions, you can break it down into library files and put those files in a special directory. You can then include those “libraries,” either by using the full pathnames of the files, or by setting the AWKPATH environment variable accordingly and then using @include with just the file part of the full pathname. Of course, you can keep library files in more than one directory; the more complex the working environment is, the more directories you may need to organize the files to be included.

Given the ability to specify multiple -f options, the @include mechanism is not strictly necessary. However, the @include keyword can help you in constructing self-contained gawk programs, thus reducing the need for writing complex and tedious command lines. In particular, @include is very useful for writing CGI scripts to be run from web pages.

The @include directive and the -i / --include command line option are completely equivalent. An included program source is not loaded if it has been previously loaded.

The rules for finding a source file described in The AWKPATH Environment Variable also apply to files loaded with @include .

Finally, files included with @include are treated as if they had ‘ @namespace "awk" ’ at their beginning. See Changing The Namespace , for more information.

Next: Obsolete Options and/or Features , Previous: Including Other Files into Your Program , Up: Running awk and gawk [ Contents ][ Index ]

2.8 Loading Dynamic Extensions into Your Program ¶

The @load keyword can be used to read external awk extensions (stored as system shared libraries). This allows you to link in compiled code that may offer superior performance and/or give you access to extended capabilities not supported by the awk language. The AWKLIBPATH variable is used to search for the extension. Using @load is completely equivalent to using the -l command-line option.

If the extension is not initially found in AWKLIBPATH , another search is conducted after appending the platform’s default shared library suffix to the file name. For example, on GNU/Linux systems, the suffix ‘ .so ’ is used:

This is equivalent to the following example:

For command-line usage, the -l option is more convenient, but @load is useful for embedding inside an awk source file that requires access to an extension.

Writing Extensions for gawk , describes how to write extensions (in C or C++) that can be loaded with either @load or the -l option. It also describes the ordchr extension.

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2.9 Obsolete Options and/or Features ¶

This section describes features and/or command-line options from previous releases of gawk that either are not available in the current version or are still supported but deprecated (meaning that they will not be in a future release).

As of gawk version 5.2. the arbitrary precision arithmetic feature is “on parole.” This feature is now being supported by a volunteer in the development team and not by the primary maintainer. If this situation changes, then the feature will be removed. For more information see Arbitrary Precision Arithmetic is On Parole! .

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2.10 Undocumented Options and Features ¶

Use the Source, Luke!

This section intentionally left blank.

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2.11 Summary ¶

gawk parses arguments on the command line, left to right, to determine if they should be treated as options or as non-option arguments.
gawk recognizes several options which control its operation, as described in Command-Line Options . All options begin with ‘ - ’.
However, when an option itself requires an argument, and the option is separated from that argument on the command line by at least one space, the space is ignored, and the argument is considered to be related to the option. Thus, in the invocation, ‘ gawk -F x ’, the ‘ x ’ is treated as belonging to the -F option, not as a separate non-option argument.
Once gawk finds a non-option argument, it stops looking for options. Therefore, all following arguments are also non-option arguments, even if they resemble recognized options.
If no -e or -f options are present, gawk expects the program text to be in the first non-option argument.
All non-option arguments, except program text provided in the first non-option argument, are placed in ARGV as explained in Using ARGC and ARGV , and are processed as described in Other Command-Line Arguments . Adjusting ARGC and ARGV affects how awk processes input.
The three standard options for all versions of awk are -f , -F , and -v . gawk supplies these and many others, as well as corresponding GNU-style long options.
Nonoption command-line arguments are usually treated as file names, unless they have the form ‘ var = value ’, in which case they are taken as variable assignments to be performed at that point in processing the input.
You can use a single minus sign (‘ - ’) to refer to standard input on the command line. gawk also lets you use the special file name /dev/stdin .
gawk pays attention to a number of environment variables. AWKPATH , AWKLIBPATH , and POSIXLY_CORRECT are the most important ones.
gawk ’s exit status conveys information to the program that invoked it. Use the exit statement from within an awk program to set the exit status.
gawk allows you to include other awk source files into your program using the @include statement and/or the -i and -f command-line options.
gawk allows you to load additional functions written in C or C++ using the @load statement and/or the -l option. (This advanced feature is described later, in Writing Extensions for gawk .)

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3 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 ’. Thus, the pattern /foo/ matches any input record containing the three adjacent 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 present more complicated instances.

How to Use Regular Expressions
Escape Sequences
Regular Expression Operators
Using Bracket Expressions
How Much Text Matches?
Using Dynamic Regexps
gawk -Specific Regexp Operators
Case Sensitivity in Matching

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3.1 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 where the string ‘ li ’ appears anywhere in the record:

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 Control Statements in Actions .) For example, the following is true if the expression exp (taken as a string) matches regexp :

This example matches, or selects, all input records with the uppercase letter ‘ J ’ somewhere in the first field:

So does this:

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

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

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.

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3.2 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:

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 "\"\\" .

Other escape sequences represent unprintable characters such as TAB or newline. There is nothing to stop you from entering most unprintable characters directly in a string constant or regexp constant, but they may look ugly.

The following list presents 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, ‘ \ ’.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vertical TAB, Ctrl-k , ASCII code 11 (VT).

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 ’.

The hexadecimal value hh , where hh stands for a sequence of hexadecimal digits (‘ 0 ’–‘ 9 ’, and either ‘ A ’–‘ F ’ or ‘ a ’–‘ f ’). A maximum of two digits are allowed after the ‘ \x ’. Any further hexadecimal digits are treated as simple letters or numbers. (c.e.) (The ‘ \x ’ escape sequence is not allowed in POSIX awk.)

CAUTION: In ISO C, the escape sequence continues until the first nonhexadecimal digit is seen. For many years, gawk would continue incorporating hexadecimal digits into the value until a non-hexadecimal digit or the end of the string was encountered. However, using more than two hexadecimal digits produced undefined results. As of version 4.2, only two digits are processed.

The hexadecimal value hh , where hh stands for a sequence of one or more hexadecimal digits (‘ 0 ’–‘ 9 ’, and either ‘ A ’–‘ F ’ or ‘ a ’–‘ f ’). A maximum of eight digits are allowed after the ‘ \u ’. Any further hexadecimal digits are treated as simple letters or numbers. (c.e.) (The ‘ \u ’ escape sequence is not allowed in POSIX awk.)

This escape sequence is intended for designating a character in the current locale’s character set. 16 gawk first converts the given digits into an integer and then translates the given “wide character” value into the current locale’s multibyte encoding. If the wide character value does not represent a valid character, or if the character is valid but cannot be encoded into the current locale’s multibyte encoding, the value becomes "?" . gawk issues a warning message when this happens.

A literal slash (should be used for regexp constants only). This sequence is used when you want to write a regexp constant that contains a slash (such as /.*:\/home\/[[:alnum:]]+:.*/ ; the ‘ [[:alnum:]] ’ notation is discussed in Using Bracket Expressions ). Because the regexp is delimited by slashes, you need to escape any slash that is part of the pattern, in order to tell awk to keep processing the rest of the regexp.

A literal double quote (should be used for string constants only). This sequence is used when you want to write a string constant that contains a double quote (such as "He said \"hi!\" to her." ). Because the string is delimited by double quotes, you need to escape any 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 gawk -Specific Regexp Operators .

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

For complete portability, do not use a backslash before any character not shown in the previous list or that is not an operator.

To summarize:

The escape sequences in the preceding list 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 Using Dynamic Regexps ), for the special operators listed in gawk -Specific Regexp Operators .
A backslash before any other character means to treat that character literally.

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3.3 Regular Expression Operators ¶

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

Regexp Operators in awk
Some Notes On Interval Expressions

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3.3.1 Regexp Operators in awk ¶

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

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

This suppresses the special meaning of a character when matching. For example, ‘ \$ ’ matches the character ‘ $ ’.

This matches the beginning of a string. ‘ ^@chapter ’ matches ‘ @chapter ’ at the beginning of a string, for example, 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 (the point right after a ‘ \n ’ newline character) embedded in a string. The condition is not true in the following example:

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 (the point right before a ‘ \n ’ newline character) embedded in a string. The condition in the following example is not true:

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

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

This is called a bracket expression . 17 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 bracket expression is given in Using Bracket Expressions .

This is a complemented bracket expression . 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|[aeiouy] ’ matches any string that matches either ‘ ^P ’ or ‘ [aeiouy] ’. This means it matches any string that starts with ‘ P ’ or contains (anywhere within it) a lowercase English vowel.

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

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

The left or opening parenthesis is always a metacharacter; to match one literally, precede it with a backslash. However, the right or closing parenthesis is only special when paired with a left parenthesis; an unpaired right parenthesis is (silently) treated as a regular character.

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.

There are two subtle points to understand about how ‘ * ’ works. First, the ‘ * ’ applies only to the single preceding regular expression component (e.g., in ‘ ph* ’, it applies just to the ‘ h ’). To cause ‘ * ’ to apply to a larger subexpression, use parentheses: ‘ (ph)* ’ matches ‘ ph ’, ‘ phph ’, ‘ phphph ’, and so on.

Second, ‘ * ’ finds as many repetitions as possible. If the text to be matched is ‘ phhhhhhhhhhhhhhooey ’, ‘ ph* ’ matches all of the ‘ h ’s.

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.

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.

One or two numbers inside braces denote an interval expression . If there is one number in the braces, the preceding regexp is repeated n times. If there are two numbers separated by a comma, the preceding regexp is repeated n to m times. If there is one number followed by a comma, then the preceding regexp is repeated at least n times:

Matches ‘ whhhy ’, but not ‘ why ’ or ‘ whhhhy ’.

Matches ‘ whhhy ’, ‘ whhhhy ’, or ‘ whhhhhy ’ only.

Matches ‘ whhy ’, ‘ whhhy ’, and so on.

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.

According to the POSIX specification, when ‘ * ’, ‘ + ’, ‘ ? ’, or ‘ { ’ are not preceded by a character, the behavior is “undefined.” In practice, for 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.

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3.3.2 Some Notes On Interval Expressions ¶

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.

Initially, because old programs may use ‘ { ’ and ‘ } ’ in regexp constants, gawk did not match interval expressions in regexps.

However, beginning with version 4.0, gawk does match interval expressions by default. This is because compatibility with POSIX has become more important to most gawk users than compatibility with old programs.

For 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 . 18

When ‘ { ’ and ‘ } ’ appear in regexp constants in a way that cannot be interpreted as an interval expression (such as /q{a}/ ), then they stand for themselves.

As mentioned, interval expressions were not traditionally available in awk . In March of 2019, BWK awk (finally) acquired them. Starting with version 5.2, gawk ’s --traditional option no longer disables interval expressions in regular expressions.

POSIX says that interval expressions containing repetition counts greater than 255 produce unspecified results.

In the manual for GNU grep , Paul Eggert notes the following:

Interval expressions may be implemented internally via repetition. For example, ‘ ^(a|bc){2,4}$ ’ might be implemented as ‘ ^(a|bc)(a|bc)((a|bc)(a|bc)?)?$ ’. A large repetition count may exhaust memory or greatly slow matching. Even small counts can cause problems if cascaded; for example, ‘ grep -E ".*{10,}{10,}{10,}{10,}{10,}" ’ is likely to overflow a stack. Fortunately, regular expressions like these are typically artificial, and cascaded repetitions do not conform to POSIX so cannot be used in portable programs anyway.

This same caveat applies to gawk .

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3.4 Using Bracket Expressions ¶

As mentioned earlier, a bracket expression matches any character among those listed between the opening and closing square brackets.

Within a bracket expression, a range expression consists of two characters separated by a hyphen. It matches any single character that sorts between the two characters, based upon the system’s native character set. For example, ‘ [0-9] ’ is equivalent to ‘ [0123456789] ’. (See Regexp Ranges and Locales: A Long Sad Story for an explanation of how the POSIX standard and gawk have changed over time. This is mainly of historical interest.)

With the increasing popularity of the Unicode character standard , there is an additional wrinkle to consider. Octal and hexadecimal escape sequences inside bracket expressions are taken to represent only single-byte characters (characters whose values fit within the range 0–256). To match a range of characters where the endpoints of the range are larger than 256, enter the multibyte encodings of the characters directly.

To include one of the characters ‘ \ ’, ‘ ] ’, ‘ - ’, or ‘ ^ ’ in a bracket expression, put a ‘ \ ’ in front of it. For example:

matches either ‘ d ’ or ‘ ] ’. Additionally, if you place ‘ ] ’ right after the opening ‘ [ ’, the closing bracket is treated as one of the characters to be matched.

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

Character classes are a 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 bracket expression. Character classes consist of ‘ [: ’, a keyword denoting the class, and ‘ :] ’. Table 3.1 lists the character classes defined by the POSIX standard.

Table 3.1: 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. With the POSIX character classes, you can write /[[:alnum:]]/ to match the alphabetic and numeric characters in your character set.

Some utilities that match regular expressions provide a nonstandard ‘ [:ascii:] ’ character class; awk does not. However, you can simulate such a construct using ‘ [\x00-\x7F] ’. This matches all values numerically between zero and 127, which is the defined range of the ASCII character set. Use a complemented character list (‘ [^\x00-\x7F] ’) to match any single-byte characters that are not in the ASCII range.

NOTE: Some older versions of Unix awk treat [:blank:] like [:space:] , incorrectly matching more characters than they should. Caveat Emptor.

Two additional special sequences can appear in bracket expressions. 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:

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 ’.

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

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

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

Inside a bracket expression, an opening bracket (‘ [ ’) that does not start a character class, collating element or equivalence class is taken literally. This is also true of ‘ . ’ and ‘ * ’.

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3.5 How Much Text Matches? ¶

Consider the following:

This example uses the sub() function to make a change to the input record. ( sub() replaces the first instance of any text matched by the first argument with the string provided as the second argument; see String-Manipulation Functions .) 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:

For simple match/no-match tests, this is not so important. But when doing text matching and substitutions with the match() , sub() , gsub() , and gensub() functions, it is very important. Understanding this principle is also important for regexp-based record and field splitting (see How Input Is Split into Records , and also see Specifying How Fields Are Separated ).

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3.6 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 then used as the regexp. A regexp computed in this way is called a dynamic regexp or a computed regexp :

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

NOTE: When using the ‘ ~ ’ and ‘ !~ ’ operators, be aware that 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 in the previous example), 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.

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3.7 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 (‘ _ ’):

Matches any space character as defined by the current locale. Think of it as shorthand for ‘ [[:space:]] ’ .

Matches any character that is not a space, as defined by the current locale. Think of it as shorthand for ‘ [^[:space:]] ’ .

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

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 ’.

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

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 ’. Another way to think of this is that ‘ \B ’ matches the empty string provided it’s not at the edge of a word.

There are two other operators that work on buffers. In Emacs, a buffer is, naturally, an Emacs buffer. Other GNU programs, including gawk , 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 Command-Line Options ) control how gawk interprets characters in regexps:

In the default case, gawk provides all the facilities of POSIX regexps and the previously described GNU regexp operators. GNU regexp operators described in Regular Expression Operators .

Match only POSIX regexps; the GNU operators are not special (e.g., ‘ \w ’ matches a literal ‘ w ’). Interval expressions are allowed.

Match traditional Unix awk regexps. The GNU operators are not special. Because BWK awk supports them, the POSIX character classes (‘ [[:alnum:]] ’, etc.) are available. So too, interval expressions are allowed. Characters described by octal and hexadecimal escape sequences are treated literally, even if they represent regexp metacharacters.

This option remains for backwards compatibility but no longer has any real effect.

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3.8 Case Sensitivity in Matching ¶

Case is normally significant in regular expressions, both when matching ordinary characters (i.e., not metacharacters) and inside bracket expressions. 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 bracket expression—for example, ‘ [Ww] ’. However, this can be cumbersome if you need to use it often, and it can make the regular expressions harder to read. There are two alternatives that you might prefer.

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

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 Predefined Variables ). When IGNORECASE is not zero, all regexp and string operations ignore case.

Changing the value of IGNORECASE dynamically controls the case sensitivity of the program as it runs. Case is significant by default because IGNORECASE (like most variables) is initialized to zero:

In general, you cannot use IGNORECASE to make certain rules case insensitive and other rules case sensitive, as there is no straightforward way to set IGNORECASE just for the pattern of a particular rule. 19 To do this, use either bracket expressions or tolower() . However, one thing you can do with IGNORECASE only is dynamically turn case sensitivity on or off for all the rules at once.

IGNORECASE can be set on the command line or in a BEGIN rule (see Other Command-Line Arguments ; also see Startup and Cleanup Actions ). Setting IGNORECASE from the command line is a way to make a program case insensitive without having to edit it.

In multibyte locales, the equivalences between upper- and lowercase characters are tested based on the wide-character values of the locale’s character set. Prior to version 5.0, single-byte characters were tested based on the ISO-8859-1 (ISO Latin-1) character set. However, as of version 5.0, single-byte characters are also tested based on the values of the locale’s character set. 20

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

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3.9 Summary ¶

Regular expressions describe sets of strings to be matched. In awk , regular expression constants are written enclosed between slashes: / … / .
Regexp constants may be used standalone in patterns and in conditional expressions, or as part of matching expressions using the ‘ ~ ’ and ‘ !~ ’ operators.
Escape sequences let you represent nonprintable characters and also let you represent regexp metacharacters as literal characters to be matched.
Regexp operators provide grouping, alternation, and repetition.
Bracket expressions give you a shorthand for specifying sets of characters that can match at a particular point in a regexp. Within bracket expressions, POSIX character classes let you specify certain groups of characters in a locale-independent fashion.
Regular expressions match the leftmost longest text in the string being matched. This matters for cases where you need to know the extent of the match, such as for text substitution and when the record separator is a regexp.
Matching expressions may use dynamic regexps (i.e., string values treated as regular expressions).
gawk ’s IGNORECASE variable lets you control the case sensitivity of regexp matching. In other awk versions, use tolower() or toupper() .

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4 Reading Input Files ¶

In the typical awk program, awk reads all input 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 predefined variable FILENAME (see Predefined Variables ).

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

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

How Input Is Split into Records
Examining Fields
Nonconstant Field Numbers
Changing the Contents of a Field
Specifying How Fields Are Separated
Reading Fixed-Width Data
Defining Fields by Content
Checking How gawk Is Splitting Records
Multiple-Line Records
Explicit Input with getline
Reading Input with a Timeout
Retrying Reads After Certain Input Errors
Directories on the Command Line

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4.1 How Input Is Split into Records ¶

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

Normally, records are separated by newline characters. You can control how records are separated by assigning values to the built-in variable RS . If RS is any single character, that character separates records. Otherwise (in gawk ), RS is treated as a regular expression. This mechanism is explained in greater detail shortly.

NOTE: When gawk is invoked with the --csv option, nothing in this section applies. See Working With Comma Separated Value Files , for the details.

Record Splitting with Standard awk
Record Splitting with gawk

Next: Record Splitting with gawk , Up: How Input Is Split into Records [ Contents ][ Index ]

4.1.1 Record Splitting with Standard awk ¶

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. To use a different character for the record separator, simply assign that character to the predefined variable RS .

Like any other variable, the value of RS can be changed in the awk program with the assignment operator, ‘ = ’ (see Assignment Expressions ). 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 The BEGIN and END Special Patterns ). For example:

changes the value of RS to ‘ u ’, before reading any input. The new value is a string whose first character is the letter “u”; as a result, records are separated by the letter “u”. 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 ‘ u ’ changed to a newline. Here are the results of running the program on mail-list :

Note that the entry for the name ‘ Bill ’ is not split. In the original data file (see Data files for the Examples ), the line looks like this:

It contains no ‘ u ’, so there is no reason to split the record, unlike the others, which each have one or more occurrences of the ‘ u ’. In fact, this record is treated as part of the previous record; the newline separating them in the output is the original newline in the data file, not the one added by awk when it printed the record!

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

This sets RS to ‘ u ’ before processing mail-list .

Using an alphabetic character such as ‘ u ’ for the record separator is highly likely to produce strange results. Using an unusual character such as ‘ / ’ is more likely to produce correct behavior in the majority of cases, but there are no guarantees. The moral is: Know Your Data.

gawk allows RS to be a full regular expression (discussed shortly; see Record Splitting with gawk ). Even so, using a regular expression metacharacter, such as ‘ . ’ as the single character in the value of RS has no special effect: it is treated literally. This is required for backwards compatibility with both Unix awk and with POSIX.

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

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

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4.1.2 Record Splitting with gawk ¶

When using gawk , the value of RS is not limited to a one-character string. If it contains more than one character, it is treated as a regular expression (see Regular Expressions ). (c.e.) 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.

If the input file ends without any text matching RS , gawk sets RT to the null string.

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:

The square brackets delineate the contents of RT , letting you see the leading and trailing whitespace. The final value of RT is a newline. See A Simple Stream Editor 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 Command-Line Options ). In compatibility mode, only the first character of the value of RS determines the end of the record.

mawk has allowed RS to be a regexp for decades. As of October, 2019, BWK awk also supports it. Neither version supplies RT , however.

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4.2 Examining Fields ¶

When awk reads an input record, the record is automatically parsed or separated by the awk utility into chunks called fields . By default, fields are separated by whitespace , like words in a line. Whitespace in awk means any string of one or more spaces, TABs, or newlines; other characters that are considered whitespace by other languages (such as formfeed, vertical tab, etc.) 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.

You use a dollar sign (‘ $ ’) 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 in the Unix shells, the field numbers are not limited to single digits. $127 is the 127th field in the record.) For example, suppose the following is a line of input:

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 predefined 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. 22

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

This example prints each record in the file mail-list whose first field contains the string ‘ li ’.

By contrast, the following example looks for ‘ li ’ in the entire record and prints the first and last fields for each matching input record:

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4.3 Nonconstant Field Numbers ¶

A field number need not 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:

Recall that NR is the number of records read so far: one in the first record, two in the second, and so on. 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 evaluates the expression ‘ (2*2) ’ and uses its value as the number of the field to print. The ‘ * ’ 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 23 in the field-number expression. This example, then, prints the type of relationship (the fourth field) for every line of the file mail-list . (All of the awk operators are listed, in order of decreasing precedence, in Operator Precedence (How Operators Nest) .)

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

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4.4 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:

The program first saves the original value of field three in the variable nboxes . The ‘ - ’ sign represents subtraction, so this program reassigns field three, $3 , as the original value of field three minus ten: ‘ $3 - 10 ’. (See Arithmetic Operators .) 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 $3 must make sense as a number; the string of characters must be converted to a number for the computer to do arithmetic on it. The number resulting from the subtraction is converted back to a string of characters that then becomes field three. See Conversion of Strings and Numbers .

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:

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

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

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

should print ‘ everything is normal ’, because NF+1 is certain to be out of range. (See The if - else Statement for more information about awk ’s if-else statements. See Variable Typing and Comparison Expressions 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:

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

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

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

CAUTION: Some versions of awk don’t rebuild $0 when NF is decremented. Until August, 2018, this included BWK awk ; fortunately his version now handles this correctly.

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

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

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

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4.5 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:

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 predefined variable FS . Shell programmers take note: awk does not use the name IFS that is used by the POSIX-compliant shells (such as the Unix Bourne shell, sh , or Bash).

The value of FS can be changed in the awk program with the assignment operator, ‘ = ’ (see Assignment Expressions ). 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 The BEGIN and END Special Patterns ). For example, here we set the value of FS to the string ":" :

Given the input line:

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:

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.)

Whitespace Normally Separates Fields
Using Regular Expressions to Separate Fields
Making Each Character a Separate Field
Working With Comma Separated Value Files
Setting FS from the Command Line
Making the Full Line Be a Single Field
Field-Splitting Summary

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4.5.1 Whitespace Normally Separates Fields ¶

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.

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4.5.2 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:

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 Regular Expressions ).

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 ’:

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

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:

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 (which is a space by default). 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 .

There is an additional subtlety to be aware of when using regular expressions for field splitting. It is not well specified in the POSIX standard, or anywhere else, what ‘ ^ ’ means when splitting fields. Does the ‘ ^ ’ match only at the beginning of the entire record? Or is each field separator a new string? It turns out that different awk versions answer this question differently, and you should not rely on any specific behavior in your programs. (d.c.)

As a point of information, BWK awk allows ‘ ^ ’ to match only at the beginning of the record. gawk also works this way. For example:

Finally, field splitting with regular expressions works differently than regexp matching with the sub() , gsub() , and gensub() (see String-Manipulation Functions ). Those functions allow a regexp to match the empty string; field splitting does not. Thus, for example ‘ FS = "()" ’ does not split fields between characters.

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4.5.3 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 . (c.e.) In this case, each individual character in the record becomes a separate field. For example:

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

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4.5.4 Working With Comma Separated Value Files ¶

Many commonly-used tools use a comma to separate fields, instead of whitespace. This is particularly true of popular spreadsheet programs. There is no universally accepted standard for the format of these files, although RFC 4180 lists the common practices.

For decades, anyone wishing to work with CSV files and awk had to “roll their own” solution. (For an example, see Defining Fields by Content ). In 2023, Brian Kernighan decided to add CSV support to his version of awk . In order to keep up, gawk too provides the same support as his version. To use CSV data, invoke gawk with either of the -k or --csv options.

Fields in CSV files are separated by commas. In order to allow a comma to appear inside a field (i.e., as data), the field may be quoted by beginning and ending it with double quotes. In order to allow a double quote inside a field, the field must be quoted, and two double quotes represent an actual double quote. The double quote that starts a quoted field must be the first character after the comma. Table 4.1 shows some examples.

Table 4.1: Examples of CSV data

Additionally, and here’s where it gets messy, newlines are also allowed inside double-quoted fields! In order to deal with such things, when processing CSV files, gawk scans the input data looking for newlines that are not enclosed in double quotes. Thus, use of the --csv option totally overrides normal record processing with RS (see How Input Is Split into Records ), as well as field splitting with any of FS , FIELDWIDTHS , or FPAT .

The behavior of the split() function (not formally discussed yet, see String-Manipulation Functions ) differs slightly when processing CSV files. When called with two arguments (‘ split( string , array ) ’), split() does CSV-based splitting. Otherwise, it behaves normally.

If --csv has been used, PROCINFO["CSV"] will exist. Otherwise, it will not. See Built-in Variables That Convey Information .

Finally, if --csv has been used, assigning a value to any of FS , FIELDWIDTHS , FPAT , or RS generates a warning message.

To be clear, gawk takes RFC 4180 as its specification for CSV input data. There are no mechanisms for accepting nonstandard CSV data, such as files that use a semicolon instead of a comma as the separator.

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4.5.5 Setting FS from the Command Line ¶

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

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.

The value used for the argument to -F is processed in exactly the same way as assignments to the predefined 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:

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

As a special case, in compatibility mode (see Command-Line Options ), if the argument to -F is ‘ t ’, then FS is set to the TAB character. If you type ‘ -F\t ’ at the shell, without any quotes, the ‘ \ ’ gets deleted, so awk figures that you really want your fields to be separated with TABs and not ‘ 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. Use ‘ -F '\t' ’ when not in compatibility mode to specify that TABs separate fields.

As an example, let’s use an awk program file called edu.awk that contains the pattern /edu/ and the action ‘ print $1 ’:

Let’s also set FS to be the ‘ - ’ character and run the program on the file mail-list . The following command prints a list of the names of the people that work at or attend a university, and the first three digits of their phone numbers:

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

The ‘ - ’ as part of the person’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, with one line per user. The information in these lines is separated by colons. The first field is the user’s login name and the second is the user’s encrypted or shadow password. (A shadow password is indicated by the presence of a single ‘ x ’ in the second field.) A password file entry might look like this:

The following program searches the system password file and prints the entries for users whose full name is not indicated:

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4.5.6 Making the Full Line Be a Single Field ¶

Occasionally, it’s useful to treat the whole input line as a single field. This can be done easily and portably simply by setting FS to "\n" (a newline): 24

When you do this, $1 is the same as $0 .

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4.5.7 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 list summarizes how fields are split, based on the value of FS (‘ == ’ means “is equal to”):

Field splitting follows the rules given in Working With Comma Separated Value Files . The value of FS is ignored.

Fields are separated by runs of whitespace. Leading and trailing whitespace are ignored. This is the default.

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.

Fields are separated by occurrences of characters that match regexp . Leading and trailing matches of regexp delimit empty fields.

Each individual character in the record becomes a separate field. (This is a common extension; it is not specified by the POSIX standard.)

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4.6 Reading Fixed-Width Data ¶

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 provides a facility for dealing with fixed-width fields with no distinctive field separator. We discuss this feature in the following subsections.

Processing Fixed-Width Data
Skipping Intervening Fields
Capturing Optional Trailing Data
Field Values With Fixed-Width Data

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4.6.1 Processing Fixed-Width Data ¶

An example of fixed-width data would be the input for old Fortran programs where numbers are run together, or the output of programs that did not anticipate the use of their output as input for other programs.

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

The splitting of an input record into fixed-width fields is specified by assigning a string containing space-separated numbers to the built-in variable FIELDWIDTHS . Each number specifies the width of the field, including columns between fields. If you want to ignore the columns between fields, you can specify the width as a separate field that is subsequently ignored. It is a fatal error to supply a field width that has a negative value.

The following data is the output of the Unix w utility. It is useful to illustrate the use of FIELDWIDTHS :

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

NOTE: The preceding program uses a number of awk features that haven’t been introduced yet.

Running the program on the data produces the following results:

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!)

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4.6.2 Skipping Intervening Fields ¶

Starting in version 4.2, each field width may optionally be preceded by a colon-separated value specifying the number of characters to skip before the field starts. Thus, the preceding program could be rewritten to specify FIELDWIDTHS like so:

This strips away some of the white space separating the fields. With such a change, the program produces the following results:

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4.6.3 Capturing Optional Trailing Data ¶

There are times when fixed-width data may be followed by additional data that has no fixed length. Such data may or may not be present, but if it is, it should be possible to get at it from an awk program.

Starting with version 4.2, in order to provide a way to say “anything else in the record after the defined fields,” gawk allows you to add a final ‘ * ’ character to the value of FIELDWIDTHS . There can only be one such character, and it must be the final non-whitespace character in FIELDWIDTHS . For example:

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4.6.4 Field Values With Fixed-Width Data ¶

So far, so good. But what happens if there isn’t as much data as there should be based on the contents of FIELDWIDTHS ? Or, what happens if there is more data than expected?

For many years, what happens in these cases was not well defined. Starting with version 4.2, the rules are as follows:

For example, if FIELDWIDTHS is set to "2 3 4" and the input record is ‘ aabbb ’. In this case, NF is set to two.

For example, if FIELDWIDTHS is set to "2 3 4" and the input record is ‘ aab ’. In this case, NF is set to two and $2 has the value "b" . The idea is that even though there aren’t as many characters as were expected, there are some, so the data should be made available to the program.

For example, if FIELDWIDTHS is set to "2 3 4" and the input record is ‘ aabbbccccddd ’. In this case, NF is set to three and the extra characters (‘ ddd ’) are ignored. If you want gawk to capture the extra characters, supply a final ‘ * ’ in the value of FIELDWIDTHS .

For example, if FIELDWIDTHS is set to "2 3 4 *" and the input record is ‘ aabbbccccddd ’. In this case, NF is set to four, and $4 has the value "ddd" .

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4.7 Defining Fields by Content ¶

NOTE: This whole section needs rewriting now that gawk has built-in CSV parsing. Sigh.

Normally, when using FS , gawk defines the fields as the parts of the record that occur in between each field separator. In other words, FS defines what a field is not , instead of what a field is . However, there are times when you really want to define the fields by what they are, and not by what they are not.

The most notorious such case is comma-separated values (CSV) data. Many spreadsheet programs, for example, can export their data into text files, where each record is terminated with a newline, and fields are separated by commas. If commas only separated the data, there wouldn’t be an issue. The problem comes when one of the fields contains an embedded comma. In such cases, most programs embed the field in double quotes. 26 So, we might have data like this:

The FPAT variable offers a solution for cases like this. The value of FPAT should be a string that provides a regular expression. This regular expression describes the contents of each field.

In the case of CSV data as presented here, each field is either “anything that is not a comma,” or “a double quote, anything that is not a double quote, and a closing double quote.” (There are more complicated definitions of CSV data, treated shortly.) If written as a regular expression constant (see Regular Expressions ), we would have /([^,]+)|("[^"]+")/ . Writing this as a string requires us to escape the double quotes, leading to:

Putting this to use, here is a simple program to parse the data:

When run, we get the following:

Note the embedded comma in the value of $3 .

A straightforward improvement when processing CSV data of this sort would be to remove the quotes when they occur, with something like this:

NOTE: Some programs export CSV data that contains embedded newlines between the double quotes. gawk provides no way to deal with this. Even though a formal specification for CSV data exists, there isn’t much more to be done; the FPAT mechanism provides an elegant solution for the majority of cases, and the gawk developers are satisfied with that.

As written, the regexp used for FPAT requires that each field contain at least one character. A straightforward modification (changing the first ‘ + ’ to ‘ * ’) allows fields to be empty:

As with FS , the IGNORECASE variable (see Built-in Variables That Control awk ) affects field splitting with FPAT .

Assigning a value to FPAT overrides field splitting with FS and with FIELDWIDTHS .

Finally, the patsplit() function makes the same functionality available for splitting regular strings (see String-Manipulation Functions ).

NOTE: Given that gawk now has built-in CSV parsing (see Working With Comma Separated Value Files ), the examples presented here are obsolete. Nonetheless, it remains useful as an example of what FPAT -based field parsing can do.

More on CSV Files
FS Versus FPAT : A Subtle Difference

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4.7.1 More on CSV Files ¶

Manuel Collado notes that in addition to commas, a CSV field can also contains quotes, that have to be escaped by doubling them. The previously described regexps fail to accept quoted fields with both commas and quotes inside. He suggests that the simplest FPAT expression that recognizes this kind of fields is /([^,]*)|("([^"]|"")+")/ . He provides the following input data to test these variants:

And here is his test program:

When run on the third variant, it produces:

In general, using FPAT to do your own CSV parsing is like having a bed with a blanket that’s not quite big enough. There’s always a corner that isn’t covered. We recommend, instead, that you use Manuel Collado’s CSVMODE library for gawk .

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4.7.2 FS Versus FPAT : A Subtle Difference ¶

As we discussed earlier, FS describes the data between fields (“what fields are not”) and FPAT describes the fields themselves (“what fields are”). This leads to a subtle difference in how fields are found when using regexps as the value for FS or FPAT .

In order to distinguish one field from another, there must be a non-empty separator between each field. This makes intuitive sense—otherwise one could not distinguish fields from separators.

Thus, regular expression matching as done when splitting fields with FS is not allowed to match the null string; it must always match at least one character, in order to be able to proceed through the entire record.

On the other hand, regular expression matching with FPAT can match the null string, and the non-matching intervening characters function as the separators.

This same difference is reflected in how matching is done with the split() and patsplit() functions (see String-Manipulation Functions ).

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4.8 Checking How gawk Is Splitting Records ¶

As we’ve seen, gawk provides three independent methods to split input records into fields. The mechanism used is based on which of the three variables— FS , FIELDWIDTHS , or FPAT —was last assigned to. In addition, an API input parser may choose to override the record parsing mechanism; please refer to Customized Input Parsers for further information about this feature.

To restore normal field splitting after using FIELDWIDTHS and/or FPAT , simply assign a value to FS . You can use ‘ FS = FS ’ to do this, 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 Built-in Variables That Convey Information ). The value is "FS" if regular field splitting is being used, "FIELDWIDTHS" if fixed-width field splitting is being used, or "FPAT" if content-based field splitting is being used:

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

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4.9 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 How Much Text Matches? ). 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.

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

Now that the input is separated into records, the second step is to separate the fields in the records. 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 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 .

NOTE: 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 = " " ’. Note that language in the POSIX specification implies that this special feature should apply when FS is a regexp. However, Unix awk has never behaved that way, nor has gawk . This is essentially a bug in POSIX.

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

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

A simple program to process this file is as follows:

Running the program produces the following output:

See Printing Mailing Labels for a more realistic program dealing with address lists. The following list summarizes how records are split, based on the value of RS :

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.

Records are separated by each occurrence of the character. Multiple successive occurrences delimit empty records.

Records are separated by runs of blank lines. When FS is a single character, then 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.

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.)

If not in compatibility mode (see Command-Line Options ), gawk sets RT to the input text that matched the value specified by RS . But if the input file ended without any text that matches RS , then gawk sets RT to the null string.

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4.10 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 keyboard, sometimes the output from another program) or the files specified on the command line. The awk language has a special built-in command called getline that can be used to read input under your explicit control.

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

The getline command returns 1 if it finds a record and 0 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.

If ERRNO indicates that the I/O operation may be retried, and PROCINFO[" input ", "RETRY"] is set, then getline returns −2 instead of −1, and further calls to getline may be attempted. See Retrying Reads After Certain Input Errors for further information about this feature.

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

NOTE: When --sandbox is specified (see Command-Line Options ), reading lines from files, pipes, and coprocesses is disabled.

Using getline with No Arguments
Using getline into a Variable
Using getline from a File
Using getline into a Variable from a File
Using getline from a Pipe
Using getline into a Variable from a Pipe
Using getline from a Coprocess
Using getline into a Variable from a Coprocess
Points to Remember About getline
Summary of getline Variants

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4.10.1 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:

This awk program deletes C-style comments (‘ /* … */ ’) from the input. It uses a number of features we haven’t covered yet, including string concatenation (see String Concatenation ) and the index() and substr() built-in functions (see String-Manipulation Functions ). By replacing the ‘ print $0 ’ with other statements, you could perform more complicated processing on the decommented input, such as searching for matches of a regular expression.

Here is some sample input:

When run, the output is:

This form of the getline command sets NF , NR , FNR , RT , 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 The next Statement .

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4.10.2 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:

It takes the following list:

and produces these results:

The getline command used in this way sets only the variables NR , FNR , and RT (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.

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4.10.3 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:

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 . RT is also set.

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

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4.10.4 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 earlier, file is a string-valued expression that specifies the file from which to read.

In this version of getline , none of the predefined variables are changed and the record is not split into fields. The only variable changed is var . 27 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 :

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 Closing Input and Output Redirections .

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 An Easy Way to Use Library Functions for a program that does handle nested @include statements.

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4.10.5 Using getline from a Pipe ¶

Omniscience has much to recommend it. Failing that, attention to details would be useful.

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:

The close() function is called to ensure that if two identical ‘ @execute ’ lines appear in the input, the command is run for each one. See Closing Input and Output Redirections . Given the input:

the program might produce:

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

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

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

NOTE: Unfortunately, gawk has not been consistent in its treatment of a construct like ‘ "echo " "date" | getline ’. Most versions, including the current version, treat it as ‘ ("echo " "date") | getline ’. (This is also how BWK awk behaves.) Some versions instead treat it as ‘ "echo " ("date" | getline) ’. (This is how mawk behaves.) In short, always use explicit parentheses, and then you won’t have to worry.

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4.10.6 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:

In this version of getline , none of the predefined variables are changed and the record is not split into fields. However, RT is set.

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4.10.7 Using getline from a Coprocess ¶

Reading 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 to start a coprocess , with which two-way communications are possible. This is done with the ‘ |& ’ operator. Typically, you write data to the coprocess first and then read the results back, as shown in the following:

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 and RT .

Coprocesses are an advanced feature. They are discussed here only because this is the section on getline . See Two-Way Communications with Another Process , where coprocesses are discussed in more detail.

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4.10.8 Using getline into a Variable from a Coprocess ¶

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

In this version of getline , none of the predefined variables are changed and the record is not split into fields. The only variable changed is var . However, RT is set.

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4.10.9 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.
Some very old awk implementations limit the number of pipelines that an awk program may have open to just one. In gawk , there is no such limit. You can open as many pipelines (and coprocesses) as the underlying operating system permits.
An interesting side effect occurs if you use getline without a redirection inside a BEGIN rule. Because an unredirected getline reads from the command-line data files, the first getline command causes awk to set the value of FILENAME . Normally, FILENAME does not have a value inside BEGIN rules, because you have not yet started to process the command-line data files. (d.c.) (See The BEGIN and END Special Patterns ; also see Built-in Variables That Convey Information .)
Using FILENAME with getline (‘ getline < FILENAME ’) is likely to be a source of confusion. awk opens a separate input stream from the current input file. However, by not using a variable, $0 and NF 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.
Summary of getline Variants , presents a table summarizing the getline variants and which variables they can affect. It is worth noting that those variants that do not use redirection can cause FILENAME to be updated if they cause awk to start reading a new input file.

Here, the side effect is the ‘ ++c ’. Is c incremented if end-of-file is encountered before the element in a is assigned?

gawk treats getline like a function call, and evaluates the expression ‘ a[++c] ’ before attempting to read from f . However, some versions of awk only evaluate the expression once they know that there is a string value to be assigned.

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4.10.10 Summary of getline Variants ¶

Table 4.2 summarizes the eight variants of getline , listing which predefined variables are set by each one, and whether the variant is standard or a gawk extension. Note: for each variant, gawk sets the RT predefined variable.

Table 4.2: getline variants and what they set

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4.11 Reading Input with a Timeout ¶

You may specify a timeout in milliseconds for reading input from the keyboard, a pipe, or two-way communication, including TCP/IP sockets. This can be done on a per-input, per-command, or per-connection basis, by setting a special element in the PROCINFO array (see Built-in Variables That Convey Information ):

When set, this causes gawk to time out and return failure if no data is available to read within the specified timeout period. For example, a TCP client can decide to give up on receiving any response from the server after a certain amount of time:

Here is how to read interactively from the user 28 without waiting for more than five seconds:

gawk terminates the read operation if input does not arrive after waiting for the timeout period, returns failure, and sets ERRNO to an appropriate string value. A negative or zero value for the timeout is the same as specifying no timeout at all.

A timeout can also be set for reading from the keyboard in the implicit loop that reads input records and matches them against patterns, like so:

In this case, failure to respond within five seconds results in the following error message:

The timeout can be set or changed at any time, and will take effect on the next attempt to read from the input device. In the following example, we start with a timeout value of one second, and progressively reduce it by one-tenth of a second until we wait indefinitely for the input to arrive:

NOTE: You should not assume that the read operation will block exactly after the tenth record has been printed. It is possible that gawk will read and buffer more than one record’s worth of data the first time. Because of this, changing the value of timeout like in the preceding example is not very useful.

If the PROCINFO element is not present and the GAWK_READ_TIMEOUT environment variable exists, gawk uses its value to initialize the timeout value. The exclusive use of the environment variable to specify timeout has the disadvantage of not being able to control it on a per-command or per-connection basis.

gawk considers a timeout event to be an error even though the attempt to read from the underlying device may succeed in a later attempt. This is a limitation, and it also means that you cannot use this to multiplex input from two or more sources. See Retrying Reads After Certain Input Errors for a way to enable later I/O attempts to succeed.

Assigning a timeout value prevents read operations from being blocked indefinitely. But bear in mind that there are other ways gawk can stall waiting for an input device to be ready. A network client can sometimes take a long time to establish a connection before it can start reading any data, or the attempt to open a FIFO special file for reading can be blocked indefinitely until some other process opens it for writing.

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4.12 Retrying Reads After Certain Input Errors ¶

When gawk encounters an error while reading input, by default getline returns −1, and subsequent attempts to read from that file result in an end-of-file indication. However, you may optionally instruct gawk to allow I/O to be retried when certain errors are encountered by setting a special element in the PROCINFO array (see Built-in Variables That Convey Information ):

When this element exists, gawk checks the value of the system (C language) errno variable when an I/O error occurs. If errno indicates a subsequent I/O attempt may succeed, getline instead returns −2 and further calls to getline may succeed. This applies to the errno values EAGAIN , EWOULDBLOCK , EINTR , or ETIMEDOUT .

This feature is useful in conjunction with PROCINFO[" input_name ", "READ_TIMEOUT"] or situations where a file descriptor has been configured to behave in a non-blocking fashion.

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4.13 Directories on the Command Line ¶

According to the POSIX standard, files named on the awk command line must be text files; it is a fatal error if they are not. Most versions of awk treat a directory on the command line as a fatal error.

By default, gawk produces a warning for a directory on the command line, but otherwise ignores it. This makes it easier to use shell wildcards with your awk program:

If either of the --posix or --traditional options is given, then gawk reverts to treating a directory on the command line as a fatal error.

See Reading Directories for a way to treat directories as usable data from an awk program.

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4.14 Summary ¶

FNR indicates how many records have been read from the current input file; NR indicates how many records have been read in total.
gawk sets RT to the text matched by RS .
After splitting the input into records, awk further splits the records into individual fields, named $1 , $2 , and so on. $0 is the whole record, and NF indicates how many fields there are. The default way to split fields is between whitespace characters.
Fields may be referenced using a variable, as in $NF . Fields may also be assigned values, which causes the value of $0 to be recomputed when it is later referenced. Assigning to a field with a number greater than NF creates the field and rebuilds the record, using OFS to separate the fields. Incrementing NF does the same thing. Decrementing NF throws away fields and rebuilds the record.
Using ‘ FS = "\n" ’ causes the entire record to be a single field (assuming that newlines separate records).
FS may be set from the command line using the -F option. This can also be done using command-line variable assignment.
Use PROCINFO["FS"] to see how fields are being split.
Use getline in its various forms to read additional records from the default input stream, from a file, or from a pipe or coprocess.
Use PROCINFO[ file , "READ_TIMEOUT"] to cause reads to time out for file .
Directories on the command line are fatal for standard awk ; gawk ignores them if not in POSIX mode.

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4.15 Exercises ¶

Using the FIELDWIDTHS variable (see Reading Fixed-Width Data ), write a program to read election data, where each record represents one voter’s votes. Come up with a way to define which columns are associated with each ballot item, and print the total votes, including abstentions, for each item.

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5 Printing Output ¶

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

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.

The print Statement
print Statement Examples
Output Separators
Controlling Numeric Output with print
Using printf Statements for Fancier Printing
Redirecting Output of print and printf
Special Files for Standard Preopened Data Streams
Special File names in gawk
Closing Input and Output Redirections
Speeding Up Pipe Output
Enabling Nonfatal Output

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5.1 The print Statement ¶

Use the print statement to produce output with simple, standardized formatting. You 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:

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 an output redirection (see Redirecting Output of print and printf ).

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 "" ’. 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.

Note that the print statement is a statement and not an expression—you can’t use it in the pattern part of a pattern–action statement, for example.

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5.2 print Statement Examples ¶

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 containing a newline, the newline is output along with the rest of the string. A single print statement can make any number of lines this way.

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

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:

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:

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 a BEGIN rule (see The BEGIN and END Special Patterns ) so that the headings are only printed once:

When run, the program prints the following:

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:

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 Using printf Statements for Fancier Printing ); 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 awk Statements Versus Lines ).

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5.3 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 simply the default. Any string of characters may be used as the output field separator by setting the predefined variable OFS . The initial value of this variable is the string " " (i.e., 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 The BEGIN and END Special Patterns ), 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 Command-Line Options ). The following example prints the first and second fields of each input record, separated by a semicolon, with a blank line added after each newline:

If the value of ORS does not contain a newline, the program’s output runs together on a single line.

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5.4 Controlling Numeric Output with print ¶

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

The predefined variable OFMT contains the 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 a different format specification for the value of OFMT , as shown in the following example:

More detail on how awk converts numeric values into strings is provided in How awk Converts Between Strings and Numbers . In particular, for print , awk uses the value of OFMT instead of that of CONVFMT , but otherwise behaves exactly the same as described in that section.

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

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5.5 Using printf Statements for Fancier Printing ¶

For more precise control over the output format than what is provided by print , use printf . With printf you can 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).

Introduction to the printf Statement
Format-Control Letters
Modifiers for printf Formats
Examples Using printf

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5.5.1 Introduction to the printf Statement ¶

A simple printf statement looks like this:

As for print , the entire list of arguments may optionally be enclosed in parentheses. Here too, the parentheses are necessary if any of the item expressions uses the ‘ > ’ relational operator; otherwise, it can be confused with an output redirection (see Redirecting Output of print and printf ).

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:

Here, neither the ‘ + ’ nor the ‘ OUCH! ’ appears in the output message.

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5.5.2 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:

A floating point number of the form [ - ] 0x h . hhhh p+- dd (C99 hexadecimal floating point format). For %A , uppercase letters are used instead of lowercase ones.

NOTE: The current POSIX standard requires support for %a and %A in awk . As far as we know, besides gawk , the only other version of awk that actually implements it is BWK awk . It’s use is thus highly nonportable! Furthermore, these formats are not available on any system where the underlying C library printf() function does not support them. As of this writing, among current systems, only OpenVMS is known to not support them.

Print a number as a character; thus, ‘ printf "%c", 65 ’ outputs the letter ‘ A ’. The output for a string value is the first character of the string.

NOTE: The POSIX standard says the first character of a string is printed. In locales with multibyte characters, gawk attempts to convert the leading bytes of the string into a valid wide character and then to print the multibyte encoding of that character. Similarly, when printing a numeric value, gawk allows the value to be within the numeric range of values that can be held in a wide character. If the conversion to multibyte encoding fails, gawk uses the low eight bits of the value as the character to print. Other awk versions generally restrict themselves to printing the first byte of a string or to numeric values within the range of a single byte (0–255). (d.c.)

Print a decimal integer. The two control letters are equivalent. (The ‘ %i ’ specification is for compatibility with ISO C.)

Print a number in scientific (exponential) notation. For example:

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.

Print a number in floating-point notation. For example:

prints ‘ 1950.000 ’, with a minimum 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 ’ or ‘ infinity ’. The special “not a number” value formats as ‘ -nan ’ or ‘ nan ’ (see Floating Point Values They Didn’t Talk About In School ).

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 it. On those that don’t, gawk uses ‘ %f ’ instead.

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 ’.

Print an unsigned octal integer (see Octal and Hexadecimal Numbers ).

Print a string.

Print an unsigned decimal integer. (This format is of marginal use, because all numbers in awk are floating point; it is provided primarily for compatibility with C.)

Print an unsigned hexadecimal integer; ‘ %X ’ uses the letters ‘ A ’ through ‘ F ’ instead of ‘ a ’ through ‘ f ’ (see Octal and Hexadecimal Numbers ).

Print a single ‘ % ’. This does not consume an argument and it ignores any modifiers.

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

NOTE: The IEEE 754 standard for floating-point arithmetic allows for special values that represent “infinity” (positive and negative) and values that are “not a number” (NaN). Input and output of these values occurs as text strings. This is somewhat problematic for the awk language, which predates the IEEE standard. Further details are provided in Standards Versus Existing Practice ; please see there.

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5.5.3 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 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:

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:

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 Rearranging printf Arguments , which describes how and why to use positional specifiers. For now, we ignore them.

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

prints ‘ foo• ’.

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 list), says to always supply a sign for numeric conversions, even if the data to format is positive. The ‘ + ’ overrides the space modifier.

Use an “alternative 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 ’, ‘ %f ’, and ‘ %F ’, the result always contains a decimal point. For ‘ %g ’ and ‘ %G ’, trailing zeros are not removed from the result.

A leading ‘ 0 ’ (zero) acts as a flag indicating that output should be padded with zeros instead of spaces. This applies only to the numeric output formats. This flag only has an effect when the field width is wider than the value to print.

A single quote or apostrophe character is a POSIX extension to ISO C. It indicates that the integer part of a floating-point value, or the entire part of an integer decimal value, should have a thousands-separator character in it. This only works in locales that support such characters. For example:

For more information about locales and internationalization issues, see Where You Are Makes a Difference .

NOTE: The ‘ ' ’ flag is a nice feature, but its use complicates things: it becomes difficult to use it in command-line programs. For information on appropriate quoting tricks, see Shell Quoting Issues .

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:

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:

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.

A period followed by an integer constant specifies the precision to use when printing. The meaning of the precision varies by control letter:

Minimum number of digits to print.

Number of digits to the right of the decimal point.

Maximum number of significant digits.

Maximum number of characters from the string that should print.

Thus, the following:

prints ‘ foob ’.

The C library printf ’s dynamic width and prec capability (e.g., "%*.*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:

is exactly equivalent to:

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:

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

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

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5.5.4 Examples Using printf ¶

The following simple example shows how to use printf to make an aligned table:

This command prints the names of the people ( $1 ) in the file mail-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:

In this case, the phone numbers had to be printed as strings because the numbers are separated by dashes. 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 a BEGIN rule (see The BEGIN and END Special Patterns ) so that the headers are only printed once, at the beginning of the awk program:

The preceding example mixes print and printf statements in the same program. Using just printf statements can produce the same results:

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

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

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5.6 Redirecting Output of print and printf ¶

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

NOTE: When --sandbox is specified (see Command-Line Options ), redirecting output to files, pipes, and coprocesses is disabled.

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. We show them all for the print statement, but they work identically for printf :

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

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

Each output file contains one name or number per line.

This redirection prints the items into the preexisting 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.

It is possible to send output to another program through a pipe instead of into a file. This 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 peoples’ names, and one list sorted in reverse alphabetical order:

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:

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 Closing Input and Output Redirections 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 (if you mean to refer to that same file or command) awk requires that the string value be written identically every time.

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

This feature is a gawk extension, and is not available in POSIX awk . See Using getline from a Coprocess , for a brief discussion. See Two-Way Communications with Another Process , 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. In other words, files, pipes, and coprocesses remain open until explicitly closed. All further print and printf statements continue to write to the same open file, pipe, or coprocess.

In the shell, when you are building up a file a line at a time, you first use ‘ > ’ to create the file, and then you use ‘ >> ’ for subsequent additions to it, like so:

In awk , the ‘ > ’ and ‘ >> ’ operators are subtly different. The operator you use the first time you write to a file determines how awk will open (or create) the file. If you use ‘ > ’, the file is truncated, and then all subsequent output appends data to the file, even if additional print or printf statements continue to use ‘ > ’. If you use ‘ >> ’ the first time, then existing data is not truncated, and all subsequent print or printf statements append data to the file.

You should be consistent and always use the same operator for all output to the same file. (You can mix ‘ > ’ and ‘ >> ’, and nothing bad will happen, but mixing the operators is considered to be bad style in awk . If invoked with the --lint option, gawk issues a warning when it encounters both operators being used for the same open file.)

As mentioned earlier (see Points to Remember About getline ), many Many older 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.

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5.7 Special Files for Standard Preopened Data Streams ¶

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 open streams (and any other open files or pipes) are often referred to by the technical term file descriptors .

These streams are, by default, connected to your keyboard and screen, 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 traditional implementations of awk , the only way to write an error message to standard error in an awk program is as follows:

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 also requires a separate process. So people writing awk programs often don’t do this. Instead, they send the error messages to the screen, like this:

( /dev/tty is a special file supplied by the operating system that is connected to your keyboard and screen. It represents the “terminal,” 29 which on modern systems is a keyboard and screen, not a serial console.) This generally has the same effect, but not always: although the standard error stream is usually the screen, it can be redirected; when that happens, writing to the screen 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 , BWK awk , and mawk provide special file names for accessing the three standard streams. If the file name matches one of these special names when gawk (or one of the others) redirects input or output, then it directly uses the descriptor 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:

The standard input (file descriptor 0).

The standard output (file descriptor 1).

The standard error output (file descriptor 2).

With these facilities, the proper way to write an error message then becomes:

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

gawk does not treat these file names as special when in POSIX-compatibility mode. However, because BWK awk supports them, gawk does support them even when invoked with the --traditional option (see Command-Line Options ).

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5.8 Special File names in gawk ¶

Besides access to standard input, standard output, and standard error, gawk provides access to any open file descriptor. Additionally, there are special file names reserved for TCP/IP networking.

Accessing Other Open Files with gawk
Special Files for Network Communications
Special File name Caveats

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5.8.1 Accessing Other Open Files with gawk ¶

Besides the /dev/stdin , /dev/stdout , and /dev/stderr special file names mentioned earlier, gawk provides syntax for accessing any other inherited open file:

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 essentially aliases for /dev/fd/0 , /dev/fd/1 , and /dev/fd/2 , respectively. However, those names are more self-explanatory.

Note that using close() on a file name of the form "/dev/fd/ N " , for file descriptor numbers above two, does actually close the given file descriptor.

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5.8.2 Special Files for Network Communications ¶

gawk 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:

The net-type is one of ‘ inet ’, ‘ inet4 ’, or ‘ inet6 ’. The protocol is one of ‘ tcp ’ or ‘ udp ’, and the other fields represent the other essential pieces of information for making a networking connection. These file names are used with the ‘ |& ’ operator for communicating with a coprocess (see Two-Way Communications with Another Process ). This is an advanced feature, mentioned here only for completeness. Full discussion is delayed until Using gawk for Network Programming .

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5.8.3 Special File name Caveats ¶

Here are some things to bear in mind when using the special file names that gawk provides:

Recognition of the file names for the three standard preopened files is disabled only in POSIX mode.
Recognition of the other special file names is disabled if gawk is in compatibility mode (either --traditional or --posix ; see Command-Line Options ).
gawk always interprets these special file names. 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.

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5.9 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 Explicit Input with getline ), the file is opened (or the command is executed) the first time only. At that time, the first record of input is read from that file or command. The next time the same file or command is used with getline , another record is read from it, and so on.

Similarly, when a file or pipe is opened for output, awk remembers the file name or command associated with it, 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:

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:

then you must close it with this:

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:

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.

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:

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; 30 more importantly, the file descriptor for the pipe is not closed and released until close() is called or awk exits.

close() silently does nothing if given an argument that does not represent a file, pipe, or coprocess that was opened with a redirection. In such a case, it returns a negative value, indicating an error. In addition, gawk sets ERRNO to a string indicating the error.

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 with a redirection, so awk silently does nothing, except return a negative value.

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, discussion is delayed until Two-Way Communications with Another Process , which describes it in more detail and gives an example.

Using close() ’s Return Value

Up: Closing Input and Output Redirections [ Contents ][ Index ]

5.9.1 Using close() ’s Return Value ¶

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

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 predefined variable ERRNO to a string describing the problem.

In gawk , starting with version 4.2, when closing a pipe or coprocess (input or output), the return value is the exit status of the command, as described in Table 5.1 . 31 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. Recent versions of BWK awk also return the same values from close() .

Table 5.1: Return values from close() of a pipe

The POSIX standard is very vague; it says that close() returns zero on success and a nonzero value otherwise. In general, different implementations vary in what they report when closing pipes; thus, the return value cannot be used portably. (d.c.) In POSIX mode (see Command-Line Options ), gawk just returns zero when closing a pipe.

Next: Enabling Nonfatal Output , Previous: Closing Input and Output Redirections , Up: Printing Output [ Contents ][ Index ]

5.10 Speeding Up Pipe Output ¶

This section describes a gawk -specific feature.

Normally, when you send data down a pipeline to a command with print or printf , gawk flushes the output down the pipe. That is, output is not buffered, but written directly. This assures, that pipeline output intermixed with gawk ’s output comes out in the expected order:

There can be a price to pay for this; flushing data down the pipeline uses more CPU time, and in certain environments this can become expensive.

You can tell gawk not to flush buffered data in one of two ways:

Set PROCINFO["BUFFERPIPE"] to any value. When this is done, gawk will buffer data for all pipelines.
Set PROCINFO[" command ", "BUFFERPIPE"] to any value. In this case, only command ’s data will be fully buffered.

You must create one or the other of these elements in PROCINFO before the first print or printf to the pipeline. Doing so after output has already been sent is too late.

Be aware that using this feature may change the output behavior of your programs, so exercise caution.

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5.11 Enabling Nonfatal Output ¶

In standard awk , output with print or printf to a nonexistent file, or some other I/O error (such as filling up the disk) is a fatal error.

gawk makes it possible to detect that an error has occurred, allowing you to possibly recover from the error, or at least print an error message of your choosing before exiting. You can do this in one of two ways:

For all output files, by assigning any value to PROCINFO["NONFATAL"] .
On a per-file basis, by assigning any value to PROCINFO[ filename , "NONFATAL"] . Here, filename is the name of the file to which you wish output to be nonfatal.

Once you have enabled nonfatal output, you must check ERRNO after every relevant print or printf statement to see if something went wrong. It is also a good idea to initialize ERRNO to zero before attempting the output. For example:

Here, gawk did not produce a fatal error; instead it let the awk program code detect the problem and handle it.

This mechanism works also for standard output and standard error. For standard output, you may use PROCINFO["-", "NONFATAL"] or PROCINFO["/dev/stdout", "NONFATAL"] . For standard error, use PROCINFO["/dev/stderr", "NONFATAL"] .

When attempting to open a TCP/IP socket (see Using gawk for Network Programming ), gawk tries multiple times. The GAWK_SOCK_RETRIES environment variable (see Other Environment Variables ) allows you to override gawk ’s builtin default number of attempts. However, once nonfatal I/O is enabled for a given socket, gawk only retries once, relying on awk -level code to notice that there was a problem.

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5.12 Summary ¶

The print statement prints comma-separated expressions. Each expression is separated by the value of OFS and terminated by the value of ORS . OFMT provides the conversion format for numeric values for the print statement.
The printf statement provides finer-grained control over output, with format-control letters for different data types and various flags that modify the behavior of the format-control letters.
Output from both print and printf may be redirected to files, pipes, and coprocesses.
gawk provides special file names for access to standard input, output, and error, and for network communications.
Use close() to close open file, pipe, and coprocess redirections. For coprocesses, it is possible to close only one direction of the communications.
Normally errors with print or printf are fatal. gawk lets you make output errors be nonfatal either for all files or on a per-file basis. You must then check for errors after every relevant output statement.

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5.13 Exercises ¶

from Output Separators , by using a new value of OFS .

Use the printf statement to line up the headings and table data for the inventory-shipped example that was covered in The print Statement .
What happens if you forget the double quotes when redirecting output, as follows: BEGIN { print "Serious error detected!" > /dev/stderr }

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6 Expressions ¶

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

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

Constants, Variables, and Conversions
Operators: Doing Something with Values
Truth Values and Conditions
Function Calls
Operator Precedence (How Operators Nest)
Where You Are Makes a Difference

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6.1 Constants, Variables, and Conversions ¶

Expressions are built up from values and the operations performed upon them. This section describes the elementary objects that provide the values used in expressions.

Constant Expressions
Using Regular Expression Constants
Conversion of Strings and Numbers

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6.1.1 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 internally stored in an identical manner.

Numeric and String Constants
Octal and Hexadecimal Numbers
Regular Expression Constants

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6.1.1.1 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. 32 Here are some examples of numeric constants that all have the same value:

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

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.

Some languages allow you to continue long strings across multiple lines by ending the line with a backslash. For example in C:

In such a case, the C compiler removes both the backslash and the newline, producing a string as if it had been typed ‘ "hello, world\n" ’. This is useful when a single string needs to contain a large amount of text.

The POSIX standard says explicitly that newlines are not allowed inside string constants. And indeed, all awk implementations report an error if you try to do so. For example:

Although POSIX doesn’t define what happens if you use an escaped newline, as in the previous C example, all known versions of awk allow you to do so. Unfortunately, what each one does with such a string varies. (d.c.) gawk , mawk , and the OpenSolaris POSIX awk (see Other Freely Available awk Implementations ) elide the backslash and newline, as in C:

In POSIX mode (see Command-Line Options ), gawk does not allow escaped newlines. Otherwise, it behaves as just described.

BWK awk 33 and BusyBox awk remove the backslash but leave the newline intact, as part of the string:

Next: Regular Expression Constants , Previous: Numeric and String Constants , Up: Constant Expressions [ Contents ][ Index ]

6.1.1.2 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, and so on. 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. Because the everyday decimal number system only has ten digits (‘ 0 ’–‘ 9 ’), the letters ‘ a ’ through ‘ f ’ 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 signify the base. Octal numbers start with a leading ‘ 0 ’, and hexadecimal numbers start with a leading ‘ 0x ’ or ‘ 0X ’:

Decimal value 11

Octal 11, decimal value 9

Hexadecimal 11, decimal value 17

This example shows the difference:

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 Allowing Nondecimal Input Data .) If you have octal or hexadecimal data, you can use the strtonum() function (see String-Manipulation Functions ) to convert the data into a number. Most of the time, you will want to use octal or hexadecimal constants when working with the built-in bit-manipulation functions; see Bit-Manipulation Functions for more information.

Unlike in some early C implementations, ‘ 8 ’ and ‘ 9 ’ are not valid in octal constants. For example, gawk treats ‘ 018 ’ as decimal 18:

Octal and hexadecimal source code constants are a gawk extension. If gawk is in compatibility mode (see Command-Line Options ), they are not available.

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6.1.1.3 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 typically just ordinary strings or variables that contain a regexp, but could be more complex expressions).

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6.1.2 Using Regular Expression Constants ¶

Regular expression constants consist of text describing a regular expression enclosed in slashes (such as /the +answer/ ). This section describes how such constants work in POSIX awk and gawk , and then goes on to describe strongly typed regexp constants , which are a gawk extension.

Standard Regular Expression Constants
Strongly Typed Regexp Constants

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6.1.2.1 Standard Regular Expression Constants ¶

When used on the righthand side of the ‘ ~ ’ or ‘ !~ ’ operators, a regexp constant merely stands for the regexp that is to be matched. However, regexp constants (such as /foo/ ) may be used like simple expressions. When a regexp constant appears by itself, it has the same meaning as if it appeared in a pattern (i.e., ‘ ($0 ~ /foo/) ’). (d.c.) See Expressions as Patterns . This means that the following two code segments:

are exactly equivalent. One rather bizarre consequence of this rule is that the following Boolean expression is valid, but does not do what its author probably intended:

This code is “obviously” testing $1 for a match against the regexp /foo/ . But in fact, the expression ‘ /foo/ ~ $1 ’ really 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:

assigns either zero or one to the variable matches , depending upon the contents of the current input record.

Constant regular expressions are also used as the first argument for the gensub() , sub() , and gsub() functions, as the second argument of the match() function, and as the third argument of the split() and patsplit() functions (see String-Manipulation Functions ). Modern implementations of awk , including gawk , allow the third argument of split() to be a regexp constant, but some older implementations do not. (d.c.) Because some built-in functions accept regexp constants as arguments, confusion can arise when attempting to use regexp constants as arguments to user-defined functions (see User-Defined Functions ). For example:

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 assigned a value of 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, because passing a truth value in this way is probably not what was intended.

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6.1.2.2 Strongly Typed Regexp Constants ¶

As we saw in the previous section, regexp constants ( /…/ ) hold a strange position in the awk language. In most contexts, they act like an expression: ‘ $0 ~ /…/ ’. In other contexts, they denote only a regexp to be matched. In no case are they really a “first class citizen” of the language. That is, you cannot define a scalar variable whose type is “regexp” in the same sense that you can define a variable to be a number or a string:

For a number of more advanced use cases, it would be nice to have regexp constants that are strongly typed ; in other words, that denote a regexp useful for matching, and not an expression.

gawk provides this feature. A strongly typed regexp constant looks almost like a regular regexp constant, except that it is preceded by an ‘ @ ’ sign:

Strongly typed regexp constants cannot be used everywhere that a regular regexp constant can, because this would make the language even more confusing. Instead, you may use them only in certain contexts:

On the righthand side of the ‘ ~ ’ and ‘ !~ ’ operators: ‘ some_var ~ @/foo/ ’ (see How to Use Regular Expressions ).
In the case part of a switch statement (see The switch Statement ).
As an argument to one of the built-in functions that accept regexp constants: gensub() , gsub() , match() , patsplit() , split() , and sub() (see String-Manipulation Functions ).
As a parameter in a call to a user-defined function (see User-Defined Functions ).
As the return value of a user-defined function.
On the righthand side of an assignment to a variable: ‘ some_var = @/foo/ ’. In this case, the type of some_var is regexp. Additionally, some_var can be used with ‘ ~ ’ and ‘ !~ ’, passed to one of the built-in functions listed above, or passed as a parameter to a user-defined function.

You may use the -v option (see Command-Line Options ) to assign a strongly-typed regexp constant to a variable on the command line, like so:

You may also make such assignments as regular command-line arguments (see Other Command-Line Arguments ).

You may use the typeof() built-in function (see Getting Type Information ) to determine if a variable or function parameter is a regexp variable.

The true power of this feature comes from the ability to create variables that have regexp type. Such variables can be passed on to user-defined functions, without the confusing aspects of computed regular expressions created from strings or string constants. They may also be passed through indirect function calls (see Indirect Function Calls ) and on to the built-in functions that accept regexp constants.

When used in numeric conversions, strongly typed regexp variables convert to zero. When used in string conversions, they convert to the string value of the original regexp text.

There is an additional, interesting corner case. When used as the third argument to sub() or gsub() , they retain their type. Thus, if you have something like this:

then re retains its type, but now attempts to match the string ‘ do panic ’. This provides a (very indirect) way to create regexp-typed variables at runtime.

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6.1.3 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.

Using Variables in a Program
Assigning Variables on the Command Line

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6.1.3.1 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. Here, a letter is any one of the 52 upper- and lowercase English letters. Other characters that may be defined as letters in non-English locales are not valid in variable names. Case is significant in variable names; a and A are distinct variables.

A variable name is a valid expression by itself; it represents the variable’s current value. Variables are given new values with assignment operators , increment operators , and decrement operators (see Assignment Expressions ). In addition, the sub() and gsub() functions can change a variable’s value, and the match() , split() , and patsplit() functions can change the contents of their array parameters (see String-Manipulation Functions ).

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 Predefined Variables for a list of the predefined variables. These predefined variables can be used and assigned just like all other variables, but their values are also used or changed automatically by awk . All predefined 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 explicitly initialize a variable in awk , which is what you would do in C and in most other traditional languages.

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6.1.3.2 Assigning Variables on the Command Line ¶

Any awk variable can be set by including a variable assignment among the arguments on the command line when awk is invoked (see Other Command-Line Arguments ). Such an assignment has the following form:

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:

the variable is set at the very beginning, even before the BEGIN rules execute. The -v option and its assignment must precede all the file name arguments, as well as the program text. (See Command-Line Options for more information about the -v option.) Otherwise, the variable assignment is performed at a time determined by its position among the input file arguments—after the processing of the preceding input file argument. For example:

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 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 mail-list :

Command-line arguments are made available for explicit examination by the awk program in the ARGV array (see Using ARGC and ARGV ). awk processes the values of command-line assignments for escape sequences (see Escape Sequences ). (d.c.)

Normally, variables assigned on the command line (with or without the -v option) are treated as strings. When such variables are used as numbers, awk ’s normal automatic conversion of strings to numbers takes place, and everything “just works.”

However, gawk supports variables whose types are “regexp”. You can assign variables of this type using the following syntax:

Strongly typed regexps are an advanced feature (see Strongly Typed Regexp Constants ). We mention them here only for completeness.

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6.1.4 Conversion of Strings and Numbers ¶

Number-to-string and string-to-number conversion are generally straightforward. There can be subtleties to be aware of; this section discusses this important facet of awk .

How awk Converts Between Strings and Numbers
Locales Can Influence Conversion

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6.1.4.1 How awk Converts Between 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:

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 that number with the empty string, "" . 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 1,000, 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 predefined variable CONVFMT (see Predefined Variables ). Numbers are converted using the sprintf() function with CONVFMT as the format specifier (see String-Manipulation Functions ).

CONVFMT ’s default value is "%.6g" , which creates a value with at most six significant digits. For some applications, you might want to change it to specify more precision. On most modern machines, 17 digits is usually enough to capture a floating-point number’s value exactly. 34

Strange results can occur if you set CONVFMT to a string that doesn’t tell sprintf() how to format floating-point numbers in a useful way. For example, if you forget the ‘ % ’ in the format, awk converts all numbers to the same constant string.

As a special case, if a number is an integer, then the result of converting it to a string is always an integer, no matter what the value of CONVFMT may be. Given the following code fragment:

b has the value "12" , not "12.00" . (d.c.)

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6.1.4.2 Locales Can Influence Conversion ¶

Where you are can matter when it comes to converting between numbers and strings. The local character set and language—the locale —can affect numeric formats. In particular, for awk programs, it affects the decimal point character and the thousands-separator character. The "C" locale, and most English-language locales, use the period character (‘ . ’) as the decimal point and don’t have a thousands separator. However, many (if not most) European and non-English locales use the comma (‘ , ’) as the decimal point character. European locales often use either a space or a period as the thousands separator, if they have one.

The POSIX standard says that awk always uses the period as the decimal point when reading the awk program source code, and for command-line variable assignments (see Other Command-Line Arguments ). However, when interpreting input data, for print and printf output, and for number-to-string conversion, the local decimal point character is used. (d.c.) In all cases, numbers in source code and in input data cannot have a thousands separator. Here are some examples indicating the difference in behavior, on a GNU/Linux system:

The en_DK.utf-8 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 including the fractional part, 4.321.

Some earlier versions of gawk fully complied with this aspect of the standard. However, many users in non-English locales complained about this behavior, because their data used a period as the decimal point, so the default behavior was restored to use a period as the decimal point character. You can use the --use-lc-numeric option (see Command-Line Options ) to force gawk to use the locale’s decimal point character. ( gawk also uses the locale’s decimal point character when in POSIX mode, either via --posix or the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable, as shown previously.)

Table 6.1 describes the cases in which the locale’s decimal point character is used and when a period is used. Some of these features have not been described yet.

Table 6.1: Locale decimal point versus a period

Finally, modern-day formal standards and the IEEE standard floating-point representation can have an unusual but important effect on the way gawk converts some special string values to numbers. The details are presented in Standards Versus Existing Practice .

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6.2 Operators: Doing Something with Values ¶

This section introduces the operators that make use of the values provided by constants and variables.

Arithmetic Operators
String Concatenation
Assignment Expressions
Increment and Decrement Operators

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6.2.1 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):

This program takes the file grades and prints the average of the scores:

The following list provides the arithmetic operators in awk , in order from the highest precedence to the lowest:

Exponentiation; x raised to the y power. ‘ 2 ^ 3 ’ has the value eight; the character sequence ‘ ** ’ is equivalent to ‘ ^ ’. (c.e.)

Unary plus; the expression is converted to a number.

Multiplication.

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.)

Remainder; further discussion is provided in the text, just after this list.

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:

One possibly undesirable effect of this definition of remainder is that ‘ x % y ’ is negative if x is negative. Thus:

This definition is compliant with the POSIX standard, which says that the % operator produces results equivalent to using the standard C fmod() function, and that function in turn works as just described.

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.

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6.2.2 String Concatenation ¶

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

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:

Without the space in the string constant after the ‘ : ’, the line runs together. For example:

Because string concatenation does not have an explicit operator, it is often necessary to ensure that it happens at the right time by using parentheses to enclose the items to concatenate. For example, you might expect that the following code fragment concatenates file and name :

This produces a syntax error with some versions of Unix awk . 35 It is necessary to use the following:

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:

It is not defined whether the second 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:

This “obviously” is concatenating −12, a space, and −24. But where did the space disappear to? The answer lies in the combination of operator precedences and awk ’s automatic conversion rules. To get the desired result, write the program this way:

This forces awk to treat the ‘ - ’ on the ‘ -24 ’ as unary. Otherwise, it’s parsed as follows:

As mentioned earlier, when mixing concatenation with other operators, parenthesize . Otherwise, you’re never quite sure what you’ll get.

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6.2.3 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 :

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 :

This also illustrates string concatenation. The ‘ = ’ sign is called an assignment operator . It is the simplest assignment operator because the value of the righthand operand is stored unchanged. Most operators (addition, concatenation, and so on) have no effect except to compute a value. If the value isn’t used, there’s no reason to use the operator. An assignment operator is different; it does produce a value, but even if you ignore it, the assignment still makes itself felt through the alteration of the variable. We call this a side effect .

The lefthand operand of an assignment need not be a variable (see Variables ); it can also be a field (see Changing the Contents of a Field ) or an array element (see Arrays in awk ). 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 was last assigned to it. In the following program fragment, the variable foo has a numeric value at first, and a string value later on:

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:

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:

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 :

This is equivalent to the following:

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:

The indices of bar are practically guaranteed to be different, because rand() returns different values each time it is called. (Arrays and the rand() function haven’t been covered yet. See Arrays in awk , and see Numeric Functions for more information.) This example illustrates an important fact about assignment operators: the lefthand expression is only evaluated once .

It is up to the implementation as to which expression is evaluated first, the lefthand or the righthand. Consider this example:

The value of a[3] could be either two or four.

Table 6.2 lists the arithmetic assignment operators. In each case, the righthand operand is an expression whose value is converted to a number.

Table 6.2: Arithmetic assignment operators

NOTE: Only the ‘ ^= ’ operator is specified by POSIX. For maximum portability, do not use the ‘ **= ’ operator.

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6.2.4 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 10 12 ).

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:

Increment lvalue , returning the new value as the value of the expression.

Increment lvalue , returning the old value of lvalue as the value of the expression.

Decrement lvalue , returning the new value as the value of the expression. (This expression is like ‘ ++ lvalue ’, but instead of adding, it subtracts.)

Decrement lvalue , returning the old value of lvalue as the value of the expression. (This expression is like ‘ lvalue ++ ’, but instead of adding, it subtracts.)

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6.3 Truth Values and Conditions ¶

In certain contexts, expression values also serve as “truth values”; i.e., they determine what should happen next as the program runs. This section describes how awk defines “true” and “false” and how values are compared.

True and False in awk
Variable Typing and Comparison Expressions
Boolean Expressions
Conditional Expressions

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6.3.1 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:

There is a surprising consequence of the “nonzero or non-null” rule: the string constant "0" is actually true, because it is non-null. (d.c.)

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6.3.2 Variable Typing and Comparison Expressions ¶

The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.

Unlike in other programming languages, in 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. We look now at how variables are typed, and how awk compares variables.

String Type versus Numeric Type
Comparison Operators
String Comparison Based on Locale Collating Order

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6.3.2.1 String Type versus Numeric Type ¶

Scalar objects in awk (variables, array elements, and fields) are dynamically typed. This means their type can change as the program runs, from untyped before any use, 36 to string or number, and then from string to number or number to string, as the program progresses. ( gawk also provides regexp-typed scalars, but let’s ignore that for now; see Strongly Typed Regexp Constants .)

You can’t do much with untyped variables, other than tell that they are untyped. The following program tests a against "" and 0 ; the test succeeds when a has never been assigned a value. It also uses the built-in typeof() function (not presented yet; see Getting Type Information ) to show a ’s type:

A scalar has numeric type when assigned a numeric value, such as from a numeric constant, or from another scalar with numeric type:

Similarly, a scalar has string type when assigned a string value, such as from a string constant, or from another scalar with string type:

So far, this is all simple and straightforward. What happens, though, when awk has to process data from a user? Let’s start with field data. What should the following command produce as output?

Since ‘ hello ’ is alphabetic data, awk can only do a string comparison. Internally, it converts 42 into "42" and compares the two string values "hello" and "42" . Here’s the result:

However, what happens when data from a user looks like a number? On the one hand, in reality, the input data consists of characters, not binary numeric values. But, on the other hand, the data looks numeric, and awk really ought to treat it as such. And indeed, it does:

Here are the rules for when awk treats data as a number, and for when it treats data as a string.

The POSIX standard uses the term numeric string for input data that looks numeric. The ‘ 37 ’ in the previous example is a numeric string. So what is the type of a numeric string? Answer: numeric.

The type of a variable is important because the types of two variables determine how they are compared. Variable typing follows these definitions and 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 match() , split() , and patsplit() that are numeric strings have the strnum attribute. 37 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:

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:

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" , when it appears in program source code, is a string—even though it looks numeric—and is never treated as a 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. (The primary difference between a number and a strnum is that for strnums gawk preserves the original string value that the scalar had when it came in.)

This point bears additional emphasis: Input that looks numeric is numeric. All other input is treated as strings.

Thus, the six-character input string ‘ +3.14 ’ receives the strnum attribute. In contrast, the eight characters " +3.14" appearing in program text comprise a string constant. The following examples print ‘ 1 ’ when the comparison between the two different constants is true, and ‘ 0 ’ otherwise:

You can see the type of an input field (or other user input) using typeof() :

Next: String Comparison Based on Locale Collating Order , Previous: String Type versus Numeric Type , Up: Variable Typing and Comparison Expressions [ Contents ][ Index ]

6.3.2.2 Comparison Operators ¶

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 6.3 describes them.

Table 6.3: Relational operators

Comparison expressions have the value one if true and zero if false. When comparing operands of mixed types, numeric operands are converted to strings using the value of CONVFMT (see Conversion of Strings and Numbers ).

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:

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 list of expressions illustrates the kinds of comparisons awk performs, as well as what the result of each comparison is:

Numeric comparison (true)

String comparison (false)

String comparison (true)

In this example:

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:

has the value one, or is true if the variable x is precisely ‘ foo ’. By contrast:

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 How to Use Regular Expressions ; also see Using Dynamic Regexps ).

A constant regular expression in slashes by itself is also an expression. / regexp / is an abbreviation for the following comparison expression:

One special place where /foo/ is not an abbreviation for ‘ $0 ~ /foo/ ’ is when it is the righthand operand of ‘ ~ ’ or ‘ !~ ’. See Using Regular Expression Constants , where this is discussed in more detail.

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6.3.2.3 String Comparison Based on Locale Collating Order ¶

The POSIX standard used to say that all string comparisons are performed based on the locale’s collating order . This is the order in which characters sort, as defined by the locale (for more discussion, see Where You Are Makes a Difference ). This order is usually very different from the results obtained when doing straight byte-by-byte comparison. 38

Because this behavior differs considerably from existing practice, gawk only implemented it when in POSIX mode (see Command-Line Options ). Here is an example to illustrate the difference, in an en_US.UTF-8 locale:

Fortunately, as of August 2016, comparison based on locale collating order is no longer required for the == and != operators. 39 However, comparison based on locales is still required for < , <= , > , and >= . POSIX thus recommends as follows:

Since the == operator checks whether strings are identical, not whether they collate equally, applications needing to check whether strings collate equally can use: a <= b && a >= b

As of version 4.2, gawk continues to use locale collating order for < , <= , > , and >= only in POSIX mode.

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6.3.3 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 Control Statements in Actions ). 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:

True if both boolean1 and boolean2 are true. For example, the following statement prints the current input record if it contains both ‘ edu ’ and ‘ li ’:

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.

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 ‘ edu ’ or ‘ li ’:

The subexpression boolean2 is evaluated only if boolean1 is false. This can make a difference when boolean2 contains expressions that have side effects. (Thus, this test never really distinguishes records that contain both ‘ edu ’ and ‘ li ’—as soon as ‘ edu ’ is matched, the full test succeeds.)

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:

(The in operator is described in Referring to an Array Element .)

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 partway through its evaluation.

Statements that end with ‘ && ’ 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 awk Statements Versus Lines ).

The actual value of an expression using the ‘ ! ’ operator is either one or zero, depending upon the truth value of the expression it is applied to. The ‘ ! ’ operator is often useful for changing the sense of a flag variable from false to true and back again. For example, the following program is one way to print lines in between special bracketing lines:

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. 40

Most commonly, the ‘ ! ’ operator is used in the conditions of if and while statements, where it often makes more sense to phrase the logic in the negative:

NOTE: The next statement is discussed in The next Statement . next tells awk to skip the rest of the rules, get the next record, and start processing the rules over again at the top. The reason it’s there is to avoid printing the bracketing ‘ START ’ and ‘ END ’ lines.

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6.3.4 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 in awk is the same as in the C language, as shown here:

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 :

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 :

This is guaranteed to increment i exactly once, because each time only one of the two increment expressions is executed and the other is not. See Arrays in awk , 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 awk Statements Versus Lines ). If --posix is specified (see Command-Line Options ), this extension is disabled.

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6.4 Function Calls ¶

A function is a name for a particular calculation. This enables you to ask for it by name at any point in the program. For example, the function sqrt() computes the square root of a number.

A fixed set of functions are built in , which means they are available in every awk program. The sqrt() function is one of these. See Built-in Functions for a list of built-in functions and their descriptions. In addition, you can define functions for use in your program. See User-Defined Functions for instructions on how to do this. Finally, gawk lets you write functions in C or C++ that may be called from your program (see Writing Extensions for gawk ).

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:

CAUTION: Do not put any space between the function name and the opening 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:

Some of the built-in functions have one or more optional arguments. If those arguments are not supplied, the functions use a reasonable default value. See Built-in Functions for full details. If arguments are omitted in calls to user-defined functions, then those arguments are treated as local variables. Such local variables act like the empty string if referenced where a string value is required, and like zero if referenced where a numeric value is required (see User-Defined Functions ).

As an advanced feature, gawk provides indirect function calls, which is a way to choose the function to call at runtime, instead of when you write the source code to your program. We defer discussion of this feature until later; see Indirect Function Calls .

Like every other expression, the function call has a value, often called the return value , which is computed by the function based on the arguments you give it. In this example, the return value of ‘ sqrt( argument ) ’ is the square root of argument . The following program reads numbers, one number per line, and prints the square root of each one:

A function can also have side effects, such as assigning values to certain variables or doing I/O. This program shows how the match() function (see String-Manipulation Functions ) changes the variables RSTART and RLENGTH :

Here is a sample run:

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6.5 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) ’.

Normally the precedence of prefix unary operators does not matter, 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. Also, operators cannot be combined in a way that violates the precedence rules; for example, ‘ $$0++-- ’ is not a valid expression because the first ‘ $ ’ has higher precedence than the ‘ ++ ’; to avoid the problem the expression can be rewritten as ‘ $($0++)-- ’.

This list presents awk ’s operators, in order of highest to lowest precedence:

Field reference.

Increment, decrement.

Exponentiation. These operators group right to left.

Unary plus, minus, logical “not.”

Multiplication, division, remainder.

Addition, subtraction.

There is no special symbol for concatenation. The operands are simply written side by side (see String Concatenation ).

Relational and redirection. The relational operators and the redirections have the same precedence level. Characters such as ‘ > ’ serve both as relationals and as redirections; the context distinguishes between the two meanings.

Note that the I/O redirection operators in print and printf statements belong to the statement level, not to expressions. The redirection does not produce an expression that could be the operand of another operator. As a result, it does not make sense to use a redirection operator near another operator of lower precedence without parentheses. Such combinations (e.g., ‘ print foo > a ? b : c ’) result in syntax errors. The correct way to write this statement is ‘ print foo > (a ? b : c) ’.

Matching, nonmatching.

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.

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6.6 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 ISO C standard defines a default "C" locale, which is an environment that is typical of what many C programmers are used to.

Once upon a time, the locale setting used to affect regexp matching, but this is no longer true (see Regexp Ranges and Locales: A Long Sad Story ).

Locales can affect record splitting. For the normal case of ‘ RS = "\n" ’, the locale is largely irrelevant. For other single-character record separators, setting ‘ LC_ALL=C ’ in the environment 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.

Locales can affect how dates and times are formatted (see Time Functions ). For example, a common way to abbreviate the date September 4, 2015, in the United States is “9/4/15.” In many countries in Europe, however, it is abbreviated “4.9.15.” Thus, the ‘ %x ’ specification in a "US" locale might produce ‘ 9/4/15 ’, while in a "EUROPE" locale, it might produce ‘ 4.9.15 ’.

According to POSIX, string comparison is also affected by locales (similar to regular expressions). The details are presented in String Comparison Based on Locale Collating Order .

Finally, the locale affects the value of the decimal point character used when gawk parses input data. This is discussed in detail in Conversion of Strings and Numbers .

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6.7 Summary ¶

Expressions are the basic elements of computation in programs. They are built from constants, variables, function calls, and combinations of the various kinds of values with operators.
awk supplies three kinds of constants: numeric, string, and regexp. gawk lets you specify numeric constants in octal and hexadecimal (bases 8 and 16) as well as decimal (base 10). In certain contexts, a standalone regexp constant such as /foo/ has the same meaning as ‘ $0 ~ /foo/ ’.
Variables hold values between uses in computations. A number of built-in variables provide information to your awk program, and a number of others let you control how awk behaves.
Numbers are automatically converted to strings, and strings to numbers, as needed by awk . Numeric values are converted as if they were formatted with sprintf() using the format in CONVFMT . Locales can influence the conversions.
awk provides the usual arithmetic operators (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, modulus), and unary plus and minus. It also provides comparison operators, Boolean operators, an array membership testing operator, and regexp matching operators. String concatenation is accomplished by placing two expressions next to each other; there is no explicit operator. The three-operand ‘ ?: ’ operator provides an “if-else” test within expressions.
Assignment operators provide convenient shorthands for common arithmetic operations.
In awk , a value is considered to be true if it is nonzero or non-null. Otherwise, the value is false.
A variable’s type is set upon each assignment and may change over its lifetime. The type determines how it behaves in comparisons (string or numeric).
Function calls return a value that may be used as part of a larger expression. Expressions used to pass parameter values are fully evaluated before the function is called. awk provides built-in and user-defined functions; this is described in Functions .
Operator precedence specifies the order in which operations are performed, unless explicitly overridden by parentheses. awk ’s operator precedence is compatible with that of C.
Locales can affect the format of data as output by an awk program, and occasionally the format for data read as input.

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7 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 predefined 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.

Pattern Elements
Using Shell Variables in Programs
Control Statements in Actions
Predefined Variables

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7.1 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:

A regular expression. It matches when the text of the input record fits the regular expression. (See Regular Expressions .)

A single expression. It matches when its value is nonzero (if a number) or non-null (if a string). (See Expressions as Patterns .)

A pair of patterns separated by a comma, specifying a range of records. The range includes both the initial record that matches begpat and the final record that matches endpat . (See Specifying Record Ranges with Patterns .)

Special patterns for you to supply startup or cleanup actions for your awk program. (See The BEGIN and END Special Patterns .)

Special patterns for you to supply startup or cleanup actions to be done on a per-file basis. (See The BEGINFILE and ENDFILE Special Patterns .)

The empty pattern matches every input record. (See The Empty Pattern .)

Regular Expressions as Patterns
Expressions as Patterns
Specifying Record Ranges with Patterns
The BEGIN and END Special Patterns
The BEGINFILE and ENDFILE Special Patterns
The Empty Pattern

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7.1.1 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:

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7.1.2 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 Variable Typing and Comparison Expressions , 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 Using Dynamic Regexps ). The following example prints the second field of each input record whose first field is precisely ‘ li ’:

(There is no output, because there is no person with the exact name ‘ li ’.) Contrast this with the following regular expression match, which accepts any record with a first field that contains ‘ li ’:

A regexp constant as a pattern is also a special case of an expression pattern. The expression /li/ has the value one if ‘ li ’ appears in the current input record. Thus, as a pattern, /li/ matches any record containing ‘ li ’.

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 mail-list that contain both ‘ edu ’ and ‘ li ’:

The following command prints all records in mail-list that contain either ‘ edu ’ or ‘ li ’ (or both, of course):

The following command prints all records in mail-list that do not contain the string ‘ li ’:

The subexpressions of a Boolean operator in a pattern can be constant regular expressions, comparisons, or any other awk expressions. Range patterns are not expressions, so they cannot appear inside Boolean patterns. Likewise, the special patterns BEGIN , END , BEGINFILE , and ENDFILE , which never match any input record, are not expressions and cannot appear inside Boolean patterns.

The precedence of the different operators that can appear in patterns is described in Operator Precedence (How Operators Nest) .

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7.1.3 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:

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 The next Statement ). This causes awk to skip any further processing of the current record and start over again with the next input record. Such a program looks like this:

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:

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:

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:

As a minor point of interest, although it is poor style, POSIX allows you to put a newline after the comma in a range pattern. (d.c.)

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7.1.4 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 longtime awk programmers.

Startup and Cleanup Actions
Input/Output from BEGIN and END Rules

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7.1.4.1 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:

This program finds the number of records in the input file mail-list that contain the string ‘ li ’. 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, as awk does this automatically (see Variables ). The second rule increments the variable n every time a record containing the pattern ‘ li ’ 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 Command-Line Options for more information on using library functions. See A Library of awk Functions , for a number of useful library functions.

If an awk program has only BEGIN rules and no other rules, then the program exits after the BEGIN rules are run. 41 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, or the fields.

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7.1.4.2 Input/Output from BEGIN and END Rules ¶

There are several (sometimes subtle) points to be aware of 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 Explicit Input with getline ). Another way is simply to assign a value to $0 .

The second point is similar to the first, but from the other direction. Traditionally, due largely to implementation issues, $0 and NF were undefined inside an END rule. The POSIX standard specifies that NF is available in an END rule. It contains the number of fields from the last input record. Most probably due to an oversight, the standard does not say that $0 is also preserved, although logically one would think that it should be. In fact, all of BWK awk , mawk , and gawk preserve the value of $0 for use in END rules. Be aware, however, that some other implementations and many older versions of Unix awk 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 record. Many longtime 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, because 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, because all the input has been read. (See The next Statement and see The nextfile Statement .)

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7.1.5 The BEGINFILE and ENDFILE Special Patterns ¶

Two special kinds of rule, BEGINFILE and ENDFILE , give you “hooks” into gawk ’s command-line file processing loop. As with the BEGIN and END rules (see The BEGIN and END Special Patterns ), BEGINFILE rules in a program execute in the order they are read by gawk . Similarly, all ENDFILE rules also execute in the order they are read.

The bodies of the BEGINFILE rules execute just before gawk reads the first record from a file. FILENAME is set to the name of the current file, and FNR is set to zero.

Prior to version 5.1.1 of gawk , as an accident of the implementation, $0 and the fields retained any previous values they had in BEGINFILE rules. Starting with version 5.1.1, $0 and the fields are cleared, since no record has been read yet from the file that is about to be processed.

The BEGINFILE rule provides you the opportunity to accomplish two tasks that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to perform:

You do this by checking if the ERRNO variable is not the empty string; if so, then gawk was not able to open the file. In this case, your program can execute the nextfile statement (see The nextfile Statement ). This causes gawk to skip the file entirely. Otherwise, gawk exits with the usual fatal error.

If you have written extensions that modify the record handling (by inserting an “input parser”; see Customized Input Parsers ), you can invoke them at this point, before gawk has started processing the file. (This is a very advanced feature, currently used only by the gawkextlib project .)

The ENDFILE rule is called when gawk has finished processing the last record in an input file. For the last input file, it will be called before any END rules. The ENDFILE rule is executed even for empty input files.

Normally, when an error occurs when reading input in the normal input-processing loop, the error is fatal. However, if a BEGINFILE rule is present, the error becomes non-fatal, and instead ERRNO is set. This makes it possible to catch and process I/O errors at the level of the awk program.

The next statement (see The next Statement ) is not allowed inside either a BEGINFILE or an ENDFILE rule. The nextfile statement is allowed only inside a BEGINFILE rule, not inside an ENDFILE rule.

The getline statement (see Explicit Input with getline ) is restricted inside both BEGINFILE and ENDFILE : only redirected forms of getline are allowed.

BEGINFILE and ENDFILE are gawk extensions. In most other awk implementations, or if gawk is in compatibility mode (see Command-Line Options ), they are not special.

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7.1.6 The Empty Pattern ¶

An empty (i.e., nonexistent) pattern is considered to match every input record. For example, the program:

prints the first field of every record.

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7.2 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.

A common method is to use shell quoting to substitute the variable’s value into the program inside the script. For example, consider the following program:

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 shell variable inside the quotes. The second part is single-quoted.

Variable substitution via quoting works, but can potentially be messy. It requires a good understanding of the shell’s quoting rules (see Shell Quoting Issues ), 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 Assigning Variables on the Command Line ) to assign the shell variable’s value to an awk variable. Then use dynamic regexps to match the pattern (see Using Dynamic Regexps ). The following shows how to redo the previous example using this technique:

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, as 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.

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7.3 Actions ¶

An awk program or script consists of a series of rules and function definitions interspersed. (Functions are described later. See User-Defined Functions .) 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:

An action consists of one or more awk statements , enclosed in braces (‘ { … } ’). Each statement specifies one thing to do. The statements are separated by newlines or semicolons. The 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 braces as well. An omitted action is equivalent to ‘ { print $0 } ’:

The following types of statements are supported in awk :

Call functions or assign values to variables (see Expressions ). Executing this kind of statement simply computes the value of the expression. This is useful when the expression has side effects (see Assignment Expressions ).

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 Control Statements in Actions ).

Enclose one or more statements in braces. A compound statement is used in order to put several statements together in the body of an if , while , do , or for statement.

Use the getline command (see Explicit Input with getline ). Also supplied in awk are the next statement (see The next Statement ) and the nextfile statement (see The nextfile Statement ).

Such as print and printf . See Printing Output .

For deleting array elements. See The delete Statement .

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7.4 Control Statements in Actions ¶

Control statements , such as if , while , and so on, control the flow of execution in awk programs. Most of awk ’s control statements are patterned after similar statements in C.

All the control statements start with special keywords, such as if and while , to distinguish them from simple expressions. Many control statements contain other statements. For example, the if statement contains another statement that may or may not be executed. The contained statement is called the body . To include more than one statement in the body, group them into a single compound statement with braces, separating them with newlines or semicolons.

The if - else Statement
The while Statement
The do - while Statement
The for Statement
The switch Statement
The break Statement
The continue Statement
The next Statement
The nextfile Statement
The exit Statement

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7.4.1 The if - else Statement ¶

The if - else statement is awk ’s decision-making statement. It looks like this:

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:

In this example, if the expression ‘ x % 2 == 0 ’ is true (i.e., 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 braces), then a semicolon must separate then-body from the else . To illustrate this, the previous example can be rewritten as:

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.

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7.4.2 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:

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 executes again. This process repeats until the condition is no longer true. If the condition is initially false, the body of the loop never executes and awk continues with the statement following the loop. This example prints the first three fields of each record, one per line:

The body of this loop is a compound statement enclosed in braces, containing two statements. The loop works in the following manner: first, the value of i is set to one. Then, the while statement tests whether i is less than or equal to three. This is true when i equals one, so the i th field is printed. Then the ‘ i++ ’ increments the value of i and the loop repeats. The loop terminates when i reaches four.

A newline is not required between the condition and the body; however, using one makes the program clearer unless the body is a compound statement or else is very simple. The newline after the open brace that begins the compound statement is not required either, but the program is harder to read without it.

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7.4.3 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:

Even if the condition is false at the start, the body executes at least once (and only once, unless executing body makes condition true). Contrast this with the corresponding while statement:

This statement does not execute the body even once if the condition is false to begin with. The following is an example of a do statement:

This program prints each input record 10 times. However, it isn’t a very realistic example, because 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.

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7.4.4 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:

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:

This prints the first three fields of each input record, with one input field per output line.

C and C++ programmers might expect to be able to use the comma operator to set more than one variable in the initialization part of the for loop, or to increment multiple variables in the increment part of the loop, like so:

You cannot do this; the comma operator is not supported in awk . There are workarounds, but they are nonobvious and can lead to code that is difficult to read and understand. It is best, therefore, to simply write additional initializations as separate statements preceding the for loop and to place additional increment statements at the end of the loop’s body.

Most often, increment is an increment expression, as in the earlier 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:

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:

The only exception is when the continue statement (see The continue Statement ) is used inside the loop. Changing a for statement to a while statement in this way can change the effect of the continue statement inside the loop.

The awk language has a for statement in addition to a while statement because a for loop is often both less work to type and more natural to think of. Counting the number of iterations is very common in loops. It can be easier to think of this counting as part of looping rather than as something to do inside the loop.

There is an alternative version of the for loop, for iterating over all the indices of an array:

See Scanning All Elements of an Array for more information on this version of the for loop.

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7.4.5 The switch Statement ¶

This section describes a gawk -specific feature. If gawk is in compatibility mode (see Command-Line Options ), it is not available.

The switch statement allows the evaluation of an expression and the execution of statements based on a case match. Case statements are checked for a match in the order they are defined. If no suitable case is found, the default section is executed, if supplied.

Each case contains a single constant, be it numeric, string, or regexp. The switch expression is evaluated, and then each case ’s constant is compared against the result in turn. The type of constant determines the comparison: numeric or string do the usual comparisons. A regexp constant (either regular, /foo/ , or strongly typed, @/foo/ ) does a regular expression match against the string value of the original expression. The general form of the switch statement looks like this:

Control flow in the switch statement works as it does in C. Once a match to a given case is made, the case statement bodies execute until a break , continue , next , nextfile , or exit is encountered, or the end of the switch statement itself. For example:

Note that if none of the statements specified here halt execution of a matched case statement, execution falls through to the next case until execution halts. In this example, the case for "?" falls through to the default case, which is to call a function named usage() . (The getopt() function being called here is described in Processing Command-Line Options .)

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7.4.6 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:

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 The exit Statement .)

The following program illustrates how the condition of a for or while statement could be replaced with a break inside an if :

The break statement is also used to break out of the switch statement. This is discussed in The switch Statement .

The break statement has no meaning when used outside the body of a loop or switch . 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 The next Statement ). (d.c.) Recent versions of BWK awk no longer allow this usage, nor does gawk .

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7.4.7 The continue Statement ¶

Similar to 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:

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:

This program loops forever once x reaches 5, because the increment (‘ x++ ’) is never reached.

The continue statement has no special meaning with respect to the switch statement, nor does it have any meaning when used outside the body of a loop. Historical versions of awk treated a continue statement outside a loop the same way they treated a break statement outside a loop: as if it were a next statement (see The next Statement ). (d.c.) Recent versions of BWK awk no longer work this way, nor does gawk .

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7.4.8 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 Explicit Input with getline ). That also causes awk to read the next record immediately, but it does not alter the flow of control in any way (i.e., the rest of the current action executes with a new input record).

At the highest level, awk program execution is a loop that reads an input record and then tests each rule’s pattern against it. If you think of this loop as a for statement whose body contains the rules, then the next statement is analogous to a continue statement. It skips to the end of the body of this implicit loop and executes the increment (which reads another record).

For example, suppose an awk program works only on records with four fields, and it shouldn’t fail when given bad input. To avoid complicating the rest of the program, write a “weed out” rule near the beginning, in the following manner:

Because of the next statement, the program’s subsequent rules won’t see the bad record. The error message is redirected to the standard error output stream, as error messages should be. For more detail, see Special File names in gawk .

If the next statement causes the end of the input to be reached, then the code in any END rules is executed. See The BEGIN and END Special Patterns .

The next statement is not allowed inside BEGINFILE and ENDFILE rules. See The BEGINFILE and ENDFILE Special Patterns .

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 does not disallow it, most other awk implementations don’t allow the next statement inside function bodies (see User-Defined Functions ). 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.

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7.4.9 The nextfile Statement ¶

The nextfile statement is similar to the next statement. However, instead of abandoning processing of the current record, the nextfile statement instructs awk to stop processing the current data file.

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, and processing starts over with the first rule in the program. If the nextfile statement causes the end of the input to be reached, then the code in any END rules is executed. An exception to this is when nextfile is invoked during execution of any statement in an END rule; in this case, it causes the program to stop immediately. See The BEGIN and END Special Patterns .

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. Without nextfile , in order to move on to the next data file, a program would have to continue scanning the unwanted records. The nextfile statement accomplishes this much more efficiently.

In gawk , execution of nextfile causes additional things to happen: any ENDFILE rules are executed if gawk is not currently in an END rule, ARGIND is incremented, and any BEGINFILE rules are executed. ( ARGIND hasn’t been introduced yet. See Predefined Variables .)

There is an additional, special, use case with gawk . nextfile is useful inside a BEGINFILE rule to skip over a file that would otherwise cause gawk to exit with a fatal error. In this special case, ENDFILE rules are not executed. See The BEGINFILE and ENDFILE Special Patterns .

Although it might seem 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 .

NOTE: For many years, nextfile was a common extension. In September 2012, it was accepted for inclusion into the POSIX standard. See the Austin Group website .

The current version of BWK awk and mawk also support nextfile . However, they don’t allow the nextfile statement inside function bodies (see User-Defined Functions ). gawk does; a nextfile inside a function body reads the first record from the next file and starts processing it with the first rule in the program, just as any other nextfile statement.

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7.4.10 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:

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 The BEGIN and END Special Patterns ). If exit is used in the body 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. gawk also skips any ENDFILE rules; they do not execute.

In such a case, if you don’t want the END rule to do its job, set a variable to a nonzero value before the exit statement and check that variable in the END rule. See Assertions 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 causes awk to return a “success” status. In the case where an argument is supplied to a first exit statement, and then exit is called a second time from an END rule with no argument, awk uses the previously supplied exit value. (d.c.) See gawk ’s Exit Status for more information.

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:

NOTE: For full portability, exit values should be between zero and 126, inclusive. Negative values, and values of 127 or greater, may not produce consistent results across different operating systems.

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7.5 Predefined 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 of gawk ’s predefined variables, most of which are also documented in the chapters describing their areas of activity.

Built-in Variables That Control awk
Built-in Variables That Convey Information
Using ARGC and ARGV

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7.5.1 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 (‘ # ’). These variables are gawk extensions. In other awk implementations or if gawk is in compatibility mode (see Command-Line Options ), they are not special. (Any exceptions are noted in the description of each variable.)

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. A numeric value less than zero is treated as zero, and a numeric value greater than three is treated as three. 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 treated the same as "rw" , but causes gawk to generate a warning message. BINMODE is described in more detail in Using gawk on PC Operating Systems . mawk (see Other Freely Available awk Implementations ) also supports this variable, but only using numeric values.

A string that controls the conversion of numbers to strings (see Conversion of Strings and Numbers ). It works by being passed, in effect, as the first argument to the sprintf() function (see String-Manipulation Functions ). Its default value is "%.6g" . CONVFMT was introduced by the POSIX standard.

A space-separated list of columns that tells gawk how to split input with fixed columnar boundaries. Starting in version 4.2, each field width may optionally be preceded by a colon-separated value specifying the number of characters to skip before the field starts. Assigning a value to FIELDWIDTHS overrides the use of FS and FPAT for field splitting. See Reading Fixed-Width Data for more information.

A regular expression (as a string) that tells gawk to create the fields based on text that matches the regular expression. Assigning a value to FPAT overrides the use of FS and FIELDWIDTHS for field splitting. See Defining Fields by Content for more information.

The input field separator (see Specifying How Fields Are Separated ). The value is a single-character string or a multicharacter regular expression that matches the separations between fields in an input record. If the value is the null string ( "" ), then each character in the record becomes a separate field. (This behavior is a gawk extension. POSIX awk does not specify the behavior when FS is the null string. Nonetheless, some other versions of awk also treat "" specially.)

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. 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:

If gawk is using FIELDWIDTHS or FPAT 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.

If IGNORECASE is nonzero or non-null, then all string comparisons and all regular expression matching are case-independent. This applies to regexp matching with ‘ ~ ’ and ‘ !~ ’, the gensub() , gsub() , index() , match() , patsplit() , split() , and sub() functions, record termination with RS , and field splitting with FS and FPAT . However, the value of IGNORECASE does not affect array subscripting and it does not affect field splitting when using a single-character field separator. See Case Sensitivity in Matching .

When this variable is true (nonzero or non-null), gawk behaves as if the --lint command-line option is in effect (see Command-Line Options ). With a value of "fatal" , lint warnings become fatal errors. With a value of "invalid" , only warnings about things that are actually invalid are issued. (This is not fully implemented yet.) Any other true value prints nonfatal warnings. Assigning a false value to LINT turns off the lint warnings.

This variable is a gawk extension. It is not special in other awk implementations. Unlike with 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.

A string that controls conversion of numbers to strings (see Conversion of Strings and Numbers ) for printing with the print statement. It works by being passed as the first argument to the sprintf() function (see String-Manipulation Functions ). Its default value is "%.6g" . Earlier versions of awk used OFMT to specify the format for converting numbers to strings in general expressions; this is now done by CONVFMT .

The output field separator (see Output Separators ). It is output between the fields printed by a print statement. Its default value is " " , a string consisting of a single space.

The output record separator. It is output at the end of every print statement. Its default value is "\n" , the newline character. (See Output Separators .)

The working precision of arbitrary-precision floating-point numbers, 53 bits by default (see Setting the Precision ).

The rounding mode to use for arbitrary-precision arithmetic on numbers, by default "N" ( roundTiesToEven in the IEEE 754 standard; see Setting the Rounding Mode ).

The 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 How Input Is Split into Records .)

The ability for RS to be a regular expression is a gawk extension. In most other awk implementations, or if gawk is in compatibility mode (see Command-Line Options ), just the first character of RS ’s value is used.

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 Multidimensional Arrays ).

Used for internationalization of programs at the awk level. It sets the default text domain for specially marked string constants in the source text, as well as for the dcgettext() , dcngettext() , and bindtextdomain() functions (see Internationalization with gawk ). The default value of TEXTDOMAIN is "messages" .

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7.5.2 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 command-line arguments available to awk programs are stored in an array called ARGV . ARGC is the number of command-line arguments present. See Other Command-Line Arguments . Unlike most awk arrays, ARGV is indexed from 0 to ARGC − 1. In the following example:

ARGV[0] contains ‘ awk ’, ARGV[1] contains ‘ inventory-shipped ’, and ARGV[2] contains ‘ mail-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 Using ARGC and ARGV for information about how awk uses these variables. (d.c.)

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 it opens the next file.

An associative array containing 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 .

For POSIX awk , changing this array does not affect the environment passed on to any programs that awk may spawn via redirection or the system() function.

However, beginning with version 4.2, if not in POSIX compatibility mode, gawk does update its own environment when ENVIRON is changed, thus changing the environment seen by programs that it creates. You should therefore be especially careful if you modify ENVIRON["PATH"] , which is the search path for finding executable programs.

This can also affect the running gawk program, since some of the built-in functions may pay attention to certain environment variables. The most notable instance of this is mktime() (see Time Functions ), which pays attention the value of the TZ environment variable on many systems.

Some operating systems may not have environment variables. On such systems, the ENVIRON array is empty (except for ENVIRON["AWKPATH"] and ENVIRON["AWKLIBPATH"] ; see The AWKPATH Environment Variable and see The AWKLIBPATH Environment Variable ).

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.

In addition, gawk clears ERRNO before opening each command-line input file. This enables checking if the file is readable inside a BEGINFILE pattern (see The BEGINFILE and ENDFILE Special Patterns ).

Otherwise, ERRNO works similarly to the C variable errno . Except for the case just mentioned, 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.

If the value of ERRNO corresponds to a system error in the C errno variable, then PROCINFO["errno"] will be set to the value of errno . For non-system errors, PROCINFO["errno"] will be zero.

The name of the current input file. When no data files are listed on the command line, awk reads from the standard input and FILENAME is set to "-" . FILENAME changes each time a new file is read (see Reading Input Files ). Inside a BEGIN rule, the value of FILENAME is "" , because there are no input files being processed yet. 42 (d.c.) Note, though, that using getline (see Explicit Input with getline ) inside a BEGIN rule can give FILENAME a value.

The current record number in the current file. awk increments FNR each time it reads a new record (see How Input Is Split into Records ). awk resets FNR to zero each time it starts a new input file.

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 Examining Fields ).

Unlike most of the variables described in this subsection, assigning a value to NF has the potential to affect awk ’s internal workings. In particular, assignments to NF can be used to create fields in or remove fields from the current record. See Changing the Contents of a Field .

An array whose indices and corresponding values are the names of all the built-in, user-defined, and extension functions in the program.

NOTE: Attempting to use the delete statement with the FUNCTAB array causes a fatal error. Any attempt to assign to an element of FUNCTAB also causes a fatal error.

The number of input records awk has processed since the beginning of the program’s execution (see How Input Is Split into Records ). awk increments NR each time it reads a new record.

The elements of this array provide access to information about the running awk program. The following elements (listed alphabetically) are guaranteed to be available:

The PROCINFO["argv"] array contains all of the command-line arguments (after glob expansion and redirection processing on platforms where that must be done manually by the program) with subscripts ranging from 0 through argc − 1. For example, PROCINFO["argv"][0] will contain the name by which gawk was invoked. Here is an example of how this feature may be used:

Please note that this differs from the standard ARGV array which does not include command-line arguments that have already been processed by gawk (see Using ARGC and ARGV ).

The value of the getegid() system call.

The value of the C errno variable when ERRNO is set to the associated error message.

The value of the geteuid() system call.

This is "FS" if field splitting with FS is in effect, "FIELDWIDTHS" if field splitting with FIELDWIDTHS is in effect, "FPAT" if field matching with FPAT is in effect, or "API" if field splitting is controlled by an API input parser.

The value of the getgid() system call.

A subarray, indexed by the names of all identifiers used in the text of the awk program. An identifier is simply the name of a variable (be it scalar or array), built-in function, user-defined function, or extension function. For each identifier, the value of the element is one of the following:

The identifier is an array.

The identifier is a built-in function.

The identifier is an extension function loaded via @load or -l .

The identifier is a scalar.

The identifier is untyped (could be used as a scalar or an array; gawk doesn’t know yet).

The identifier is a user-defined function.

The values indicate what gawk knows about the identifiers after it has finished parsing the program; they are not updated while the program runs.

This element gives a string indicating the platform for which gawk was compiled. The value will be one of the following:

Microsoft Windows, using MinGW.

OS/390 (also known as z/OS).

GNU/Linux, Cygwin, macOS, and legacy Unix systems.

The process group ID of the current process.

The process ID of the current process.

The version of the PMA memory allocator compiled into gawk . This element will not be present if the PMA allocator is not available for use. See Preserving Data Between Runs .

The parent process ID of the current process.

The default time format string for strftime() . Assigning a new value to this element changes the default. See Time Functions .

The value of the getuid() system call.

The version of gawk .

The following additional elements in the array are available to provide information about the MPFR and GMP libraries if your version of gawk supports arbitrary-precision arithmetic (see Arithmetic and Arbitrary-Precision Arithmetic with gawk ):

The version of the GNU MP library.

The version of the GNU MPFR library.

The maximum precision supported by MPFR.

The minimum precision required by MPFR.

The following additional elements in the array are available to provide information about the version of the extension API, if your version of gawk supports dynamic loading of extension functions (see Writing Extensions for gawk ):

The major version of the extension API.

The minor version of the extension API.

On some systems, there may be elements in the array, "group1" through "group N " for some N . N is the number of supplementary groups that the process has. Use the in operator to test for these elements (see Referring to an Array Element ).

The following elements allow you to change gawk ’s behavior:

If this element exists, all output to pipelines becomes buffered. See Speeding Up Pipe Output .

Make output to command buffered. See Speeding Up Pipe Output .

If this element exists, then I/O errors for all redirections become nonfatal. See Enabling Nonfatal Output .

Make I/O errors for name be nonfatal. See Enabling Nonfatal Output .

For two-way communication to command , use a pseudo-tty instead of setting up a two-way pipe. See Two-Way Communications with Another Process for more information.

Set a timeout for reading from input redirection input_name . See Reading Input with a Timeout for more information.

If an I/O error that may be retried occurs when reading data from input_name , and this array entry exists, then getline returns −2 instead of following the default behavior of returning −1 and configuring input_name to return no further data. An I/O error that may be retried is one where errno has the value EAGAIN , EWOULDBLOCK , EINTR , or ETIMEDOUT . This may be useful in conjunction with PROCINFO[" input_name ", "READ_TIMEOUT"] or situations where a file descriptor has been configured to behave in a non-blocking fashion. See Retrying Reads After Certain Input Errors for more information.

If this element exists in PROCINFO , its value controls the order in which array indices will be processed by ‘ for ( indx in array ) ’ loops. This is an advanced feature, so we defer the full description until later; see Using Predefined Array Scanning Orders with gawk .

The length of the substring matched by the match() function (see String-Manipulation Functions ). RLENGTH is set by invoking the match() function. Its value is the length of the matched string, or −1 if no match is found.

The start index in characters of the substring that is matched by the match() function (see String-Manipulation Functions ). RSTART is set by invoking the match() function. Its value is the position of the string where the matched substring starts, or zero if no match was found.

The input text that matched the text denoted by RS , the record separator. It is set every time a record is read.

An array whose indices are the names of all defined global variables and arrays in the program. SYMTAB makes gawk ’s symbol table visible to the awk programmer. It is built as gawk parses the program and is complete before the program starts to run.

The array may be used for indirect access to read or write the value of a variable:

The isarray() function (see Getting Type Information ) may be used to test if an element in SYMTAB is an array. Also, you may not use the delete statement with the SYMTAB array.

Prior to version 5.0 of gawk , you could use an index for SYMTAB that was not a predefined identifier:

This no longer works, instead producing a fatal error, as it led to rampant confusion.

The SYMTAB array is more interesting than it looks. Andrew Schorr points out that it effectively gives awk data pointers. Consider his example:

You would use it like this:

When run, this produces:

NOTE: In order to avoid severe time-travel paradoxes, 43 neither FUNCTAB nor SYMTAB is available as an element within the SYMTAB array.

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7.5.3 Using ARGC and ARGV ¶

Built-in Variables That Convey Information presented the following program describing the information contained in ARGC and ARGV :

In this example, ARGV[0] contains ‘ awk ’, ARGV[1] contains ‘ inventory-shipped ’, and ARGV[2] contains ‘ mail-list ’. Notice that the awk program is not entered in ARGV . The other command-line options, with their arguments, are also not entered. This includes variable assignments done with the -v option (see Command-Line Options ). Normal variable assignments on the command line are treated as arguments and do show up in the ARGV array. Given the following program in a file named showargs.awk :

Running it produces the following:

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 The delete Statement ).

All of these actions are typically done in the BEGIN rule, before actual processing of the input begins. See Splitting a Large File into Pieces and see Duplicating Output into Multiple Files for examples of each way of removing elements from ARGV .

To actually get options into an awk program, end the awk options with -- and then supply the awk program’s options, in the following manner:

The following fragment processes ARGV in order to examine, and then remove, the previously mentioned command-line options:

Ending the awk options with -- isn’t 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 command line with gawk would be:

Because -q is not a valid gawk option, it and the following -v are passed on to the awk program. (See Processing Command-Line Options for an awk library function that parses command-line options.)

When designing your program, you should choose options that don’t conflict with gawk ’s, because it will process any options that it accepts before passing the rest of the command line on to your program. Using ‘ #! ’ with the -E option may help (see Executable awk Programs and see Command-Line Options ).

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7.6 Summary ¶

Pattern–action pairs make up the basic elements of an awk program. Patterns are either normal expressions, range expressions, or regexp constants; one of the special keywords BEGIN , END , BEGINFILE , or ENDFILE ; or empty. The action executes if the current record matches the pattern. Empty (missing) patterns match all records.
I/O from BEGIN and END rules has certain constraints. This is also true, only more so, for BEGINFILE and ENDFILE rules. The latter two give you “hooks” into gawk ’s file processing, allowing you to recover from a file that otherwise would cause a fatal error (such as a file that cannot be opened).
Shell variables can be used in awk programs by careful use of shell quoting. It is easier to pass a shell variable into awk by using the -v option and an awk variable.
Actions consist of statements enclosed in curly braces. Statements are built up from expressions, control statements, compound statements, input and output statements, and deletion statements.
The control statements in awk are if - else , while , for , and do - while . gawk adds the switch statement. There are two flavors of for statement: one for performing general looping, and the other for iterating through an array.
break and continue let you exit early or start the next iteration of a loop (or get out of a switch ).
next and nextfile let you read the next record and start over at the top of your program or skip to the next input file and start over, respectively.
The exit statement terminates your program. When executed from an action (or function body), it transfers control to the END statements. From an END statement body, it exits immediately. You may pass an optional numeric value to be used as awk ’s exit status.
Some predefined variables provide control over awk , mainly for I/O. Other variables convey information from awk to your program.
ARGC and ARGV make the command-line arguments available to your program. Manipulating them from a BEGIN rule lets you control how awk will process the provided data files.

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8 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 moves on to discuss gawk ’s facility for sorting arrays, and ends with a brief description of gawk ’s ability to support true arrays of arrays.

The Basics of Arrays
Using Numbers to Subscript Arrays
Using Uninitialized Variables as Subscripts
The delete Statement
Multidimensional Arrays
Arrays of Arrays

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8.1 The Basics of Arrays ¶

This section presents the basics: working with elements in arrays one at a time, and traversing all of the elements in an array.

Introduction to Arrays
Referring to an Array Element
Assigning Array Elements
Basic Array Example
Scanning All Elements of an Array
Using Predefined Array Scanning Orders with gawk

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8.1.1 Introduction to Arrays ¶

Doing linear scans over an associative array is like trying to club someone to death with a loaded Uzi.

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, 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 nonnegative 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 Figure 8.1 , conceptually, if the element values are eight, "foo" , "" , and 30.

Figure 8.1: A contiguous array

Only the values are stored; the indices are implicit from the order of the values. Here, eight is the value at index zero, because eight 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:

The pairs are shown in jumbled order because their order is irrelevant. 44

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:

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 nonnegative 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:

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. There are some subtleties to how numbers work when used as array subscripts; this is discussed in more detail in Using Numbers to Subscript Arrays .) Here, the number 1 isn’t double-quoted, because awk automatically converts it to a string.

The value of IGNORECASE has no effect upon array subscripting. The identical string value used to store an array element must be used to retrieve it. When awk creates an array (e.g., with the split() built-in function), that array’s indices are consecutive integers starting at one. (See String-Manipulation Functions .)

awk ’s arrays are efficient—the time to access an element is independent of the number of elements in the array.

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8.1.2 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:

Here, array is the name of an array. The expression index-expression 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 referencing 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 The delete Statement ).

NOTE: A reference to an element that does not exist 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 .) Novice awk programmers often make the mistake of checking if an element exists by checking if the value is empty: # Check if "foo" exists in a: Incorrect! if (a["foo"] != "") ... This is incorrect for two reasons. First, it creates a["foo"] if it didn’t exist before! Second, it is valid (if a bit unusual) to set an array element equal to the empty string.

To determine whether an element exists in an array at a certain index, use the following expression:

This expression tests whether the particular index indx exists, without the side effect of creating that element if it is not present. The expression has the value one (true) if array [ indx ] exists and zero (false) if it does not exist. (We use indx here, because ‘ index ’ is the name of a built-in function.) For example, this statement tests whether the array frequencies contains the index ‘ 2 ’:

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:

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8.1.3 Assigning Array Elements ¶

Array elements can be assigned values just like awk variables:

array is the name of an array. The expression index-expression 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.

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8.1.4 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:

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:

Its output is:

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:

As mentioned, the program is simplistic. It can be easily confused; for example, by using negative or nonalphabetic line numbers. The point here is merely to demonstrate basic array usage.

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8.1.5 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 nonnegative 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:

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 the index. The second rule scans the elements of used to find all the distinct words that appear in the input. It prints each word that is more than 10 characters long and also prints the number of such words. See String-Manipulation Functions for more information on the built-in function length() .

See Generating Word-Usage Counts 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 in standard awk 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.

As a point of information, gawk sets up the list of elements to be iterated over before the loop starts, and does not change it. But not all awk versions do so. Consider this program, named loopcheck.awk :

Here is what happens when run with gawk (and mawk ):

Contrast this to BWK awk :

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8.1.6 Using Predefined Array Scanning Orders with gawk ¶

This subsection describes a feature that is specific to gawk .

By default, when a for loop traverses an array, the order is undefined, meaning that the awk implementation determines the order in which the array is traversed. This order is usually based on the internal implementation of arrays and will vary from one version of awk to the next.

Often, though, you may wish to do something simple, such as “traverse the array by comparing the indices in ascending order,” or “traverse the array by comparing the values in descending order.” gawk provides two mechanisms that give you this control:

Set PROCINFO["sorted_in"] to one of a set of predefined values. We describe this now.
Set PROCINFO["sorted_in"] to the name of a user-defined function to use for comparison of array elements. This advanced feature is described later in Controlling Array Traversal and Array Sorting .

The following special values for PROCINFO["sorted_in"] are available:

Array elements are processed in arbitrary order, which is the default awk behavior.

Order by indices in ascending order compared as strings; this is the most basic sort. (Internally, array indices are always strings, so with ‘ a[2*5] = 1 ’ the index is "10" rather than numeric 10.)

Order by indices in ascending order but force them to be treated as numbers in the process. Any index with a non-numeric value will end up positioned as if it were zero.

Order by element values in ascending order (rather than by indices). Ordering is by the type assigned to the element (see Variable Typing and Comparison Expressions ). All numeric values come before all string values, which in turn come before all subarrays. (Subarrays have not been described yet; see Arrays of Arrays .)

If you choose to use this feature in traversing FUNCTAB (see Built-in Variables That Convey Information ), then the order is built-in functions first (see Built-in Functions ), then user-defined functions (see User-Defined Functions ) next, and finally functions loaded from an extension (see Writing Extensions for gawk ).

Order by element values in ascending order (rather than by indices). Scalar values are compared as strings. If the string values are identical, the index string values are compared instead. When comparing non-scalar values, "@val_type_asc" sort ordering is used, so subarrays, if present, come out last.

Order by element values in ascending order (rather than by indices). Scalar values are compared as numbers. Non-scalar values are compared using "@val_type_asc" sort ordering, so subarrays, if present, come out last. When numeric values are equal, the string values are used to provide an ordering: this guarantees consistent results across different versions of the C qsort() function, 45 which gawk uses internally to perform the sorting. If the string values are also identical, the index string values are compared instead.

Like "@ind_str_asc" , but the string indices are ordered from high to low.

Like "@ind_num_asc" , but the numeric indices are ordered from high to low.

Like "@val_type_asc" , but the element values, based on type, are ordered from high to low. Subarrays, if present, come out first.

Like "@val_str_asc" , but the element values, treated as strings, are ordered from high to low. If the string values are identical, the index string values are compared instead. When comparing non-scalar values, "@val_type_desc" sort ordering is used, so subarrays, if present, come out first.

Like "@val_num_asc" , but the element values, treated as numbers, are ordered from high to low. If the numeric values are equal, the string values are compared instead. If they are also identical, the index string values are compared instead. Non-scalar values are compared using "@val_type_desc" sort ordering, so subarrays, if present, come out first.

The array traversal order is determined before the for loop starts to run. Changing PROCINFO["sorted_in"] in the loop body does not affect the loop. For example:

When sorting an array by element values, if a value happens to be a subarray then it is considered to be greater than any string or numeric value, regardless of what the subarray itself contains, and all subarrays are treated as being equal to each other. Their order relative to each other is determined by their index strings.

Here are some additional things to bear in mind about sorted array traversal:

The value of PROCINFO["sorted_in"] is global. That is, it affects all array traversal for loops. If you need to change it within your own code, you should see if it’s defined and save and restore the value: ... if ("sorted_in" in PROCINFO) save_sorted = PROCINFO["sorted_in"] PROCINFO["sorted_in"] = "@val_str_desc" # or whatever ... if (save_sorted) PROCINFO["sorted_in"] = save_sorted
As already mentioned, the default array traversal order is represented by "@unsorted" . You can also get the default behavior by assigning the null string to PROCINFO["sorted_in"] or by just deleting the "sorted_in" element from the PROCINFO array with the delete statement. (The delete statement hasn’t been described yet; see The delete Statement .)

In addition, gawk provides built-in functions for sorting arrays; see Sorting Array Values and Indices with gawk .

Next: Using Uninitialized Variables as Subscripts , Previous: The Basics of Arrays , Up: Arrays in awk [ Contents ][ Index ]

8.2 Using Numbers to Subscript Arrays ¶

An important aspect to remember about arrays is that array subscripts are always strings . When a numeric value is used as a subscript, it is converted to a string value before being used for subscripting (see Conversion of Strings and Numbers ). This means that the value of the predefined variable CONVFMT can affect how your program accesses elements of an array. For example:

This prints ‘ 12.15 is not in data ’. The first statement gives xyz a numeric value. Assigning to data[xyz] subscripts data with the string value "12.153" (using the default conversion value of CONVFMT , "%.6g" ). Thus, the array element data["12.153"] is assigned the value one. The program then changes the value of CONVFMT . The test ‘ (xyz in data) ’ generates a new string value from xyz —this time "12.15" —because the value of CONVFMT only allows two significant digits. This test fails, because "12.15" is different from "12.153" .

According to the rules for conversions (see Conversion of Strings and Numbers ), integer values always convert to strings as integers, no matter what the value of CONVFMT may happen to be. So the usual case of the following works:

The “integer values always convert to strings as integers” rule has an additional consequence for array indexing. Octal and hexadecimal constants (see Octal and Hexadecimal Numbers ) are converted internally into numbers, and their original form is forgotten. This means, for example, that array[17] , array[021] , and array[0x11] all refer to the same element!

As with many things in awk , the majority of the time things work as you would expect them to. But it is useful to have a precise knowledge of the actual rules, as they can sometimes have a subtle effect on your programs.

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8.3 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:

Unfortunately, the very first line of input data did not appear in the output!

Upon first glance, we would think that 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:

Here, the ‘ ++ ’ forces lines to be numeric, thus making the “old value” numeric zero. This is then converted to "0" as the array subscript.

Even though it is somewhat unusual, the null string ( "" ) is a valid array subscript. (d.c.) gawk warns about the use of the null string as a subscript if --lint is provided on the command line (see Command-Line Options ).

Next: Multidimensional Arrays , Previous: Using Uninitialized Variables as Subscripts , Up: Arrays in awk [ Contents ][ Index ]

8.4 The delete Statement ¶

To remove an individual element of an array, use the delete statement:

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 been given a value. The following is an example of deleting elements in an array:

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 using the in operator to check for the presence of that element returns zero (i.e., false):

It is important to note that deleting an element is not the same as assigning it a null value (the empty string, "" ). For example:

It is not an error to delete an element that does not exist. However, if --lint is provided on the command line (see Command-Line Options ), gawk issues a warning message when an element that is not in the array is deleted.

All the elements of an array may be deleted with a single statement by leaving off the subscript in the delete statement, as follows:

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.

This form of the delete statement is also supported by BWK awk and mawk , as well as by a number of other implementations.

NOTE: For many years, using delete without a subscript was a common extension. In September 2012, it was accepted for inclusion into the POSIX standard. See the Austin Group website .

The following statement provides a portable but nonobvious way to clear out an array: 46

The split() function (see String-Manipulation Functions ) clears out the target array first. This call asks it to split apart the null string. Because there is no data to split out, the function simply clears the array and then returns.

CAUTION: Deleting all the elements from an array does not change its type; you cannot clear 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

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8.5 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 many languages, including awk ) to refer to an element of a two-dimensional array named grid is with grid[ x , y ] .

Multidimensional arrays are supported in awk through concatenation of indices into one string. awk converts the indices into strings (see Conversion of Strings and Numbers ) and concatenates them together, with a separator between them. This creates a single string that describes the values of the separate indices. The combined string is used as a single index into an ordinary, one-dimensional array. The separator used is the value of the built-in variable SUBSEP .

For example, suppose we evaluate the expression ‘ foo[5,12] = "value" ’ when the value of SUBSEP is "@" . The numbers 5 and 12 are converted to strings and concatenated with an ‘ @ ’ between them, yielding "5@12" ; thus, the array element foo["5@12"] is set to "value" .

Once the element’s value is stored, awk has no record of whether it was stored with a single index or a sequence of indices. The two expressions ‘ foo[5,12] ’ and ‘ foo[5 SUBSEP 12] ’ are always equivalent.

The default value of SUBSEP is the string "\034" , which contains a nonprinting character that is unlikely to appear in an awk program or in most input data. The usefulness of choosing an unlikely character comes from the fact that index values that contain a string matching SUBSEP can lead to combined strings that are ambiguous. Suppose that SUBSEP is "@" ; then ‘ foo["a@b", "c"] ’ and ‘ foo["a", "b@c"] ’ are indistinguishable because both are actually stored as ‘ foo["a@b@c"] ’.

To test whether a particular index sequence exists in a multidimensional array, use the same operator ( in ) that is used for single-dimensional arrays. Write the whole sequence of indices in parentheses, separated by commas, as the left operand:

Here is an example that 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:

When given the input:

the program produces the following output:

Scanning Multidimensional Arrays

Up: Multidimensional Arrays [ Contents ][ Index ]

8.5.1 Scanning Multidimensional Arrays ¶

There is no special for statement for scanning a “multidimensional” array. There cannot be one, because, in truth, awk does not have multidimensional arrays or elements—there is only a multidimensional way of accessing an array.

However, if your program has an array that is always accessed as multidimensional, you can get the effect of scanning it by combining the scanning for statement (see Scanning All Elements of an Array ) with the built-in split() function (see String-Manipulation Functions ). It works in the following manner:

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:

The result is to set separate[1] to "1" and separate[2] to "foo" . Presto! The original sequence of separate indices is recovered.

Next: Summary , Previous: Multidimensional Arrays , Up: Arrays in awk [ Contents ][ Index ]

8.6 Arrays of Arrays ¶

gawk goes beyond standard awk ’s multidimensional array access and provides true arrays of arrays. Elements of a subarray are referred to by their own indices enclosed in square brackets, just like the elements of the main array. For example, the following creates a two-element subarray at index 1 of the main array a :

This simulates a true two-dimensional array. Each subarray element can contain another subarray as a value, which in turn can hold other arrays as well. In this way, you can create arrays of three or more dimensions. The indices can be any awk expressions, including scalars separated by commas (i.e., a regular awk simulated multidimensional subscript). So the following is valid in gawk :

Each subarray and the main array can be of different length. In fact, the elements of an array or its subarray do not all have to have the same type. This means that the main array and any of its subarrays can be nonrectangular, or jagged in structure. You can assign a scalar value to the index 4 of the main array a , even though a[1] is itself an array and not a scalar:

The terms dimension , row , and column are meaningless when applied to such an array, but we will use “dimension” henceforth to imply the maximum number of indices needed to refer to an existing element. The type of any element that has already been assigned cannot be changed by assigning a value of a different type. You have to first delete the current element, which effectively makes gawk forget about the element at that index:

This removes the scalar value from index 4 and then inserts a three-level nested subarray containing a scalar. You can also delete an entire subarray or subarray of subarrays:

But recall that you can not delete the main array a and then use it as a scalar.

The built-in functions that take array arguments can also be used with subarrays. For example, the following code fragment uses length() (see String-Manipulation Functions ) to determine the number of elements in the main array a and its subarrays:

This results in the following output for our main array a :

The ‘ subscript in array ’ expression (see Referring to an Array Element ) works similarly for both regular awk -style arrays and arrays of arrays. For example, the tests ‘ 1 in a ’, ‘ 3 in a[1] ’, and ‘ (1, "name") in a[1][3] ’ all evaluate to one (true) for our array a .

The ‘ for (item in array) ’ statement (see Scanning All Elements of an Array ) can be nested to scan all the elements of an array of arrays if it is rectangular in structure. In order to print the contents (scalar values) of a two-dimensional array of arrays (i.e., in which each first-level element is itself an array, not necessarily of the same length), you could use the following code:

The isarray() function (see Getting Type Information ) lets you test if an array element is itself an array:

If the structure of a jagged array of arrays is known in advance, you can often devise workarounds using control statements. For example, the following code prints the elements of our main array a :

See Traversing Arrays of Arrays for a user-defined function that “walks” an arbitrarily dimensioned array of arrays.

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8.7 Summary ¶

Standard awk provides one-dimensional associative arrays (arrays indexed by string values). All arrays are associative; numeric indices are converted automatically to strings.
Array elements are referenced as array [ indx ] . Referencing an element creates it if it did not exist previously.
The proper way to see if an array has an element with a given index is to use the in operator: ‘ indx in array ’.
Use ‘ for ( indx in array ) … ’ to scan through all the individual elements of an array. In the body of the loop, indx takes on the value of each element’s index in turn.
The order in which a ‘ for ( indx in array ) ’ loop traverses an array is undefined in POSIX awk and varies among implementations. gawk lets you control the order by assigning special predefined values to PROCINFO["sorted_in"] .
Use ‘ delete array [ indx ] ’ to delete an individual element. To delete all of the elements in an array, use ‘ delete array ’. This latter feature has been a common extension for many years and is now standard, but may not be supported by all commercial versions of awk .
Standard awk simulates multidimensional arrays by separating subscript values with commas. The values are concatenated into a single string, separated by the value of SUBSEP . The fact that such a subscript was created in this way is not retained; thus, changing SUBSEP may have unexpected consequences. You can use ‘ ( sub1 , sub2 , …) in array ’ to see if such a multidimensional subscript exists in array .
gawk provides true arrays of arrays. You use a separate set of square brackets for each dimension in such an array: data[row][col] , for example. Array elements may thus be either scalar values (number or string) or other arrays.
Use the isarray() built-in function to determine if an array element is itself a subarray.

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9 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, sort arrays, provide type information, 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. Finally, we explore indirect function calls, a gawk -specific extension that lets you determine at runtime what function is to be called.

Built-in Functions
User-Defined Functions
Indirect Function Calls

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9.1 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.

Calling Built-in Functions
Generating Boolean Values
Numeric Functions
String-Manipulation Functions
Input/Output Functions
Time Functions
Bit-Manipulation Functions
Getting Type Information
String-Translation Functions

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9.1.1 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 opening parenthesis, but nonetheless 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:

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:

If the order of evaluation is left to right, then i first becomes six, and then 12, and atan2() is called with the two arguments six and 12. But if the order of evaluation is right to left, i first becomes 10, then 11, and atan2() is called with the two arguments 11 and 10.

Next: Numeric Functions , Previous: Calling Built-in Functions , Up: Built-in Functions [ Contents ][ Index ]

9.1.2 Generating Boolean Values ¶

This function is specific to gawk . It is not available in compatibility mode (see Command-Line Options ):

Return a Boolean-typed value based on the regular Boolean value of expression . Boolean “true” values have numeric value one. Boolean “false” values have numeric zero. This is discussed in more detail in Boolean Typed Values .

Next: String-Manipulation Functions , Previous: Generating Boolean Values , Up: Built-in Functions [ Contents ][ Index ]

9.1.3 Numeric Functions ¶

The following list describes all of the built-in functions that work with numbers. Optional parameters are enclosed in square brackets ([ ]):

Return the arctangent of y / x in radians. You can use ‘ pi = atan2(0, -1) ’ to retrieve the value of pi .

Return the cosine of x , with x in radians.

Return the exponential of x ( e ^ x ) or report an error if x is out of range. The range of values x can have depends on your machine’s floating-point representation.

Return 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.

Return the natural logarithm of x , if x is positive; otherwise, return NaN (“not a number”) on IEEE 754 systems. Additionally, gawk prints a warning message when x is negative.

Return a random number. The values of rand() are uniformly distributed between zero and one. The value could be zero but is never one. 47

Often random integers are needed instead. Following is a user-defined function that can be used to obtain a random nonnegative integer less than n :

The multiplication produces a random number greater than or equal to zero and less than n . Using int() , this result is made into an integer between zero and n − 1, inclusive.

The following example uses a similar function to produce random integers between one and n . This program prints a new random number for each input record:

CAUTION: In most awk implementations, including gawk , rand() starts generating numbers from the same starting number, or seed , each time you run awk . 48 Thus, a program generates the same results each time you run it. The numbers are random within one awk run but predictable from run to run. This is convenient for debugging, but if you want a program to do different things each time it is used, you must change the seed to a value that is different in each run. To do this, use srand() .

Return the sine of x , with x in radians.

Return the positive square root of x . gawk prints a warning message if x is negative. Thus, sqrt(4) is 2.

Set the starting point, or seed, for generating random numbers to the value x .

Each seed value leads to a particular sequence of random numbers. 49 Thus, if the seed is set to the same value a second time, the same sequence of random numbers is produced again.

CAUTION: Different awk implementations use different random-number generators internally. Don’t expect the same awk program to produce the same series of random numbers when executed by different versions of awk .

If the argument x is omitted, as in ‘ srand() ’, then the current date and time of day are used for a seed. This is the way to get random numbers that are truly unpredictable.

The return value of srand() is the previous seed. This makes it easy to keep track of the seeds in case you need to consistently reproduce sequences of random numbers.

POSIX does not specify the initial seed; it differs among awk implementations.

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9.1.4 String-Manipulation Functions ¶

The functions in this section look at or change the text of one or more strings.

gawk understands locales (see Where You Are Makes a Difference ) and does all string processing in terms of characters , not bytes . This distinction is particularly important to understand for locales where one character may be represented by multiple bytes. Thus, for example, length() returns the number of characters in a string, and not the number of bytes used to represent those characters. Similarly, index() works with character indices, and not byte indices.

CAUTION: A number of functions deal with indices into strings. For these functions, the first character of a string is at position (index) one. This is different from C and the languages descended from it, where the first character is at position zero. You need to remember this when doing index calculations, particularly if you are used to C.

In the following list, optional parameters are enclosed in square brackets ([ ]). Several functions perform string substitution; the full discussion is provided in the description of the sub() function, which comes toward the end, because the list is presented alphabetically.

Those functions that are specific to gawk are marked with a pound sign (‘ # ’). They are not available in compatibility mode (see Command-Line Options ):

These two functions are similar in behavior, so they are described together.

NOTE: The following description ignores the third argument, how , as it requires understanding features that we have not discussed yet. Thus, the discussion here is a deliberate simplification. (We do provide all the details later on; see Sorting Array Values and Indices with gawk for the full story.)

Both functions return the number of elements in the array source . For asort() , gawk sorts the values of source and replaces the indices of the sorted values of source 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.

When comparing strings, IGNORECASE affects the sorting (see Sorting Array Values and Indices with gawk ). If the source array contains subarrays as values (see Arrays of Arrays ), they will come last, after all scalar values. Subarrays are not recursively sorted.

For example, if the contents of a are as follows:

A call to asort() :

results in the following contents of a :

The asorti() function works similarly to asort() ; however, the indices are sorted, instead of the values. Thus, in the previous example, starting with the same initial set of indices and values in a , calling ‘ asorti(a) ’ would yield:

NOTE: You may not use either SYMTAB or FUNCTAB as the second argument to these functions. Attempting to do so produces a fatal error. You may use them as the first argument, but only if providing a second array to use for the actual sorting.

You are allowed to use the same array for both the source and dest arguments, but doing so only makes sense if you’re also supplying the third argument.

Search the target string target for matches of the regular expression regexp . If how is a string beginning with ‘ g ’ or ‘ G ’ (short for “global”), then replace all matches of regexp with replacement . Otherwise, treat how as a number indicating which match of regexp to replace. Treat numeric values less than one as if they were one. If no target is supplied, use $0 . Return the modified string as the result of the function. The original target string is not changed.

The returned value is always a string, even if the original target was a number or a regexp value.

gensub() is a general substitution function. Its purpose is to provide more features than the standard sub() and gsub() functions.

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:

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:

In this case, $0 is 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 . Note that, as mentioned above, the returned value is a string, even if target was not.

In the replacement string, a backslash before a non-digit character is simply elided. For example, ‘ \q ’ becomes ‘ q ’ in the result. If the final character in the replacement string is a backslash, it is left alone.

Search target for all of the longest, leftmost, nonoverlapping matching substrings it can find and replace them with replacement . The ‘ g ’ in gsub() stands for “global,” which means replace everywhere. For example:

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.

Search the string in for the first occurrence of the string find , and return the position in characters where that occurrence begins in the string in . Consider the following example:

If find is not found, index() returns zero.

With BWK awk and gawk , it is a fatal error to use a regexp constant for find . Other implementations allow it, simply treating the regexp constant as an expression meaning ‘ $0 ~ /regexp/ ’. (d.c.)

Return 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 five. By contrast, length(15 * 35) works out to three. 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 considered poor practice, although the 2008 POSIX standard explicitly allows it, to support historical practice. For programs to be maximally portable, always supply the parentheses.

If length() is called with a variable that has not been used, gawk forces the variable to be a scalar. Other implementations of awk leave the variable without a type. (d.c.) Consider:

If --lint has been specified on the command line, gawk issues a warning about this.

With gawk and several other awk implementations, when given an array argument, the length() function returns the number of elements in the array. (c.e.) This is less useful than it might seem at first, as the array is not guaranteed to be indexed from one to the number of elements in it. If --lint is provided on the command line (see Command-Line Options ), gawk warns that passing an array argument is not portable. If --posix is supplied, using an array argument is a fatal error (see Arrays in awk ).

Search string for the longest, leftmost substring matched by the regular expression regexp and return the character position (index) at which that substring begins (one, if it starts at the beginning of string ). If no match is found, return 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. See Using Dynamic Regexps for a discussion of the difference between the two forms, and the implications for writing your program correctly.

The order of the first two arguments is the opposite of most other string functions that work with regular expressions, such as sub() and gsub() . It might help to remember that for match() , the order is the same as for the ‘ ~ ’ operator: ‘ string ~ regexp ’.

The match() function sets the predefined variable RSTART to the index. It also sets the predefined 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:

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:

awk prints:

If array is present, it is cleared, and then the zeroth 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:

In addition, multidimensional subscripts are available providing the start index and length of each matched subexpression:

There may not be subscripts for the start and index for every parenthesized subexpression, because they may not all have matched text; thus, they should be tested for with the in operator (see Referring to an Array Element ).

The array argument to match() is a gawk extension. In compatibility mode (see Command-Line Options ), using a third argument is a fatal error.

Divide string into pieces (or “fields”) defined by fieldpat and store the pieces in array and the separator strings in the seps array. The first piece is stored in array [1] , the second piece in array [2] , and so forth. The third argument, fieldpat , is a regexp describing the fields in string (just as FPAT is a regexp describing the fields in input records). It may be either a regexp constant or a string. If fieldpat is omitted, the value of FPAT is used. patsplit() returns the number of elements created. seps [ i ] is the possibly null separator string after array [ i ] . The possibly null leading separator will be in seps [0] . So a non-null string with n fields will have n+1 separators. A null string has no fields or separators.

The patsplit() function splits strings into pieces in a manner similar to the way input lines are split into fields using FPAT (see Defining Fields by Content ).

Before splitting the string, patsplit() deletes any previously existing elements in the arrays array and seps .

Divide string into pieces separated by fieldsep and store the pieces in array and the separator strings in the seps 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. seps is a gawk extension, with seps [ i ] being the separator string between array [ i ] and array [ i +1] . If fieldsep is a single space, then any leading whitespace goes into seps [0] and any trailing whitespace goes into seps [ n ] , where n is the return value of split() (i.e., the number of elements in array ).

The split() function splits strings into pieces in the same way that input lines are split into fields. For example:

splits the string "cul-de-sac" into three fields using ‘ - ’ as the separator. It sets the contents of the array a as follows:

and sets the contents of the array seps as follows:

The value returned by this call to split() is three.

If gawk is invoked with --csv , then a two-argument call to split() splits the string using the CSV parsing rules as described in Working With Comma Separated Value Files . With three and four arguments, split() works as just described. The four-argument call makes no sense, since each element of seps would simply consist of a string containing a comma.

As with input field-splitting, when the value of fieldsep is " " , leading and trailing whitespace is ignored in values assigned to the elements of array but not in seps , 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. (c.e.) Additionally, if fieldsep is a single-character string, that string acts as the separator, even if its value is a regular expression metacharacter.

Note, however, that RS has no effect on the way split() works. Even though ‘ RS = "" ’ causes the newline character 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 ( / … / ) as well as a string. (d.c.) The POSIX standard allows this as well. See Using Dynamic Regexps for a discussion of the difference between using a string constant or a regexp constant, and the implications for writing your program correctly.

Before splitting the string, split() deletes any previously existing elements in the arrays array and seps .

If string is null, the array has no elements. (So this is a portable way to delete an entire array with one statement. See The delete Statement .)

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 .

In POSIX mode (see Command-Line Options ), the fourth argument is not allowed.

Return (without printing) the string that printf would have printed out with the same arguments (see Using printf Statements for Fancier Printing ). For example:

assigns the string ‘ pi = 3.14 (approx.) ’ to the variable pival .

Examine str and return 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:

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. 50

Note also that strtonum() uses the current locale’s decimal point for recognizing numbers (see Where You Are Makes a Difference ).

Search target , which is treated as a string, for the leftmost, longest substring matched by the regular expression regexp . Modify the entire string by replacing the matched text with replacement . The modified string becomes the new value of target . Return the number of substitutions made (zero or one).

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 . 51 For example:

sets str to ‘ wither, water, everywhere ’ , by replacing the leftmost longest occurrence of ‘ at ’ with ‘ ith ’.

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:

changes the first occurrence of ‘ candidate ’ to ‘ candidate and his wife ’ on each input line. Here is another example:

This shows how ‘ & ’ can represent a nonconstant string and also illustrates the “leftmost, longest” rule in regexp matching (see How Much Text Matches? ).

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 ‘ & ’:

As mentioned, the third argument to sub() must be a variable, field, or array element. 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 like the following:

For historical compatibility, gawk accepts such erroneous code. 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.

Return a length -character-long substring of string , starting at character number start . The first character of a string is character number one. 52 For example, substr("washington", 5, 3) returns "ing" .

If length is not present, substr() 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: BWK 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:

It is also a mistake to use substr() as the third argument of sub() or gsub() :

(Some commercial versions of awk treat substr() as assignable, 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:

Return a copy of string , with each uppercase character in the string replaced with its corresponding lowercase character. Nonalphabetic characters are left unchanged. For example, tolower("MiXeD cAsE 123") returns "mixed case 123" .

Return a copy of string , with each lowercase character in the string replaced with its corresponding uppercase character. Nonalphabetic characters are left unchanged. For example, toupper("MiXeD cAsE 123") returns "MIXED CASE 123" .

At first glance, the split() and patsplit() functions appear to be mirror images of each other. But there are differences:

split() treats its third argument like FS , with all the special rules involved for FS .
Matching of null strings differs. This is discussed in FS Versus FPAT : A Subtle Difference .
More about ‘ \ ’ and ‘ & ’ with sub() , gsub() , and gensub()

Up: String-Manipulation Functions [ Contents ][ Index ]

9.1.4.1 More about ‘ \ ’ and ‘ & ’ with sub() , gsub() , and gensub() ¶

I collect spores, molds, and fungus.

CAUTION: This subsubsection has been reported to cause headaches. You might want to skip it upon first reading.

When using sub() , gsub() , or gensub() , and trying to get literal backslashes and ampersands into the replacement text, you need to remember that there are several levels of escape processing going on.

First, there is the lexical level, which is when awk reads your program and builds an internal copy of it to execute. Then there is the runtime level, which is when awk actually scans the replacement string to determine what to generate.

At both levels, awk looks for a defined set of characters that can come after a backslash. At the lexical level, it looks for the escape sequences listed in Escape Sequences . Thus, for every ‘ \ ’ that awk processes at the runtime level, you must type two backslashes at the lexical level. When a character that is not valid for an escape sequence follows the ‘ \ ’, BWK 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 9.1 .

Table 9.1: Historical escape sequence processing for sub() and gsub()

This table shows 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.

Several editions of the POSIX standard attempted to fix this problem but weren’t successful. The details are irrelevant at this point in time.

At one point, 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 9.2 .

Table 9.2: gawk 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 rules for sub() and gsub() . The POSIX standard took much longer to be revised than was expected. In addition, the gawk maintainer’s proposal was lost during the standardization process. The final rules are somewhat simpler. The results are similar except for one case.

The 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 9.3 .

Table 9.3: POSIX rules for sub() and gsub()

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 followed the POSIX rules when --posix was specified (see Command-Line Options ). Otherwise, it continued to follow the proposed rules, as that had been its behavior for many years.

When version 4.0.0 was released, the gawk maintainer made the POSIX rules the default, breaking well over a decade’s worth of backward compatibility. 53 Needless to say, this was a bad idea, and as of version 4.0.1, gawk resumed its historical behavior, and only follows the POSIX rules when --posix is given.

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 9.4 .

Table 9.4: 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.

Next: Time Functions , Previous: String-Manipulation Functions , Up: Built-in Functions [ Contents ][ Index ]

9.1.5 Input/Output Functions ¶

The following functions relate to input/output (I/O). Optional parameters are enclosed in square brackets ([ ]):

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 Closing Input and Output Redirections 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 ( how ) should be one of the two string values "to" or "from" , indicating which end of the pipe to close. Case in the string does not matter. See Two-Way Communications with Another Process , which discusses this feature in more detail and gives an example.

Note that the second argument to close() is a gawk extension; it is not available in compatibility mode (see Command-Line Options ).

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 the screen 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 (i.e., 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.

Brian Kernighan added fflush() to his awk in April 1992. For two decades, it was a common extension. In December 2012, it was accepted for inclusion into the POSIX standard. See the Austin Group website .

POSIX standardizes fflush() as follows: if there is no argument, or if the argument is the null string ( "" ), then awk flushes the buffers for all open output files and pipes.

NOTE: Prior to version 4.0.2, gawk would flush only the standard output if there was no argument, and flush all output files and pipes if the argument was the null string. This was changed in order to be compatible with BWK awk , in the hope that standardizing this feature in POSIX would then be easier (which indeed proved to be the case). With gawk , you can use ‘ fflush("/dev/stdout") ’ if you wish to flush only the standard output.

fflush() returns zero if the buffer is successfully flushed; otherwise, it returns a nonzero value. ( gawk 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.

Execute the operating system command command and then return to the awk program. Return command ’s exit status (see further on).

For example, if the following fragment of code is put in your awk program:

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:

However, if your awk program is interactive, system() is useful for running 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.

NOTE: When --sandbox is specified, the system() function is disabled (see Command-Line Options ).

On POSIX systems, a command’s exit status is a 16-bit number. The exit value passed to the C exit() function is held in the high-order eight bits. The low-order bits indicate if the process was killed by a signal (bit 7) and if so, the guilty signal number (bits 0–6).

Traditionally, awk ’s system() function has simply returned the exit status value divided by 256. In the normal case this gives the exit status but in the case of death-by-signal it yields a fractional floating-point value. 55 POSIX states that awk ’s system() should return the full 16-bit value.

gawk steers a middle ground. The return values are summarized in Table 9.5 .

Table 9.5: Return values from system()

As of August, 2018, BWK awk now follows gawk ’s behavior for the return value of system() .

Next: Bit-Manipulation Functions , Previous: Input/Output Functions , Up: Built-in Functions [ Contents ][ Index ]

9.1.6 Time 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 timestamps 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. 56 All known POSIX-compliant systems support timestamps from 0 through 2 31 − 1, which is sufficient to represent times through 2038-01-19 03:14:07 UTC. Many systems support a wider range of timestamps, including negative timestamps that represent times before the epoch.

In order to make it easier to process such log files and to produce useful reports, gawk provides the following functions for working with timestamps. They are gawk extensions; they are not specified in the POSIX standard. 57 However, recent versions of mawk (see Other Freely Available awk Implementations ) also support these functions. Optional parameters are enclosed in square brackets ([ ]):

Turn 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, 58 and an optional daylight-savings flag.

The values of these numbers need not be within the ranges specified; for example, an hour of −1 means 1 hour before midnight. The origin-zero Gregorian calendar is assumed, with year 0 preceding year 1 and year −1 preceding year 0. If utc-flag is present and is either nonzero or non-null, the time is assumed to be in the UTC time zone; otherwise, the time is assumed to be in the local time zone. If the DST 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.

Format the time specified by timestamp based on the contents of the format string and return the result. It is similar to the function of the same name in ISO C. If utc-flag is present and is either nonzero or non-null, the value is formatted as UTC (Coordinated Universal Time, formerly GMT or Greenwich Mean Time). Otherwise, the value is formatted for the local time zone. 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. Without a format argument, strftime() uses the value of PROCINFO["strftime"] as the format string (see Predefined Variables ). The default string value is "%a %b %e %H:%M:%S %Z %Y" . This format string produces output that is equivalent to that of the date utility. You can assign a new value to PROCINFO["strftime"] to change the default format; see the following list for the various format directives.

Return 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.

The systime() function allows you to compare a timestamp from a log file with the current time of day. In particular, it is easy to determine how long ago a particular record was logged. It also allows you to produce log records using the “seconds since the epoch” format.

The mktime() function allows you to convert a textual representation of a date and time into a timestamp. This makes it easy to do before/after comparisons of dates and times, particularly when dealing with date and time data coming from an external source, such as a log file.

The strftime() function allows you to easily turn a timestamp into human-readable information. It is similar in nature to the sprintf() function (see String-Manipulation Functions ), in that it copies nonformat specification characters verbatim to the returned string, while substituting date and time values for format specifications in the format string.

strftime() is guaranteed by the 1999 ISO C standard 59 to support the following date format specifications:

The locale’s abbreviated weekday name.

The locale’s full weekday name.

The locale’s abbreviated month name.

The locale’s full month name.

The locale’s “appropriate” date and time representation. (This is ‘ %A %B %d %T %Y ’ in the "C" locale.)

The century part of the current year. This is the year divided by 100 and truncated to the next lower integer.

The day of the month as a decimal number (01–31).

Equivalent to specifying ‘ %m/%d/%y ’.

The day of the month, padded with a space if it is only one digit.

Equivalent to specifying ‘ %Y-%m-%d ’. This is the ISO 8601 date format.

The year modulo 100 of the ISO 8601 week number, as a decimal number (00–99). For example, January 1, 2012, is in week 53 of 2011. Thus, the year of its ISO 8601 week number is 2011, even though its year is 2012. Similarly, December 31, 2012, is in week 1 of 2013. Thus, the year of its ISO week number is 2013, even though its year is 2012.

The full year of the ISO week number, as a decimal number.

Equivalent to ‘ %b ’.

The hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number (00–23).

The hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number (01–12).

The day of the year as a decimal number (001–366).

The month as a decimal number (01–12).

The minute as a decimal number (00–59).

A newline character (ASCII LF).

The locale’s equivalent of the AM/PM designations associated with a 12-hour clock.

The locale’s 12-hour clock time. (This is ‘ %I:%M:%S %p ’ in the "C" locale.)

Equivalent to specifying ‘ %H:%M ’.

The second as a decimal number (00–60).

A TAB character.

Equivalent to specifying ‘ %H:%M:%S ’.

The weekday as a decimal number (1–7). Monday is day one.

The week number of the year (with the first Sunday as the first day of week one) as a decimal number (00–53).

The week number of the year (with 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 the last week [52 or 53] of the previous year and the next week is week one.)

The weekday as a decimal number (0–6). Sunday is day zero.

The week number of the year (with the first Monday as the first day of week one) as a decimal number (00–53).

The locale’s “appropriate” date representation. (This is ‘ %A %B %d %Y ’ in the "C" locale.)

The locale’s “appropriate” time representation. (This is ‘ %T ’ in the "C" locale.)

The year modulo 100 as a decimal number (00–99).

The full year as a decimal number (e.g., 2015).

The time zone offset in a ‘ + HHMM ’ format (e.g., the format necessary to produce RFC 822/RFC 1036 date headers).

The time zone name or abbreviation; no characters if no time zone is determinable.

“Alternative representations” for the specifications that use only the second letter (‘ %c ’, ‘ %C ’, and so on). 60 (These facilitate compliance with the POSIX date utility.)

A literal ‘ % ’.

If a conversion specifier is not one of those just listed, the behavior is undefined. 61

For systems that are not yet fully standards-compliant, gawk supplies a copy of strftime() from the GNU C Library. It supports all of the just-listed format specifications. If that version is used to compile gawk (see Installing gawk ), then the following additional format specifications are available:

The hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number (0–23). Single-digit numbers are padded with a space.

The hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number (1–12). Single-digit numbers are padded with a space.

The time as a decimal timestamp in seconds since the epoch.

Additionally, the alternative representations are recognized but their normal representations are used.

The following 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:

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:

Next: Getting Type Information , Previous: Time Functions , Up: Built-in Functions [ Contents ][ Index ]

9.1.7 Bit-Manipulation Functions ¶

I can explain it for you, but I can’t understand it for you.

Many languages provide the ability to perform bitwise operations on two integer numbers. In other words, the operation is performed on each successive pair of bits in the operands. Three common operations are bitwise AND, OR, and XOR. The operations are described in Table 9.6 .

Table 9.6: 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 ’. 62 If you start over again with ‘ 10111001 ’ and shift it left by three bits, you end up with ‘ 11001000 ’. The following list describes gawk ’s built-in functions that implement the bitwise operations. Optional parameters are enclosed in square brackets ([ ]):

Return the bitwise AND of the arguments. There must be at least two.

Return the bitwise complement of val .

Return the value of val , shifted left by count bits.

Return the bitwise OR of the arguments. There must be at least two.

Return the value of val , shifted right by count bits.

Return the bitwise XOR of the arguments. There must be at least two.

CAUTION: Beginning with gawk version 4.2, negative operands are not allowed for any of these functions. A negative operand produces a fatal error. See the sidebar “Beware The Smoke and Mirrors!” for more information as to why.

Here is a user-defined function (see User-Defined Functions ) that illustrates the use of these functions:

This program produces the following output when run:

The bits2str() function turns a binary number into a string. Initializing mask to one creates a binary value where the rightmost bit is set to one. Using this mask, the function repeatedly checks the rightmost bit. ANDing the mask with the value indicates whether the rightmost bit is one 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 one 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 Octal and Hexadecimal Numbers ), and then demonstrates the results of the compl() , lshift() , and rshift() functions.

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9.1.8 Getting Type Information ¶

gawk provides two functions that let you distinguish the type of a variable. This is necessary for writing code that traverses every element of an array of arrays (see Arrays of Arrays ), and in other contexts.

Return a true value if x is an array. Otherwise, return false.

Return one of the following strings, depending upon the type of x :

x is an array.

x is a strongly typed regexp (see Strongly Typed Regexp Constants ).

x is a number.

x is a Boolean typed value (see Boolean Typed Values ).

x is a string.

x is a number that started life as user input, such as a field or the result of calling split() . (I.e., x has the strnum attribute; see String Type versus Numeric Type .)

x is a scalar variable that has not been assigned a value yet. For example:

x has not yet been used yet at all; it can become a scalar or an array. The typing could even conceivably differ from run to run of the same program! For example:

isarray() is meant for use in two circumstances. The first is when traversing a multidimensional array: you can test if an element is itself an array or not. The second is inside the body of a user-defined function (not discussed yet; see User-Defined Functions ), to test if a parameter is an array or not.

NOTE: While you can use isarray() at the global level to test variables, doing so makes no sense. Because you are the one writing the program, you are supposed to know if your variables are arrays or not.

The typeof() function is general; it allows you to determine if a variable or function parameter is a scalar (number, string, or strongly typed regexp) or an array.

Normally, passing a variable that has never been used to a built-in function causes it to become a scalar variable (unassigned). However, isarray() and typeof() are different; they do not change their arguments from untyped to unassigned.

This applies to both variables denoted by simple identifiers and array elements that come into existence simply by referencing them. Consider:

Note that prior to version 5.2, array elements that come into existence simply by referencing them were different, they were automatically forced to be scalars:

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9.1.9 String-Translation Functions ¶

gawk provides facilities for internationalizing awk programs. These include the functions described in the following list. The descriptions here are purposely brief. See Internationalization with gawk , for the full story. Optional parameters are enclosed in square brackets ([ ]):

Set the directory in which gawk will look for message translation files, in case they will not or cannot be placed in the “standard” locations (e.g., during testing). It returns the directory in which domain is “bound.”

The default domain is the value of TEXTDOMAIN . If directory is the null string ( "" ), then bindtextdomain() returns the current binding for the given domain .

Return 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" .

Return 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 is 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" .

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9.2 User-Defined Functions ¶

Complicated awk programs can often be simplified by defining your own functions. User-defined functions can be called just like built-in ones (see Function Calls ), but it is up to you to define them (i.e., to tell awk what they should do).

Function Definition Syntax
Function Definition Examples
Calling User-Defined Functions
The return Statement
Functions and Their Effects on Variable Typing

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9.2.1 Function Definition Syntax ¶

It’s entirely fair to say that the awk syntax for local variable definitions is appallingly awful.

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:

Here, 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. Here too, only the 52 upper- and lowercase English letters may be used in a function name. Within a single awk program, any particular name can only be used as a variable, array, or function.

parameter-list is an optional 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.

A function cannot have two parameters with the same name, nor may it have a parameter with the same name as the function itself.

CAUTION: According to the POSIX standard, function parameters cannot have the same name as one of the special predefined variables (see Predefined Variables ), nor may a function parameter have the same name as another function. Not all versions of awk enforce these restrictions. (d.c.) gawk always enforces the first restriction. With --posix (see Command-Line Options ), it also enforces the second restriction.

Local variables act like the empty string if referenced where a string value is required, and like zero if referenced where a numeric value is required. This is the same as the behavior of regular variables that have never been assigned a value. (There is more to understand about local variables; see Functions and Their Effects on Variable Typing .)

The body-of-function consists of awk statements. It is the most important part of the definition, because it says what the function should actually do . The argument names exist to give the body a way to talk about the arguments; local variables exist to give the body places to keep temporary values.

Argument names are not distinguished syntactically from local variable names. Instead, the number of arguments supplied when the function is called determines how many argument variables there are. Thus, if three argument values are given, the first three names in parameter-list are arguments and the rest are local variables.

It follows that if the number of arguments is not the same in all calls to the function, some of the names in parameter-list may be arguments on some occasions and local variables on others. Another way to think of this is that omitted arguments default to the null string.

Usually when you write a function, you know how many names you intend to use for arguments and how many you intend to use as local variables. It is conventional to place some extra space between the arguments and the local variables, in order to document how your function is supposed to be used.

During execution of the function body, the arguments and local variable values hide, or shadow , any variables of the same names used in the rest of the program. The shadowed variables are not accessible in the function definition, because there is no way to name them while their names have been taken away for the arguments and 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 .

All the built-in functions return a value to their caller. User-defined functions can do so also, using the return statement, which is described in detail in The return Statement . Many of the subsequent examples in this section use the return statement.

In many awk implementations, including gawk , the keyword function may be abbreviated func . (c.e.) However, POSIX only specifies the use of the keyword function . This actually has some practical implications. If gawk is in POSIX-compatibility mode (see Command-Line Options ), then the following statement does not define a function:

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. 64 )

To ensure that your awk programs are portable, always use the keyword function when defining a function.

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9.2.2 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:

To illustrate, here is an awk rule that uses our myprint() function:

This program prints, in our special format, all the third fields that contain a positive number in our input. Therefore, when given the following input:

this program, using our function to format the results, prints:

This function deletes all the elements in an array (recall that the extra whitespace signifies the start of the local variable list):

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 The delete Statement ). 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 relatively recent 65 addition to the POSIX standard.)

The following is an example of a recursive function. It takes a string as an input parameter and returns the string in reverse order. Recursive functions must always have a test that stops the recursion. In this case, the recursion terminates when the input string is already empty:

If this function is in a file named rev.awk , it can be tested this way:

The C ctime() function takes a timestamp and returns it as a string, formatted in a well-known fashion. The following example uses the built-in strftime() function (see Time Functions ) to create an awk version of ctime() :

You might think that ctime() could use PROCINFO["strftime"] for its format string. That would be a mistake, because ctime() is supposed to return the time formatted in a standard fashion, and user-level code could have changed PROCINFO["strftime"] .

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9.2.3 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.

Writing a Function Call
Controlling Variable Scope
Passing Function Arguments by Value Or by Reference
Other Points About Calling Functions

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9.2.3.1 Writing a Function Call ¶

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 become the actual arguments. For example, here is a call to foo() with three arguments (the first being a string concatenation):

CAUTION: Whitespace characters (spaces and TABs) are not allowed between the function name and the opening 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.

Next: Passing Function Arguments by Value Or by Reference , Previous: Writing a Function Call , Up: Calling User-Defined Functions [ Contents ][ Index ]

9.2.3.2 Controlling Variable Scope ¶

Unlike in many languages, there is no way to make a variable local to a { … } block in awk , but you can make a variable local to a function. It is good practice to do so whenever a variable is needed only in that function.

To make a variable local to a function, simply declare the variable as an argument after the actual function arguments (see Function Definition Syntax ). Look at the following example, where variable i is a global variable used by both functions foo() and bar() :

Running this script produces the following, because the i in functions foo() and bar() and at the top level refer to the same variable instance:

If you want i to be local to both foo() and bar() , do as follows (the extra space before i is a coding convention to indicate that i is a local variable, not an argument):

Running the corrected script produces the following:

Besides scalar values (strings and numbers), you may also have local arrays. By using a parameter name as an array, awk treats it as an array, and it is local to the function. In addition, recursive calls create new arrays. Consider this example:

When run, this program produces the following output:

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9.2.3.3 Passing Function Arguments by Value Or by Reference ¶

In awk , when you declare a function, there is no way to declare explicitly whether the arguments are passed by value or by reference .

Instead, the passing convention is determined at runtime when the function is called, according to the following rule: if the argument is an array variable, then it is passed by reference. Otherwise, the argument is passed by value.

Passing an argument by value means that when a function is called, it is given a copy of the value of this argument. 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:

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:

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 termed 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 .

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9.2.3.4 Other Points About Calling Functions ¶

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:

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 Command-Line Options ), gawk reports calls to undefined functions.

Some awk implementations generate a runtime error if you use either the next statement or the nextfile statement (see The next Statement , and see The nextfile Statement ) inside a user-defined function. gawk does not have this limitation.

You can call a function and pass it more parameters than it was declared with, like so:

Doing so is bad practice, however. The called function cannot do anything with the additional values being passed to it, so awk evaluates the expressions but then just throws them away.

More importantly, such a call is confusing for whoever will next read your program. 66 Function parameters generally are input items that influence the computation performed by the function. Calling a function with more parameters than it accepts gives the false impression that those values are important to the function, when in fact they are not.

Because this is such a bad practice, gawk unconditionally issues a warning whenever it executes such a function call. (If you don’t like the warning, fix your code! It’s incorrect, after all.)

Next: Functions and Their Effects on Variable Typing , Previous: Calling User-Defined Functions , Up: User-Defined Functions [ Contents ][ Index ]

9.2.4 The return Statement ¶

As seen in several earlier examples, 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:

The expression part is optional. Due most likely to an oversight, POSIX does not define what the return value is if you omit the expression . Technically speaking, this makes the returned value undefined, and therefore, unpredictable. In practice, though, all versions of awk simply return the null string, which acts like zero if used in a numeric context.

A return statement without an expression is assumed at the end of every function definition. So, if control reaches the end of the function body, then technically the function returns an unpredictable value. In practice, it returns the empty string. 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, C++, or Java, or to a procedure in Ada. Thus, it may be appropriate to not return any value; simply bear in mind that you should not be using the return value of such a function.

The following is an example of a user-defined function that returns a value for the largest number among the elements of an array:

You call maxelt() with one argument, which is an array name. The local variables i and ret are not intended to be arguments; there is nothing to stop you from passing more than one argument to maxelt() but the results would be strange. The extra space before i in the function parameter list indicates that i and ret are local variables. 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:

Given the following input:

the program reports (predictably) that 99,385 is the largest value in the array.

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9.2.5 Functions and Their Effects on Variable Typing ¶

It’s a desert topping! It’s a floor wax!

awk is a very fluid language. It is possible that awk can’t tell if an identifier represents a scalar variable or an array until runtime. Here is an annotated sample program:

In this example, the first call to foo() generates a fatal error, so awk will not report the second error. If you comment out that call, though, then awk does report the second error.

Here is a more extreme example:

Here, the function uses its parameter differently depending upon the value of the global variable A . If A is zero, the parameter arr is treated as a scalar. Otherwise it’s treated as an array.

There are two ways this program might behave. awk could notice that in the main program, a is subscripted, and so mark it as an array before the program even begins to run. BWK awk , mawk , and possibly others do this:

Or awk could wait until runtime to set the type of a . In this case, since a was never used before being passed to the function, how the function uses it forces the type to be resolved to either scalar or array. gawk and the MKS awk do this:

POSIX does not specify the correct behavior, so be aware that different implementations work differently.

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9.3 Indirect Function Calls ¶

This section describes an advanced, gawk -specific extension.

Often, you may wish to defer the choice of function to call until runtime. For example, you may have different kinds of records, each of which should be processed differently.

Normally, you would have to use a series of if - else statements to decide which function to call. By using indirect function calls, you can specify the name of the function to call as a string variable, and then call the function. Let’s look at an example.

Suppose you have a file with your test scores for the classes you are taking, and you wish to get the sum and the average of your test scores. The first field is the class name. The following fields are the functions to call to process the data, up to a “marker” field ‘ data: ’. Following the marker, to the end of the record, are the various numeric test scores.

Here is the initial file:

To process the data, you might write initially:

This style of programming works, but can be awkward. With indirect function calls, you tell gawk to use the value of a variable as the name of the function to call.

The syntax is similar to that of a regular function call: an identifier immediately followed by an opening parenthesis, any arguments, and then a closing parenthesis, with the addition of a leading ‘ @ ’ character:

Here is a full program that processes the previously shown data, using indirect function calls:

These two functions expect to work on fields; thus, the parameters first and last indicate where in the fields to start and end. Otherwise, they perform the expected computations and are not unusual:

This is the main processing for each record. It prints the class name (with underscores replaced with spaces). It then finds the start of the actual data, saving it in start . The last part of the code loops through each function name (from $2 up to the marker, ‘ data: ’), calling the function named by the field. The indirect function call itself occurs as a parameter in the call to printf . (The printf format string uses ‘ %s ’ as the format specifier so that we can use functions that return strings, as well as numbers. Note that the result from the indirect call is concatenated with the empty string, in order to force it to be a string value.)

Here is the result of running the program:

The ability to use indirect function calls is more powerful than you may think at first. The C and C++ languages provide “function pointers,” which are a mechanism for calling a function chosen at runtime. One of the most well-known uses of this ability is the C qsort() function, which sorts an array using the famous “quicksort” algorithm (see the Wikipedia article for more information). To use this function, you supply a pointer to a comparison function. This mechanism allows you to sort arbitrary data in an arbitrary fashion.

We can do something similar using gawk , like this:

The quicksort() function receives the data array, the starting and ending indices to sort ( left and right ), and the name of a function that performs a “less than” comparison. It then implements the quicksort algorithm.

To make use of the sorting function, we return to our previous example. The first thing to do is write some comparison functions:

The num_ge() function is needed to perform a descending sort; when used to perform a “less than” test, it actually does the opposite (greater than or equal to), which yields data sorted in descending order.

Next comes a sorting function. It is parameterized with the starting and ending field numbers and the comparison function. It builds an array with the data and calls quicksort() appropriately, and then formats the results as a single string:

Finally, the two sorting functions call do_sort() , passing in the names of the two comparison functions:

Here is an extended version of the data file:

Finally, here are the results when the enhanced program is run:

Another example where indirect functions calls are useful can be found in processing arrays. This is described in Traversing Arrays of Arrays .

Remember that you must supply a leading ‘ @ ’ in front of an indirect function call.

Starting with version 4.1.2 of gawk , indirect function calls may also be used with built-in functions and with extension functions (see Writing Extensions for gawk ). There are some limitations when calling built-in functions indirectly, as follows.

You cannot pass a regular expression constant to a built-in function through an indirect function call. This applies to the sub() , gsub() , gensub() , match() , split() and patsplit() functions. However, you can pass a strongly typed regexp constant (see Strongly Typed Regexp Constants ).
If calling sub() or gsub() , you may only pass two arguments, since those functions are unusual in that they update their third argument. This means that $0 will be updated.
You cannot indirectly call built-in functions that can take $0 as a default parameter; you must supply an argument instead. For example, you must pass an argument to length() if calling it indirectly.
Calling a built-in function indirectly with the wrong number of arguments for that function causes a fatal error. For example, calling length() with two arguments. These errors are found at runtime instead of when gawk parses your program, since gawk doesn’t know until runtime if you have passed the correct number of arguments or not.

gawk does its best to make indirect function calls efficient. For example, in the following case:

gawk looks up the actual function to call only once.

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9.4 Summary ¶

awk provides built-in functions and lets you define your own functions.
POSIX awk provides three kinds of built-in functions: numeric, string, and I/O. gawk provides functions that sort arrays, work with values representing time, do bit manipulation, determine variable type (array versus scalar), and internationalize and localize programs. gawk also provides several extensions to some of standard functions, typically in the form of additional arguments.
Functions accept zero or more arguments and return a value. The expressions that provide the argument values are completely evaluated before the function is called. Order of evaluation is not defined. The return value can be ignored.
The handling of backslash in sub() and gsub() is not simple. It is more straightforward in gawk ’s gensub() function, but that function still requires care in its use.
User-defined functions provide important capabilities but come with some syntactic inelegancies. In a function call, there cannot be any space between the function name and the opening left parenthesis of the argument list. Also, there is no provision for local variables, so the convention is to add extra parameters, and to separate them visually from the real parameters by extra whitespace.
User-defined functions may call other user-defined (and built-in) functions and may call themselves recursively. Function parameters “hide” any global variables of the same names. You cannot use the name of a reserved variable (such as ARGC ) as the name of a parameter in user-defined functions.
Scalar values are passed to user-defined functions by value. Array parameters are passed by reference; any changes made by the function to array parameters are thus visible after the function has returned.
Use the return statement to return from a user-defined function. An optional expression becomes the function’s return value. Only scalar values may be returned by a function.
If a variable that has never been used is passed to a user-defined function, how that function treats the variable can set its nature: either scalar or array.
gawk provides indirect function calls using a special syntax. By setting a variable to the name of a function, you can determine at runtime what function will be called at that point in the program. This is equivalent to function pointers in C and C++.

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Part II: Problem Solving with awk ¶

A Library of awk Functions
Practical awk Programs

10 A Library of awk Functions ¶

User-Defined Functions describes how to write your own awk functions. Writing functions is important, because it allows you to encapsulate algorithms and program tasks in a single place. It simplifies programming, making program development more manageable and making programs more readable.

In their seminal 1976 book, Software Tools , 67 Brian Kernighan and P.J. Plauger wrote:

Good Programming is not learned from generalities, but by seeing how significant programs can be made clean, easy to read, easy to maintain and modify, human-engineered, efficient and reliable, by the application of common sense and good programming practices. Careful study and imitation of good programs leads to better writing.

In fact, they felt this idea was so important that they placed this statement on the cover of their book. Because we believe strongly that their statement is correct, this chapter and Practical awk Programs , provide a good-sized body of code for you to read and, we hope, to learn from.

This chapter presents a library of useful awk functions. Many of the sample programs presented later in this Web page use these functions. The functions are presented here in a progression from simple to complex.

Extracting Programs from Texinfo Source Files presents a program that you can use to extract the source code for these example library functions and programs from the Texinfo source for this Web page. (This has already been done as part of the gawk distribution.)

If you have written one or more useful, general-purpose awk functions and would like to contribute them to the awk user community, see How to Contribute , for more information.

The programs in this chapter and in Practical awk Programs , freely use gawk -specific features. Rewriting these programs for different implementations of awk is pretty straightforward:

Diagnostic error messages are sent to /dev/stderr . Use ‘ | "cat 1>&2" ’ instead of ‘ > "/dev/stderr" ’ if your system does not have a /dev/stderr , or if you cannot use gawk .

Also, verify that all regexp and string constants used in comparisons use only lowercase letters.

Naming Library Function Global Variables
General Programming
Data file Management
Processing Command-Line Options
Reading the User Database
Reading the Group Database
Traversing Arrays of Arrays

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10.1 Naming Library Function Global Variables ¶

Due to the way the awk language evolved, variables are either global (usable by the entire program) or local (usable just by a specific function). There is no intermediate state analogous to static variables in C.

Library functions often need to have global variables that they can use to preserve state information between calls to the function—for example, getopt() ’s variable _opti (see Processing Command-Line Options ). Such variables are called private , as the only functions that need to use them are the ones in the library.

When writing a library function, you should try to choose names for your private variables that will not conflict with any variables used by either another library function or a user’s main program. For example, a name like i or j is not a good choice, because user programs often use variable names like these for their own purposes.

The example programs shown in this chapter all start the names of their private variables with an underscore (‘ _ ’). Users generally don’t use leading underscores in their variable names, so this convention immediately decreases the chances that the variable names 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 Reading the User Database ). This convention is recommended, as 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. 69

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 those variables’ names with a capital letter—for example, getopt() ’s Opterr and Optind variables (see Processing Command-Line Options ). 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 predefined 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. 70 If this is not done, the variables could accidentally be used in the user’s program, leading to bugs that are very difficult to track down:

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 Reading the User Database 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.

Beginning with version 5.0, gawk provides a powerful mechanism for solving the problems described in this section: namespaces . Namespaces and their use are described in detail in Namespaces in gawk .

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10.2 General Programming ¶

This section presents a number of functions that are of general programming use.

Converting Strings to Numbers
Rounding Numbers
The Cliff Random Number Generator
Translating Between Characters and Numbers
Merging an Array into a String
Managing the Time of Day
Reading a Whole File at Once
Quoting Strings to Pass to the Shell
Checking Whether A Value Is Numeric
Producing CSV Data

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10.2.1 Converting Strings to Numbers ¶

The strtonum() function (see String-Manipulation Functions ) is a gawk extension. The following function provides an implementation for other versions of awk :

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 "1234567" of the current octal digit. The return value will either be the same number as the digit, or zero if the character is not there, which will be true for a ‘ 0 ’. This is safe, because the regexp test in the if ensures that only octal values are converted.

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) regexp for a regular decimal integer or floating-point number, 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.

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10.2.2 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 a 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:

If the assertion fails, the program prints a message similar to this:

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:

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 rule 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:

If the assertion fails, you see a message similar to the following:

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 Startup and Cleanup Actions ), most likely causing the program to hang as it waits for input.

There is a simple workaround to this: make sure that such a BEGIN rule always ends with an exit statement.

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10.2.3 Rounding Numbers ¶

The way printf and sprintf() (see Using printf Statements for Fancier Printing ) 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:

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10.2.4 The Cliff Random Number Generator ¶

The Cliff random number generator 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:

This algorithm requires an initial “seed” of 0.1. Each new value uses the current seed as input for the calculation. If the built-in rand() function (see Numeric Functions ) isn’t random enough, you might try using this function instead.

Next: Merging an Array into a String , Previous: The Cliff Random Number Generator , Up: General Programming [ Contents ][ Index ]

10.2.5 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:

Some explanation of the numbers used by _ord_init() is worthwhile. The most prominent character set in use today is ASCII. 71 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. 72 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. There are other character sets in use on some older systems, but they are not really worth worrying about:

An obvious improvement to these functions is to move the code for the _ord_init function into the body of the BEGIN rule. It was written this way initially for ease of development. There is a “test program” in a BEGIN rule, to test the function. It is commented out for production use.

Next: Managing the Time of Day , Previous: Translating Between Characters and Numbers , Up: General Programming [ Contents ][ Index ]

10.2.6 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 Practical awk Programs ).

Good function design is important; this function needs to be general, but it should also have a reasonable default behavior. It is called with an array as well as the beginning and ending indices of the elements in the array to be merged. This assumes that the array indices are numeric—a reasonable assumption, as the array was likely created with split() (see String-Manipulation Functions ):

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 space 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. 73

Next: Reading a Whole File at Once , Previous: Merging an Array into a String , Up: General Programming [ Contents ][ Index ]

10.2.7 Managing the Time of Day ¶

The systime() and strftime() functions described in Time Functions provide the minimum functionality necessary for dealing with the time of day in human-readable form. Although strftime() is extensive, the control formats are not necessarily easy to remember or intuitively obvious when reading a program.

The following function, getlocaltime() , populates a user-supplied array with preformatted time information. It returns a string with the current time formatted in the same way as the date utility:

The string indices are easier to use and read than the various formats required by strftime() . The alarm program presented in An Alarm Clock Program uses this function. A more general design for the getlocaltime() function would have allowed the user to supply an optional timestamp value to use instead of the current time.

Next: Quoting Strings to Pass to the Shell , Previous: Managing the Time of Day , Up: General Programming [ Contents ][ Index ]

10.2.8 Reading a Whole File at Once ¶

Often, it is convenient to have the entire contents of a file available in memory as a single string. A straightforward but naive way to do that might be as follows:

This function reads from file one record at a time, building up the full contents of the file in the local variable contents . It works, but is not necessarily efficient.

The following function, based on a suggestion by Denis Shirokov, reads the entire contents of the named file in one shot:

It works by setting RS to ‘ ^$ ’, a regular expression that will never match if the file has contents. gawk reads data from the file into tmp , attempting to match RS . The match fails after each read, but fails quickly, such that gawk fills tmp with the entire contents of the file. (See How Input Is Split into Records for information on RT and RS .)

In the case that file is empty, the return value is the null string. Thus, calling code may use something like:

This tests the result to see if it is empty or not. An equivalent test would be ‘ contents == "" ’.

See Reading an Entire File for an extension function that also reads an entire file into memory.

Next: Checking Whether A Value Is Numeric , Previous: Reading a Whole File at Once , Up: General Programming [ Contents ][ Index ]

10.2.9 Quoting Strings to Pass to the Shell ¶

Michael Brennan offers the following programming pattern, which he uses frequently:

For example, a program of his named flac-edit has this form:

It generates the following output, which is to be piped to the shell ( /bin/sh ):

Note the need for shell quoting. The function shell_quote() does it. SINGLE is the one-character string "'" and QSINGLE is the three-character string "\"'\"" :

Next: Producing CSV Data , Previous: Quoting Strings to Pass to the Shell , Up: General Programming [ Contents ][ Index ]

10.2.10 Checking Whether A Value Is Numeric ¶

A frequent programming question is how to ascertain whether a value is numeric. This can be solved by using this example function isnumeric() , which employs the trick of converting a string value to user input by using the split() function:

Please note that leading or trailing white space is disregarded in deciding whether a value is numeric or not, so if it matters to you, you may want to add an additional check for that.

Traditionally, it has been recommended to check for numeric values using the test ‘ x+0 == x ’. This function is superior in two ways: it will not report that unassigned variables contain numeric values; and it recognizes string values with numeric contents where CONVFMT does not yield the original string. On the other hand, it uses the typeof() function (see Getting Type Information ), which is specific to gawk .

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10.2.11 Producing CSV Data ¶

gawk ’s --csv option causes gawk to process CSV data (see Working With Comma Separated Value Files ).

But what if you have regular data that you want to output in CSV format? This section provides functions for doing that.

The first function, tocsv() , takes an array of data fields as input. The array should be indexed starting from one. The optional second parameter is the separator to use. If none is supplied, the default is a comma.

The function takes care to quote fields that contain double quotes, newlines, or the separator character. It then builds up the final CSV record and returns it.

The next function, tocsv_rec() is a wrapper around tocsv() . Its intended use is for when you want to convert the current input record to CSV format. The function itself simply copies the fields into an array to pass to tocsv() which does the work. It accepts an optional separator character as its first parameter, which it simply passes on to tocsv() .

Next: Processing Command-Line Options , Previous: General Programming , Up: A Library of awk Functions [ Contents ][ Index ]

10.3 Data file Management ¶

This section presents functions that are useful for managing command-line data files.

Noting Data file Boundaries
Rereading the Current File
Checking for Readable Data files
Checking for Zero-Length Files
Treating Assignments as File names

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10.3.1 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 The BEGIN and END Special Patterns ). We (the gawk authors) once had a user who mistakenly thought that the BEGIN rules were executed at the beginning of each data file and the END rules were 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 :

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, which 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.

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:

Counting Things shows how this library function can be used and how it simplifies writing the main program.

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10.3.2 Rereading the Current File ¶

Another request for a new built-in function was for a function that would make it possible to reread the current file. The requesting user didn’t want to have to use getline (see Explicit Input with getline ) inside a loop.

However, as long as you are not in the END rule, it is quite easy to arrange to immediately close the current input file and then start over with it from the top. For lack of a better name, we’ll call the function rewind() :

The rewind() function relies on the ARGIND variable (see Built-in Variables That Convey Information ), which is specific to gawk . It also relies on the nextfile keyword (see The nextfile Statement ). Because of this, you should not call it from an ENDFILE rule. (This isn’t necessary anyway, because gawk goes to the next file as soon as an ENDFILE rule finishes!)

You need to be careful calling rewind() . You can end up causing infinite recursion if you don’t pay attention. Here is an example use:

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10.3.3 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. 74 You can do this by prepending the following program to your awk program:

This works, because the getline won’t be fatal. Removing the element from ARGV with delete skips the file (because it’s no longer in the list). See also Using ARGC and ARGV .

Because awk variable names only allow the English letters, the regular expression check purposely does not use character classes such as ‘ [:alpha:] ’ and ‘ [:alnum:] ’ (see Using Bracket Expressions ).

Next: Treating Assignments as File names , Previous: Checking for Readable Data files , Up: Data file Management [ Contents ][ Index ]

10.3.4 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 Predefined Variables ), it is possible to detect when an empty data file has been skipped. Similar to the library file presented in Noting Data file Boundaries , 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:

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 ‘ < ’.

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10.3.5 Treating Assignments as File names ¶

Occasionally, you might not want awk to process command-line variable assignments (see Assigning Variables on the Command Line ). In particular, if you have a file name that contains 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:

You then run your program this way:

The function works by looping through the arguments. It prepends ‘ ./ ’ to any argument that matches the form of a variable assignment, turning that argument into a file name.

The use of No_command_assign allows you to disable command-line assignments at invocation time, by giving the variable a true value. When not set, it is initially zero (i.e., false), so the command-line arguments are left alone.

Next: Reading the User Database , Previous: Data file Management , Up: A Library of awk Functions [ Contents ][ Index ]

10.4 Processing Command-Line Options ¶

Most utilities on POSIX-compatible systems take options on the command line that can be used to change the way a program behaves. awk is an example of such a program (see Command-Line Options ). Often, options take arguments (i.e., data that the program needs to correctly obey the command-line option). For example, awk ’s -F option requires a string to use as the field separator. The first occurrence on the command line of either -- or a string that does not begin with ‘ - ’ ends the options.

Modern Unix systems provide a C function named getopt() for processing command-line arguments. The programmer provides a string describing the one-letter options. If an option requires an argument, it is followed in the string with a colon. getopt() is also passed the count and values of the command-line arguments and is called in a loop. getopt() processes the command-line arguments for option letters. Each time around the loop, it returns a single character representing the next option letter that it finds, or ‘ ? ’ if it finds an invalid option. When it returns −1, there are no options left on the command line.

When using getopt() , options that do not take arguments can be grouped together. Furthermore, options that take arguments require that the argument be 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:

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:

The index in the argument value array ( argv ) where the first nonoption command-line argument can be found.

The string value of the argument to an option.

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.)

The letter representing the command-line option.

The following C fragment shows how getopt() might process command-line arguments for awk :

The GNU project’s version of the original Unix utilities popularized the use of long command line options. For example, --help in addition to -h . Arguments to long options are either provided as separate command line arguments (‘ --source ' program-text ' ’) or separated from the option with an ‘ = ’ sign (‘ --source=' program-text ' ’).

As a side point, gawk actually uses the GNU getopt_long() function to process both normal and GNU-style long options (see Command-Line Options ).

The abstraction provided by getopt() is very useful and is quite handy in awk programs as well. Following is an awk version of getopt() that accepts both short and long options. (Support for long options was supplied by Greg Minshall. We thank him.)

This function highlights one of the greatest weaknesses in awk , which is that it is very poor at manipulating single characters. The function needs repeated calls to substr() in order to access individual characters (see String-Manipulation Functions ). 75

The discussion that follows walks through the code a bit at a time:

The function starts out with comments presenting 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 both options and longoptions have a zero length, getopt() immediately returns −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 ‘ - ’ (unless it is an argument to a preceding option). Optind steps through the array of command-line arguments; it retains its value across calls to getopt() , because it is a global variable.

The regular expression /^-[^:[:space:]/ 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. Now, we check to see if we are processing a short (single letter) option, or a long option (indicated by two dashes, e.g., ‘ --filename ’). If it is a short option, we continue on:

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 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:

Finally, for a short option, 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() .

On the other hand, if the earlier test found that this was a long option, we take a different branch:

First, we search this option for a possible embedded equal sign, as the specification of long options allows an argument to an option ‘ --someopt ’ to be specified as ‘ --someopt=answer ’ as well as ‘ --someopt answer ’.

Next, we try to find the current option in longopts . The regular expression given to match() , "(^|,)" thisopt "($|[,:])" , matches this option at the beginning of longopts , or at the beginning of a subsequent long option (the previous long option would have been terminated by a comma), and, in any case, either at the end of the longopts string (‘ $ ’), or followed by a comma (separating this option from a subsequent option) or a colon (indicating this long option takes an argument (‘ [,:] ’).

Using this regular expression, we check to see if the current option might possibly be in longopts (if longopts is not specified, this test will also fail). In case of an error, we possibly print an error message and then return "?" . Continuing on:

We now check to see if this option takes an argument and, if so, we set Optarg to the value of that argument (either a value after an equal sign specified on the command line, immediately adjoining the long option string, or as the next argument on the command line).

We increase Optind (which we already increased once if a required argument was separated from its option by an equal sign), and return the long option (minus its leading dashes).

The BEGIN rule initializes both Opterr and Optind to one. Opterr is set to one, because the default behavior is for getopt() to print a diagnostic message upon seeing an invalid option. Optind is set to one, because there’s no reason to look at the program name, which is in ARGV[0] :

The rest of the BEGIN rule is a simple test program. Here are the results of some sample runs of the test program:

In all the runs, the first -- terminates the arguments to awk , so that it does not try to interpret the -a , etc., as its own options.

NOTE: After getopt() is through, user-level code must 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.

Using ‘ #! ’ with the -E option may help avoid conflicts between your program’s options and gawk ’s options, as -E causes gawk to abandon processing of further options (see Executable awk Programs and see Command-Line Options ).

Several of the sample programs presented in Practical awk Programs , use getopt() to process their arguments.

Next: Reading the Group Database , Previous: Processing Command-Line Options , Up: A Library of awk Functions [ Contents ][ Index ]

10.5 Reading the User Database ¶

The PROCINFO array (see Predefined Variables ) provides access to the current user’s real and effective user and group ID numbers, and, if available, the user’s supplementary group set. However, because these are numbers, they do not provide very useful information to the average user. There needs to be some way to find the user information associated with the user and group ID numbers. This section presents a suite of functions for retrieving information from the user database. See Reading the Group Database 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).

Although an awk program could simply read /etc/passwd directly, this file may not contain complete information about the system’s set of users. 76 To be sure you are able to produce a readable and complete version of the user database, it is necessary to write a small C program that calls getpwent() . getpwent() is defined as returning a pointer to a struct passwd . Each time it is called, it returns the next entry in the database. When there are no more entries, it returns NULL , the null pointer. When this happens, the C program should call endpwent() to close the database. Following is pwcat , a C program that “cats” the password database:

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:

The user’s login name.

The user’s encrypted password. This may not be available on some systems.

The user’s numeric user ID number. (On some systems, it’s a C long , and not an int . Thus, we cast it to long for all cases.)

The user’s numeric group ID number. (Similar comments about long versus int apply here.)

The user’s full name, and perhaps other information associated with the user.

The user’s login (or “home”) directory (familiar to shell programmers as $HOME ).

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:

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:

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() fills three copies of the user information into 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, as _pw_init() needs to be called only 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, as 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. 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 FPAT , or on some other awk implementation.

The code that checks for using FPAT , using using_fpat and PROCINFO["FS"] , is similar.

The main part of the function uses a loop to read database lines, split the lines into fields, and then store the lines 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 or FPAT 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 relies on the array reference to a nonexistent element to create the element with the null string as its value:

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:

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:

The endpwent() function resets _pw_count to zero, so that subsequent calls to getpwent() start over again:

A conscious design decision in this suite is 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, as most awk programs are I/O-bound, and such a change would clutter up the code.

The id program in Printing Out User Information uses these functions.

Next: Traversing Arrays of Arrays , Previous: Reading the User Database , Up: A Library of awk Functions [ Contents ][ Index ]

10.6 Reading the Group Database ¶

Much of the discussion presented in Reading the User Database 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 may 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:

Each line in the group database represents one group. The fields are separated with colons and represent the following information:

The group’s name.

The group’s encrypted password. In practice, this field is never used; it is usually empty or set to ‘ * ’.

The group’s numeric group ID number; the association of name to number must be unique within the file. (On some systems it’s a C long , and not an int . Thus, we cast it to long for all cases.)

A comma-separated list of usernames. These users are members of the group. Modern Unix systems allow users to be members of several groups simultaneously. If your system does, then there are elements "group1" through "group N " in PROCINFO for those group ID numbers. (Note that PROCINFO is a gawk extension; see Predefined Variables .)

Here is what running grcat might produce:

Here are the functions for obtaining information from the group database. There are several, modeled after the C library functions of the same names:

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 Reading the User Database ). The _gr_inited variable is used to ensure that the database is scanned no more than once. The _gr_init() function first saves FS , RS , and $0 , and then sets FS and RS to the correct values for scanning the group information. It also takes care to note whether FIELDWIDTHS or FPAT is being used, and to restore the appropriate field-splitting mechanism.

The group information is stored in 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 in 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:

For this reason, _gr_init() looks to see if a group name or group ID number is already seen. If so, the usernames are simply concatenated onto the previous list of users. 77

Finally, _gr_init() closes the pipeline to grcat , restores FS (and FIELDWIDTHS or FPAT , if necessary), RS , and $0 , initializes _gr_count to zero (it is used later), and makes _gr_inited nonzero.

The getgrnam() function takes a group name as its argument, and if that group exists, it is returned. Otherwise, it relies on the array reference to a nonexistent element to create the element with the null string as its value:

The getgrgid() function is similar; it takes a numeric group ID and looks up the information associated with that group ID:

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:

The getgrent() function steps through the database one entry at a time. It uses _gr_count to track its position in the list:

The endgrent() function resets _gr_count to zero so that getgrent() can start over again:

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.

Next: Summary , Previous: Reading the Group Database , Up: A Library of awk Functions [ Contents ][ Index ]

10.7 Traversing Arrays of Arrays ¶

Arrays of Arrays described how gawk provides arrays of arrays. In particular, any element of an array may be either a scalar or another array. The isarray() function (see Getting Type Information ) lets you distinguish an array from a scalar. The following function, walk_array() , recursively traverses an array, printing the element indices and values. You call it with the array and a string representing the name of the array:

It works by looping over each element of the array. If any given element is itself an array, the function calls itself recursively, passing the subarray and a new string representing the current index. Otherwise, the function simply prints the element’s name, index, and value. Here is a main program to demonstrate:

When run, the program produces the following output:

The function just presented simply prints the name and value of each scalar array element. However, it is easy to generalize it, by passing in the name of a function to call when walking an array. The modified function looks like this:

The arguments are as follows:

The name of the array (a string).

The name of the function to call.

If this is true, the function can handle elements that are subarrays.

If subarrays are to be processed, that is done before walking them further.

When run with the following scaffolding, the function produces the same results as does the earlier version of walk_array() :

Next: Exercises , Previous: Traversing Arrays of Arrays , Up: A Library of awk Functions [ Contents ][ Index ]

10.8 Summary ¶

Reading programs is an excellent way to learn Good Programming. The functions and programs provided in this chapter and the next are intended to serve that purpose.
When writing general-purpose library functions, put some thought into how to name any global variables so that they won’t conflict with variables from a user’s program.

Number-to-string conversion, testing assertions, rounding, random number generation, converting characters to numbers, joining strings, getting easily usable time-of-day information, and reading a whole file in one shot

Noting data file boundaries, rereading the current file, checking for readable files, checking for zero-length files, and treating assignments as file names

An awk version of the standard C getopt() function

Two sets of routines that parallel the C library versions

Two functions that traverse an array of arrays to any depth

Previous: Summary , Up: A Library of awk Functions [ Contents ][ Index ]

10.9 Exercises ¶

In Checking for Zero-Length Files , we presented the zerofile.awk program, which made use of gawk ’s ARGIND variable. Can this problem be solved without relying on ARGIND ? If so, how?
As a related challenge, revise that code to handle the case where an intervening value in ARGV is a variable assignment.

Next: Advanced Features of gawk , Previous: A Library of awk Functions , Up: General Introduction [ Contents ][ Index ]

11 Practical awk Programs ¶

A Library of awk Functions , presents the idea that reading programs in a language contributes to learning that language. This chapter continues that theme, presenting a potpourri of awk programs for your reading enjoyment. There are three sections. The first describes how to run the programs presented in this chapter.

The second presents awk versions of several common POSIX utilities. These are programs that you are hopefully already familiar with, and therefore whose problems are understood. By reimplementing these programs in awk , you can focus on the awk -related aspects of solving the programming problems.

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 library functions presented in A Library of awk Functions .

Running the Example Programs
Reinventing Wheels for Fun and Profit
A Grab Bag of awk Programs

Next: Reinventing Wheels for Fun and Profit , Up: Practical awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.1 Running the Example Programs ¶

To run a given program, you would typically do something like this:

Here, program is the name of the awk program (such as cut.awk ), options are any command-line options for the program that start with a ‘ - ’, and files are the actual data files.

If your system supports the ‘ #! ’ executable interpreter mechanism (see Executable awk Programs ), you can instead run your program directly:

If your awk is not gawk , you may instead need to use this:

Next: A Grab Bag of awk Programs , Previous: Running the Example Programs , Up: Practical awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.2 Reinventing Wheels for Fun and Profit ¶

This section presents a number of POSIX utilities implemented in awk . Reinventing these programs in awk is often enjoyable, because the algorithms can be very clearly expressed, and the code is usually very concise and simple. This is true because awk does so much for you.

It should be noted that these programs are not necessarily intended to replace the installed versions on your system. Nor may all of these programs be fully compliant with the most recent POSIX standard. This is not a problem; their purpose is to illustrate awk language programming for “real-world” tasks.

The programs are presented in alphabetical order.

Cutting Out Fields and Columns
Searching for Regular Expressions in Files
Printing Out User Information
Splitting a Large File into Pieces
Duplicating Output into Multiple Files
Printing Nonduplicated Lines of Text
Counting Things

Next: Searching for Regular Expressions in Files , Up: Reinventing Wheels for Fun and Profit [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.2.1 Cutting Out Fields and Columns ¶

The cut utility selects, or “cuts,” characters or fields from its standard input and sends them to its standard output. Fields are separated by TABs by default, but you may supply a command-line option to change the field delimiter (i.e., the field-separator character). cut ’s definition of fields is less general than awk ’s.

A common use of cut might be to pull out just the login names of logged-on users from the output of who . For example, the following pipeline generates a sorted, unique list of the logged-on users:

The options for cut are:

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.

Use delim as the field-separator character instead of the TAB character.

Use list as the list of fields to cut out.

Suppress printing of lines that do not contain the field delimiter.

The awk implementation of cut uses the getopt() library function (see Processing Command-Line Options ) and the join() library function (see Merging an Array into a String ).

The current POSIX version of cut has options to cut fields based on both bytes and characters. This version does not attempt to implement those options, as awk works exclusively in terms of characters.

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:

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 rule then sets the output field separator to be the same as the input field separator. A loop using getopt() steps 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:

The code must take special care 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. To this end, we save the original space character in the variable fs for later use; after setting FS to "[ ]" we can’t use it directly to see if the field delimiter character is in the string.

Also remember that after getopt() is through (as described in Processing Command-Line Options ), 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:

set_fieldlist() splits the field list apart at the commas into an array. Then, for each element of the array, it looks to see if the element is actually a range, and if so, splits it apart. The function checks the range to make sure that 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:

The set_charlist() function is more complicated than set_fieldlist() . The idea here is to use gawk ’s FIELDWIDTHS variable (see Reading Fixed-Width Data ), 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:

Next is the rule that 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:

This version of cut relies on gawk ’s FIELDWIDTHS variable to do the character-based cutting. It is possible in other awk implementations to use substr() (see String-Manipulation Functions ), but it is also extremely painful. The FIELDWIDTHS variable supplies an elegant solution to the problem of picking the input line apart by characters.

Next: Printing Out User Information , Previous: Cutting Out Fields and Columns , Up: Reinventing Wheels for Fun and Profit [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.2.2 Searching for Regular Expressions in Files ¶

The grep family of programs searches files for patterns. These programs have an unusual history. Initially there was grep (Global Regular Expression Print), which used what are now called Basic Regular Expressions (BREs). Later there was egrep (Extended grep ) which used what are now called Extended Regular Expressions (EREs). (These are almost identical to those available in awk ; see Regular Expressions ). There was also fgrep (Fast grep ), which searched for matches of one more fixed strings.

POSIX chose to combine these three programs into one, simply named grep . On a POSIX system, grep ’s default behavior is to search using BREs. You use -E to specify the use of EREs, and -F to specify searching for fixed strings.

In practice, systems continue to come with separate egrep and fgrep utilities, for backwards compatibility. This section provides an awk implementation of egrep , which supports all of the POSIX-mandated options. You invoke it as follows:

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:

Print a count of the lines that matched the pattern, instead of the lines themselves.

Use pattern as the regexp to match. The purpose of the -e option is to allow patterns that start with a ‘ - ’.

Ignore case distinctions in both the pattern and the input data.

Only print (list) the names of the files that matched, not the lines that matched.

Be quiet. No output is produced and the exit value indicates whether the pattern was matched.

Be silent. Do not print error messages for files that could not be opened.

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.

Match the entire input line in order to consider the match as having succeeded.

This version uses the getopt() library function (see Processing Command-Line Options ) and gawk ’s BEGINFILE and ENDFILE special patterns (see The BEGINFILE and ENDFILE Special Patterns ).

The program begins with descriptive comments 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 predefined variable (see Predefined Variables ):

Note the comment about invocation: Because several of the options overlap with gawk ’s, a -- is needed to tell gawk to stop looking for options.

Next comes the code that handles the egrep -specific behavior. egrep uses the first nonoption on the command line if no pattern is supplied with -e . If the pattern is empty, that means no pattern was supplied, so it’s necessary to print an error message and exit. The awk command-line arguments up to ARGV[Optind] are cleared, so that awk won’t try to process them as files. If no files are specified, the standard input is used, and if multiple files are specified, we make sure to note this so that the file names can precede the matched lines in the output:

The BEGINFILE rule executes when each new file is processed. In this case, it is fairly simple; it initializes a variable fcount to zero. fcount tracks how many lines in the current file matched the pattern.

Here also is where we implement the -s option. We check if ERRNO has been set, and if -s was supplied. In that case, it’s necessary to move on to the next file. Otherwise gawk would exit with an error:

The ENDFILE rule executes 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:

The following rule does most of the work of matching lines. The variable matches is true (non-zero) if the line matched the pattern. If the user specified that the entire line must match (with -x ), the code checks this condition by looking at the values of RSTART and RLENGTH . If those indicate that the match is not over the full line, matches is set to zero (false).

If the user wants lines that did not match, we invert the sense of matches using the ‘ ! ’ operator. We then increment fcount with the value of matches , which is either one or zero, depending upon a successful or unsuccessful match. If the line does not match, the next statement just moves on to the next input line.

We make a number of additional tests, but only if we are not counting lines. First, if the user only wants the 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, optional colon and line number, and the final colon if necessary:

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:

The usage() function prints a usage message in case of invalid options, and then exits:

Next: Splitting a Large File into Pieces , Previous: Searching for Regular Expressions in Files , Up: Reinventing Wheels for Fun and Profit [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.2.3 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:

This information is part of what is provided by gawk ’s PROCINFO array (see Predefined Variables ). However, the id utility provides a more palatable output than just individual numbers.

The POSIX version of id takes several options that give you control over the output’s format, such as printing only real ids, or printing only numbers or only names. Additionally, you can print the information for a specific user, instead of that of the current user.

Here is a version of POSIX id written in awk . It uses the getopt() library function (see Processing Command-Line Options ), the user database library functions (see Reading the User Database ), and the group database library functions (see Reading the Group Database ) from A Library of awk Functions .

The program is moderately straightforward. All the work is done in the BEGIN rule. It starts with explanatory comments, a list of options, and then a usage() function:

The first step is to parse the options using getopt() , and to set various flag variables according to the options given:

The next step is to check that no conflicting options were provided. -G and -r are mutually exclusive. It is also not allowed to provide more than one user name on the command line:

The user and group ID numbers are obtained from PROCINFO for the current user, or from the user and password databases for a user supplied on the command line. In the latter case, real_ids_only is set, since it’s not possible to print information about the effective user and group IDs:

The test in the for loop is worth noting. Any supplementary groups in the PROCINFO array have the indices "group1" through "group N " for some N (i.e., the total number of supplementary groups). However, we don’t know in advance how many of these groups there are.

This loop works by starting at one, concatenating the value with "group" , and then using in to see if that value is in the array (see Referring to an Array Element ). Eventually, i increments 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.

Now, based on the options, we decide what information to print. For -G (print just the group set), we then select whether to print names or numbers. In either case, when done we exit:

Otherwise, for -g (effective group ID only), we check if -r was also provided, in which case we use the real group ID. Then based on -n , we decide whether to print names or numbers. Here too, when done, we exit:

The get_first_field() function extracts the group name from the group database entry for the given group ID.

Similar processing logic applies to -u (effective user ID only), combined with -r and -n :

At this point, we haven’t exited yet, so we print the regular, default output, based either on the current user’s information, or that of the user whose name was provided on the command line. We start with the real user ID:

The print_first_field() function prints the user’s login name from the password file entry, surrounded by parentheses. It is shown soon. Printing the effective user ID is next:

Similar logic applies to the real and effective group IDs:

Finally, we print the group set and the terminating newline:

The get_first_field() function extracts the first field from a password or group file entry for use as a user or group name. Fields are separated by ‘ : ’ characters:

This function is then used by print_first_field() to output the given name surrounded by parentheses:

These two functions simply isolate out some code that is used repeatedly, making the whole program shorter and cleaner. In particular, moving the check for the empty string into get_first_field() saves several lines of code.

Finally, fill_info_for_user() fetches user, group, and group set information for the user named on the command. The code is fairly straightforward, merely requiring that we exit if the given user doesn’t exist:

Getting the group set is a little awkward. The library routine getgruser() returns a list of group names . These have to be gone through and turned back into group numbers, so that the rest of the code will work as expected:

Next: Duplicating Output into Multiple Files , Previous: Printing Out User Information , Up: Reinventing Wheels for Fun and Profit [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.2.4 Splitting a Large File into Pieces ¶

The split utility splits large text files into smaller pieces. The usage follows the POSIX standard for split and is as follows:

By default, the output files are named xaa , xab , and so on. Each file has 1,000 lines in it, with the likely exception of the last file.

The split program has evolved over time, and the current POSIX version is more complicated than the original Unix version. The options and what they do are as follows:

Use suffix-len characters for the suffix. For example, if suffix-len is four, the output files would range from xaaaa to xzzzz .

Instead of each file containing a specified number of lines, each file should have (at most) N bytes. Supplying a trailing ‘ k ’ multiplies N by 1,024, yielding kilobytes. Supplying a trailing ‘ m ’ multiplies N by 1,048,576 ( 1,024 * 1,024 ) yielding megabytes. (This option is mutually exclusive with -l ).

Each file should have at most count lines, instead of the default 1,000. (This option is mutually exclusive with -b ).

If supplied, file is the input file to read. Otherwise standard input is processed. If supplied, outname is the leading prefix to use for file names, instead of ‘ x ’.

In order to use the -b option, gawk should be invoked with its -b option (see Command-Line Options ), or with the environment variable LC_ALL set to ‘ C ’, so that each input byte is treated as a separate character. 78

Here is an implementation of split in awk . It uses the getopt() function presented in Processing Command-Line Options .

The program begins with a standard descriptive comment and then a usage() function describing the options. The variable common keeps the function’s lines short so that they look nice on the page:

Next, in a BEGIN rule we set the default values and parse the arguments. After that we initialize the data structures used to cycle the suffix from ‘ aa… ’ to ‘ zz… ’. Finally we set the name of the first output file:

Parsing the arguments is straightforward. The program follows our convention (see Naming Library Function Global Variables ) of having important global variables start with an uppercase letter:

Managing the file name suffix is interesting. Given a suffix of length three, say, the values go from ‘ aaa ’, ‘ aab ’, ‘ aac ’ and so on, all the way to ‘ zzx ’, ‘ zzy ’, and finally ‘ zzz ’. There are two important aspects to this:

We have to be able to easily generate these suffixes, and in particular easily handle “rolling over”; for example, going from ‘ abz ’ to ‘ aca ’.
We have to tell when we’ve finished with the last file, so that if we still have more input data we can print an error message and exit. The trick is to handle this after using the last suffix, and not when the final suffix is created.

The computation is handled by compute_suffix() . This function is called every time a new file is opened.

The flow here is messy, because we want to generate ‘ zzzz ’ (say), and use it, and only produce an error after all the file name suffixes have been used up. The logical steps are as follows:

Generate the suffix, saving the value in result to return. To do this, the supplementary array Suffix_ind contains one element for each letter in the suffix. Each element ranges from 1 to 26, acting as the index into a string containing all the lowercase letters of the English alphabet. It is initialized by init_suffix_data() . result is built up one letter at a time, using each substr() .
Prepare the data structures for the next time compute_suffix() is called. To do this, we loop over Suffix_ind , backwards . If the current element is less than 26, it’s incremented and the loop breaks (‘ abq ’ goes to ‘ abr ’). Otherwise, the element is reset to one and we move down the list (‘ abz ’ to ‘ aca ’). Thus, the Suffix_ind array is always “one step ahead” of the actual file name suffix to be returned.
Check if we’ve gone past the limit of possible file names. If Reached_last is true, print a message and exit. Otherwise, check if Suffix_ind describes a suffix where all the letters are ‘ z ’. If that’s the case we’re about to return the final suffix. If so, we set Reached_last to true so that the next call to compute_suffix() will cause a failure.

Physically, the steps in the function occur in the order 3, 1, 2:

The Suffix_ind array and Reached_last are initialized by init_suffix_data() :

The function on_last_file() returns true if Suffix_ind describes a suffix where all the letters are ‘ z ’ by checking that all the elements in the array are equal to 26:

The actual work of splitting the input file is done by the next two rules. Since splitting by line count and splitting by byte count are mutually exclusive, we simply use two separate rules, one for when Line_count is greater than zero, and another for when Byte_count is greater than zero.

The variable tcount counts how many lines have been processed so far. When it exceeds Line_count , it’s time to close the previous file and switch to a new one:

The rule for handling bytes is more complicated. Since lines most likely vary in length, the Byte_count boundary may be hit in the middle of an input record. In that case, split has to write enough of the first bytes of the input record to finish up Byte_count bytes, close the file, open a new file, and write the rest of the record to the new file. The logic here does all that:

Finally, the END rule cleans up by closing the last output file:

Next: Printing Nonduplicated Lines of Text , Previous: Splitting a Large File into Pieces , Up: Reinventing Wheels for Fun and Profit [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.2.5 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:

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 needed, so it is not copied. tee cannot use ARGV directly, because 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:

The following single rule does all the work. Because 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:

It is also possible to write the loop this way:

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:

Next: Counting Things , Previous: Duplicating Output into Multiple Files , Up: Reinventing Wheels for Fun and Profit [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.2.6 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:

The options for uniq are:

Print only repeated (duplicated) lines.

Print only nonrepeated (unique) lines.

Count lines. This option overrides -d and -u . Both repeated and nonrepeated lines are counted.

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.

Skip n characters before comparing lines. Any fields specified with -f are skipped first.

Data is read from the input file named on the command line, instead of from the standard input.

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 Processing Command-Line Options ) and the join() library function (see Merging an Array into a String ).

The program begins with a usage() function and then a brief outline of the options and their meanings in comments:

The POSIX standard for uniq allows options to start with ‘ + ’ as well as with ‘ - ’. An initial BEGIN rule traverses the arguments changing any leading ‘ + ’ to ‘ - ’ so that the getopt() function can parse the options:

The next BEGIN rule deals with the command-line arguments and options. If no options are supplied, then the default is taken, to print both repeated and nonrepeated lines. The output file, if provided, is assigned to outputfile . Early on, outputfile is initialized to the standard output, /dev/stdout :

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() returns one or zero depending upon the result of a simple string comparison of last and $0 .

Otherwise, things get more complicated. If fields have to be skipped, each line is broken into an array using split() (see String-Manipulation Functions ); the desired fields are then joined back into a line using join() . The joined lines are stored in clast and cline . If no fields are skipped, clast and cline are set to last and $0 , respectively. Finally, if characters are skipped, substr() is used to strip off the leading charcount characters in clast and cline . The two strings are then compared and are_equal() returns the result:

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 , because the two lines are not equal.

If uniq is not counting, and if the lines are equal, count is incremented. Nothing is printed, as 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:

As a side note, this program does not follow our recommended convention of naming global variables with a leading capital letter. Doing that would make the program a little easier to follow.

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11.2.7 Counting Things ¶

The wc (word count) utility counts lines, words, characters and bytes in one or more input files.

Modern Character Sets
A Brief Introduction To Extensions
Code for wc.awk

Next: A Brief Introduction To Extensions , Up: Counting Things [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.2.7.1 Modern Character Sets ¶

In the early days of computing, single bytes were used for storing characters. The most common character sets were ASCII and EBCDIC, which each provided all the English upper- and lowercase letters, the 10 Hindu-Arabic numerals from 0 through 9, and a number of other standard punctuation and control characters.

Today, the most popular character set in use is Unicode (of which ASCII is a pure subset). Unicode provides tens of thousands of unique characters (called code points ) to cover most existing human languages (living and dead) and a number of nonhuman ones as well (such as Klingon and J.R.R. Tolkien’s elvish languages).

To save space in files, Unicode code points are encoded , where each character takes from one to four bytes in the file. UTF-8 is possibly the most popular of such multibyte encodings .

The POSIX standard requires that awk function in terms of characters, not bytes. Thus in gawk , length() , substr() , split() , match() and the other string functions (see String-Manipulation Functions ) all work in terms of characters in the local character set, and not in terms of bytes. (Not all awk implementations do so, though).

There is no standard, built-in way to distinguish characters from bytes in an awk program. For an awk implementation of wc , which needs to make such a distinction, we will have to use an external extension.

Next: Code for wc.awk , Previous: Modern Character Sets , Up: Counting Things [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.2.7.2 A Brief Introduction To Extensions ¶

Loadable extensions are presented in full detail in Writing Extensions for gawk . They provide a way to add functions to gawk which can call out to other facilities written in C or C++.

For the purposes of wc.awk , it’s enough to know that the extension is loaded with the @load directive, and the additional function we will use is called mbs_length() . This function returns the number of bytes in a string, not the number of characters.

The "mbs" extension comes from the gawkextlib project. See The gawkextlib Project for more information.

Previous: A Brief Introduction To Extensions , Up: Counting Things [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.2.7.3 Code for wc.awk ¶

The usage for wc is as follows:

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 as follows:

Count only bytes. Once upon a time, the ‘ c ’ in this option stood for “characters.” But, as explained earlier, bytes and character are no longer synonymous with each other.

Count only lines.

Count only characters.

Count only words. A “word” is a contiguous sequence of nonwhitespace characters, separated by spaces and/or TABs. Luckily, this is the normal way awk separates fields in its input data.

Implementing wc in awk is particularly elegant, because 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 in characters.

This program uses the getopt() library function (see Processing Command-Line Options ) and the file-transition functions (see Noting Data file Boundaries ).

This version has one notable difference from older versions of wc : it always prints the counts in the order lines, words, characters and bytes. Older versions note the order of the -l , -w , and -c options on the command line, and print the counts in that order. POSIX does not mandate this behavior, though.

The BEGIN rule does the argument processing. The variable print_total is true if more than one file is named on the command line:

The beginfile() function is simple; it just resets the counts of lines, words, characters and bytes to zero, and saves the current file name in fname :

The endfile() function adds the current file’s numbers to the running totals of lines, words, and characters. 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:

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. Similarly, it adds the length of the record in bytes, plus one, to bytes . 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:

Finally, the END rule simply prints the totals for all the files:

Next: Summary , Previous: Reinventing Wheels for Fun and Profit , Up: Practical awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.3 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.

Finding Duplicated Words in a Document
An Alarm Clock Program
Transliterating Characters
Printing Mailing Labels
Generating Word-Usage Counts
Removing Duplicates from Unsorted Text
Extracting Programs from Texinfo Source Files
A Simple Stream Editor
An Easy Way to Use Library Functions
Finding Anagrams from a Dictionary
And Now for Something Completely Different

Next: An Alarm Clock Program , Up: A Grab Bag of awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.3.1 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 at the beginning of another, making them very difficult to spot.

This program, dupword.awk , scans through a file one line at a time and looks for adjacent occurrences of the same word. It also saves the last word on a line (in the variable prev ) for comparison with the first word on the next line.

The first two statements make sure that the line is all lowercase, so that, for example, “The” and “the” compare equal to each other. The next statement replaces nonalphanumeric and nonwhitespace characters with spaces, so that punctuation does not affect the comparison either. The characters are replaced with spaces so that formatting controls don’t create nonsense words (e.g., the Texinfo ‘ @code{NF} ’ becomes ‘ codeNF ’ if punctuation is simply deleted). The record is then resplit into fields, yielding just the actual words on the line, and ensuring that there are no empty fields.

If there are no fields left after removing all the punctuation, the current record is skipped. Otherwise, the program loops through each word, comparing it to the previous one:

Next: Transliterating Characters , Previous: Finding Duplicated Words in a Document , Up: A Grab Bag of awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.3.2 An Alarm Clock Program ¶

Nothing cures insomnia like a ringing alarm clock.

Sleep is for web developers.

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 getlocaltime() function from Managing the Time of Day .

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.) Just for a change, this program uses a switch statement (see The switch Statement ), but the processing could be done with a series of if - else statements instead. Here is the program:

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:

Finally, the program uses the system() function (see Input/Output Functions ) to call the sleep utility. The sleep utility simply pauses for the given number of seconds. If the exit status is not zero, the program assumes that sleep was interrupted and exits. If sleep exited with an OK status (zero), then the program prints the message in a loop, again using sleep to delay for however many seconds are necessary:

Next: Printing Mailing Labels , Previous: An Alarm Clock Program , Up: A Grab Bag of awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.3.3 Transliterating Characters ¶

The system tr utility transliterates characters. For example, it is often used to map uppercase letters into lowercase for further processing:

tr requires two lists of characters. 79 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.

Once upon a time, a user proposed adding a transliteration function 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 was written long before gawk acquired the ability to split each character in a string into separate array elements. Thus, it makes repeated use of the substr() , index() , and gsub() built-in functions (see String-Manipulation Functions ). There are two functions. The first, stranslate() , takes three arguments:

A list of characters from which to translate

A list of characters to which to translate

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 , it is replaced with the corresponding to character.

The translate() function 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:

It is possible to do character transliteration in a user-level function, but it is not necessarily efficient, and we (the gawk developers) started to consider adding a built-in function. However, shortly after writing this program, we learned that Brian Kernighan had added the toupper() and tolower() functions to his awk (see String-Manipulation Functions ). These functions handle the vast majority of the cases where character transliteration is necessary, and so we chose to simply add those functions to gawk as well and then leave well enough alone.

An obvious improvement to this program would be to set up the t_ar array only once, in a BEGIN rule. However, this assumes that the “from” and “to” lists will never change throughout the lifetime of the program.

Another obvious improvement is to enable the use of ranges, such as ‘ a-z ’, as allowed by the tr utility. Look at the code for cut.awk (see Cutting Out Fields and Columns ) for inspiration.

Next: Generating Word-Usage Counts , Previous: Transliterating Characters , Up: A Grab Bag of awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.3.4 Printing Mailing Labels ¶

Here is a “real-world” 80 program. This script reads lists of names and addresses and generates mailing labels. Each page of labels has 20 labels on it, two across and 10 down. The addresses are guaranteed to be no more than five lines of data. Each address is separated from the next by a blank line.

The basic idea is to read 20 labels’ worth of data. Each line of each label is stored in the line array. The single rule takes care of filling the line array and printing the page when 20 labels have been read.

The BEGIN rule simply sets RS to the empty string, so that awk splits records at blank lines (see How Input Is Split into Records ). It sets MAXLINES to 100, because 100 is the maximum number of lines on the page (20 * 5 = 100).

Most of the work is done in the printpage() function. The label lines are stored sequentially in the line array. But they have to print horizontally: line[1] next to line[6] , line[2] next to line[7] , and so on. Two loops 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:

The printf format string ‘ %-41s ’ left-aligns the data and prints it within a fixed-width field.

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 two blank lines at the top and two 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:

Next: Removing Duplicates from Unsorted Text , Previous: Printing Mailing Labels , Up: A Grab Bag of awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.3.5 Generating Word-Usage Counts ¶

When working with large amounts of text, it can be interesting to know how often different words appear. For example, an author may overuse certain words, in which case he or she might wish to find synonyms to substitute for words that appear too often. This subsection develops a program for counting words and presenting the frequency information in a useful format.

At first glance, a program like this would seem to do the job:

The program relies on awk ’s default field-splitting mechanism to break each line up into “words” and uses an associative array named freq , indexed by each word, to count the number of times the word occurs. In the END rule, it prints the counts.

This program has several problems that prevent it from being useful on real text files:

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, because words are capitalized if they begin sentences in normal text, and a frequency analyzer should not be sensitive to capitalization.
Words are detected using the awk convention that fields are separated just by whitespace. Other characters in the input (except newlines) don’t have any special meaning to awk . This means that punctuation characters count as part of words.
The 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 first problem can be solved by using tolower() to remove case distinctions. The second problem can be solved by using gsub() to remove punctuation characters. Finally, we solve the third problem by using the system sort utility to process the output of the awk script. Here is the new version of the program:

The regexp /[^[:alnum:]_[:blank:]]/ might have been written /[[:punct:]]/ , but then underscores would also be removed, and we want to keep them.

Assuming we have saved this program in a file named wordfreq.awk , and that the data is in file1 , the following pipeline:

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 screen.

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:

This way of sorting must be used on systems that do not have true pipes at the command-line (or batch-file) level. See the general operating system documentation for more information on how to use the sort program.

Next: Extracting Programs from Texinfo Source Files , Previous: Generating Word-Usage Counts , Up: A Grab Bag of awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.3.6 Removing Duplicates from Unsorted Text ¶

The uniq program (see Printing Nonduplicated Lines of Text ) 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:

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:

This works because data[$0] is incremented each time a line is seen.

Rick van Rein offers the following one-liner to do the same job of removing duplicates from unsorted text:

This can be simplified even further, at the risk of becoming almost too obscure:

This version uses the expression as a pattern, relying on awk ’s default action of printing the line when the pattern is true.

Next: A Simple Stream Editor , Previous: Removing Duplicates from Unsorted Text , Up: A Grab Bag of awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.3.7 Extracting Programs from Texinfo Source Files ¶

Both this chapter and the previous chapter ( A Library of awk Functions ) present a large number of awk programs. If you want to experiment with these programs, it is tedious to type them in by hand. Here we present a program that can extract parts of a Texinfo input file into separate files.

This Web page is written in Texinfo , the GNU Project’s document formatting language. A single Texinfo source file can be used to produce both printed documentation, with TeX, and online documentation. (Texinfo is fully documented in the book Texinfo—The GNU Documentation Format , available from the Free Software Foundation, and also available online .)

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, so 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 Input/Output Functions ). Upon seeing ‘ @c file filename ’, each subsequent line is sent to the file filename , until ‘ @c endfile ’ is encountered. The rules in extract.awk match either ‘ @c ’ or ‘ @comment ’ by letting the ‘ omment ’ part be optional. Lines containing ‘ @group ’ and ‘ @end group ’ are simply removed. extract.awk uses the join() library function (see Merging an Array into a String ).

The example programs in the online Texinfo source for GAWK: Effective AWK Programming ( gawktexi.in ) 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:

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:

The variable e is used so that the rule fits nicely on the screen.

The second rule handles moving data into files. It verifies that a file name is given in the directive. If the file named is not the current file, then the current file is closed. Keeping the current file open until a new file is encountered allows the use of the ‘ > ’ redirection for printing the contents, keeping open-file management simple.

The for loop does the work. It reads lines using getline (see Explicit Input with getline ). For an unexpected end-of-file, it calls the unexpected_eof() function. If the line is an “endfile” line, then it breaks out of the loop. If the line is an ‘ @group ’ or ‘ @end group ’ line, then it ignores it and goes on to the next line. Similarly, comments within examples are also ignored.

Most of the work is in the following few lines. If the line has no ‘ @ ’ symbols, the program can print it directly. Otherwise, each leading ‘ @ ’ must be stripped off. To remove the ‘ @ ’ symbols, the line is split into separate elements of the array a , using the split() function (see String-Manipulation Functions ). The ‘ @ ’ symbol is used as the separator character. Each element of a that is empty indicates two successive ‘ @ ’ symbols in the original line. For each two empty elements (‘ @@ ’ in the original file), we have to add a single ‘ @ ’ symbol back in.

When the processing of the array is finished, join() is called with the value of SUBSEP (see Multidimensional Arrays ), to rejoin the pieces back into a single line. That line is then printed to the output file:

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 Redirecting Output of print and printf ). 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.

When a new file name is encountered, instead of closing the file, the program saves the name of the current file in filelist . This makes it possible to interleave the code for more than one file in the Texinfo input file. (Previous versions of this program did close the file. But because of the ‘ > ’ redirection, a file whose parts were not all one after the other ended up getting clobbered.) An END rule then closes all the open files when processing is finished:

Finally, the function unexpected_eof() prints an appropriate error message and then exits:

Next: An Easy Way to Use Library Functions , Previous: Extracting Programs from Texinfo Source Files , Up: A Grab Bag of awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.3.8 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. Although sed is a complicated program in its own right, its most common use is to perform global substitutions in the middle of a pipeline:

Here, ‘ s/old/new/g ’ tells sed to look for the regexp ‘ old ’ on each input line and globally replace it with the text ‘ new ’ (i.e., all the occurrences on a line). This is similar to awk ’s gsub() function (see String-Manipulation Functions ).

The following program, awksed.awk , accepts at least two command-line arguments: the pattern to look for and the text to replace it with. Any additional arguments are treated as data file names to process. If none are provided, the standard input is used:

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 How Input Is Split into Records ).

The idea is to have RS be the pattern to look for. gawk automatically sets $0 to the text between matches of the pattern. This is text that we want to keep, unmodified. Then, by setting ORS to the replacement text, a simple print statement outputs the text we want to keep, followed by the replacement text.

There is one wrinkle to this scheme, which is what to do if the last record doesn’t end with text that matches RS . Using a print statement unconditionally prints the replacement text, which is not correct. However, if the file did not end in text that matches RS , RT is set to the null string. In this case, we can print $0 using printf (see Using printf Statements for Fancier Printing ).

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 Using ARGC and ARGV ).

The usage() function prints an error message and exits. Finally, the single rule handles the printing scheme outlined earlier, using print or printf as appropriate, depending upon the value of RT .

Next: Finding Anagrams from a Dictionary , Previous: A Simple Stream Editor , Up: A Grab Bag of awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.3.9 An Easy Way to Use Library Functions ¶

In Including Other Files into Your Program , we saw how gawk provides a built-in file-inclusion capability. However, this is a gawk extension. This section provides the motivation for making file inclusion available for standard awk , and shows how to do it using a combination of shell and awk programming.

Using library functions in awk can be very beneficial. It encourages code reuse and the writing of general functions. Programs are smaller and therefore clearer. However, using library functions is only easy when writing awk programs; it is painful when running them, requiring multiple -f options. If gawk is unavailable, then so too is the AWKPATH environment variable and the ability to put awk functions into a library directory (see Command-Line Options ). It would be nice to be able to write programs in the following manner:

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. 81 It works as follows:

Loop through the arguments, saving anything that doesn’t represent awk source code for later, when the expanded program is run.
Literal text, provided with -e or --source . This text is just appended directly.
Source file names, provided with -f . We use a neat trick and append ‘ @include filename ’ to the shell variable’s contents. Because the file-inclusion program works the way gawk does, this gets the text of the file included in the program at the correct point.
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.
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 and the text of the awk program that will expand the user’s program, for the user’s original program, and for the expanded program. Doing so removes some potential problems that might arise were we to use temporary files instead, at the cost of making the script somewhat more complicated.

The initial part of the program turns on shell tracing if the first argument is ‘ debug ’.

The next part loops through all the command-line arguments. There are several cases of interest:

This ends the arguments to igawk . Anything else should be passed on to the user’s awk program without being evaluated.

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 .)

These are saved and passed on to gawk .

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.)

The source text is appended to program .

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, the shell variable program contains the complete text of the original awk program.

The program is as follows:

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 Explicit Input with getline ). The input file names and @include statements are managed using a stack. As each @include is encountered, the current file name is “pushed” onto the stack and the file named in the @include directive becomes the current file name. As each file is finished, the stack is “popped,” and the previous input file becomes the current input file again. The process is started by making the original file the first one on the stack.

The pathto() function does the work of finding the full path to a file. It simulates gawk ’s behavior when searching the AWKPATH environment variable (see The AWKPATH Environment Variable ). If a file name has a ‘ / ’ in it, no path search is done. Similarly, if the file name is "-" , then that string is used as-is. 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. 82 If the file can be read, it is closed and the file name is returned:

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:

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 the program prints an error message and continues.

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:

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 inside the parentheses is substituted into the command line. Because the result is used in a variable assignment, 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:

Run gawk with the @include -processing program (the value of the expand_prog shell variable) reading standard input.
Standard input is the contents of the user’s program, from the shell variable program . Feed its contents to gawk via a here document.
Save the results of this processing 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:

The eval command is a shell construct that reruns the shell’s parsing process. This keeps things properly quoted.

This version of igawk represents the fifth version of this program. There are four key simplifications that make the program work better:

Using @include even for the files named with -f makes building the initial collected awk program much simpler; all the @include processing can be done once.
Not trying to save the line read with getline in the pathto() function when testing for the file’s accessibility for use with the main program simplifies things considerably.
Using a getline loop in the BEGIN rule does it all in one place. It is not necessary to call out to a separate loop for processing nested @include statements.
Instead of saving the expanded program in a temporary file, putting it in a shell variable avoids some potential security problems. This has the disadvantage that the script relies upon more features of the sh language, making it harder to follow for those who aren’t familiar with sh .

Also, this program illustrates that it is often worthwhile to combine sh and awk programming together. You can usually accomplish quite a lot, without having to resort to low-level programming in C or C++, and it is frequently easier to do certain kinds of string and argument manipulation using the shell than it is in awk .

Finally, igawk shows that it is not always necessary to add new features to a program; they can often be layered on top. 83

Before gawk acquired its built-in @include mechanism, igawk and its manual page were installed as part of the regular gawk installation (‘ make install ’). This is no longer done, because it’s no longer necessary. But we’ve kept the program in this Web page for its educational value.

Next: And Now for Something Completely Different , Previous: An Easy Way to Use Library Functions , Up: A Grab Bag of awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.3.10 Finding Anagrams from a Dictionary ¶

An interesting programming challenge is to search for anagrams in a word list (such as /usr/share/dict/words on many GNU/Linux systems). One word is an anagram of another if both words contain the same letters (e.g., “babbling” and “blabbing”).

Column 2, Problem C, of Jon Bentley’s Programming Pearls , Second Edition, presents an elegant algorithm. The idea is to give words that are anagrams a common signature, sort all the words together by their signatures, and then print them. Dr. Bentley observes that taking the letters in each word and sorting them produces those common signatures.

The following program uses arrays of arrays to bring together words with the same signature and array sorting to print the words in sorted order:

The program starts with a header, and then a rule to skip possessives in the dictionary file. The next rule builds up the data structure. The first dimension of the array is indexed by the signature; the second dimension is the word itself:

The word2key() function creates the signature. It splits the word apart into individual letters, sorts the letters, and then joins them back together:

Finally, the END rule traverses the array and prints out the anagram lists. It sends the output to the system sort command because otherwise the anagrams would appear in arbitrary order:

Here is some partial output when the program is run:

Previous: Finding Anagrams from a Dictionary , Up: A Grab Bag of awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.3.11 And Now for Something Completely Different ¶

The following program was written by Davide Brini and is published on his website . It serves as his signature in the Usenet group comp.lang.awk . He supplies the following copyright terms:

Copyright © 2008 Davide Brini Copying and distribution of the code published in this page, with or without modification, are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright notice and this notice are preserved.

Here is the program:

We leave it to you to determine what the program does. (If you are truly desperate to understand it, see Chris Johansen’s explanation, which is embedded in the Texinfo source file for this Web page.)

Next: Exercises , Previous: A Grab Bag of awk Programs , Up: Practical awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.4 Summary ¶

The programs provided in this chapter continue on the theme that reading programs is an excellent way to learn Good Programming.
Using ‘ #! ’ to make awk programs directly runnable makes them easier to use. Otherwise, invoke the program using ‘ awk -f … ’.
Reimplementing standard POSIX programs in awk is a pleasant exercise; awk ’s expressive power lets you write such programs in relatively few lines of code, yet they are functionally complete and usable.
One of standard awk ’s weaknesses is working with individual characters. The ability to use split() with the empty string as the separator can considerably simplify such tasks.
The examples here demonstrate the usefulness of the library functions from A Library of awk Functions for a number of real (if small) programs.
Besides reinventing POSIX wheels, other programs solved a selection of interesting problems, such as finding duplicate words in text, printing mailing labels, and finding anagrams.

Previous: Summary , Up: Practical awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

11.5 Exercises ¶

Rewrite cut.awk (see Cutting Out Fields and Columns ) using split() with "" as the separator.
In Searching for Regular Expressions in Files , we mentioned that ‘ egrep -i ’ could be simulated in versions of awk without IGNORECASE by using tolower() on the line and the pattern. In a footnote there, we also mentioned that this solution has a bug: the translated line is output, and not the original one. Fix this problem.
The POSIX version of id takes options that control which information is printed. Modify the awk version (see Printing Out User Information ) to accept the same arguments and perform in the same way.
The split.awk program (see Splitting a Large File into Pieces ) assumes that letters are contiguous in the character set, which isn’t true for EBCDIC systems. Fix this problem. (Hint: Consider a different way to work through the alphabet, without relying on ord() and chr() .)
In uniq.awk (see Printing Nonduplicated Lines of Text , the logic for choosing which lines to print represents a state machine , which is “a device which can be in one of a set number of stable conditions depending on its previous condition and on the present values of its inputs.” 84 Brian Kernighan suggests that “an alternative approach to state machines is to just read the input into an array, then use indexing. It’s almost always easier code, and for most inputs where you would use this, just as fast.” Rewrite the logic to follow this suggestion.
Why can’t the wc.awk program (see Counting Things ) just use the value of FNR in endfile() ? Hint: Examine the code in Noting Data file Boundaries .
Manipulation of individual characters in the translate program (see Transliterating Characters ) is painful using standard awk functions. Given that gawk can split strings into individual characters using "" as the separator, how might you use this feature to simplify the program?
The extract.awk program (see Extracting Programs from Texinfo Source Files ) was written before gawk had the gensub() function. Use it to simplify the code.
Compare the performance of the awksed.awk program (see A Simple Stream Editor ) with the more straightforward: BEGIN { pat = ARGV[1] repl = ARGV[2] ARGV[1] = ARGV[2] = "" } { gsub(pat, repl); print }
What are the advantages and disadvantages of awksed.awk versus the real sed utility?
In An Easy Way to Use Library Functions , we mentioned that 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. What problem does this engender though?

This file contains a set of default library functions, such as getopt() and assert() .

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. Make this change.

Modify anagram.awk (see Finding Anagrams from a Dictionary ), to avoid the use of the external sort utility.

Next: Internationalization with gawk , Previous: Practical awk Programs , Up: General Introduction [ Contents ][ Index ]

Part III: Moving Beyond Standard awk with gawk ¶

Advanced Features of gawk
Internationalization with gawk
Debugging awk Programs
Namespaces in gawk
Arithmetic and Arbitrary-Precision Arithmetic with gawk
Writing Extensions for gawk

12 Advanced Features of gawk ¶

Write documentation as if whoever reads it is a violent psychopath who knows where you live.

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, we look at a command-line option that allows gawk to recognize nondecimal numbers in input data, not just in awk programs. Then, gawk ’s special features for sorting arrays are presented. Next, two-way I/O, discussed briefly in earlier parts of this Web page, is described in full detail, along with the basics of TCP/IP networking. We then see how gawk can profile an awk program, making it possible to tune it for performance. Next, we present an experimental feature that allows you to preserve the values of awk variables and arrays between runs of gawk . Finally, we discuss the philosophy behind gawk ’s extension mechanism.

Additional advanced features are discussed in separate chapters of their own:

Internationalization with gawk , discusses how to internationalize your awk programs, so that they can speak multiple national languages.
Debugging awk Programs , describes gawk ’s built-in command-line debugger for debugging awk programs.
Arithmetic and Arbitrary-Precision Arithmetic with gawk , describes how you can use gawk to perform arbitrary-precision arithmetic.
Writing Extensions for gawk , discusses the ability to dynamically add new built-in functions to gawk .
Allowing Nondecimal Input Data
Boolean Typed Values
Controlling Array Traversal and Array Sorting
Two-Way Communications with Another Process
Using gawk for Network Programming
Profiling Your awk Programs
Preserving Data Between Runs
Builtin Features versus Extensions

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12.1 Allowing Nondecimal Input Data ¶

If you run gawk with the --non-decimal-data option, you can have nondecimal values in your input data:

For this feature to work, write your program so that gawk treats your data as numeric:

The print statement treats its expressions as strings. Although the fields can act as numbers when necessary, they are still strings, so print does not try to treat them numerically. You need to add zero to a field to force it to be treated as a number. For example:

Because it is common to have decimal data with leading zeros, and because using this facility could lead to surprising results, the default is to leave it 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 String-Manipulation Functions ). This makes your programs easier to write and easier to read, and leads to less surprising results. This option may disappear in a future version of gawk .

Next: Controlling Array Traversal and Array Sorting , Previous: Allowing Nondecimal Input Data , Up: Advanced Features of gawk [ Contents ][ Index ]

12.2 Boolean Typed Values ¶

Scalar values in awk are either numbers or strings. gawk also supports values of type regexp (see Strongly Typed Regexp Constants ).

As described in True and False in awk , Boolean values in awk don’t have a separate type: a value counts as “true” if it is nonzero or non-null, and as “false” otherwise.

When interchanging data with languages that do have a real Boolean type, using a standard format such as JSON or XML, the lack of a true Boolean type in awk is problematic. (See, for example, the json extension provided by the gawkextlib project .)

It’s easy to import Boolean data into awk , but then the fact that it was originally Boolean is lost. Exporting data is even harder; there’s no way to indicate that a value is really Boolean.

To solve this problem, gawk provides a function named mkbool() . It takes one argument, which is any awk expression, and it returns a value of Boolean type.

The returned values are normal awk numeric values, with values of either one or zero, depending upon the truth value of the original expression passed in the call to mkbool() .

The typeof() function (see Getting Type Information ) returns "number|bool" for these values.

Thus Boolean-typed values are numbers as far as gawk is concerned, except that extension code can treat them as Booleans if desired.

While it would have been possible to add two new built-in variables of Boolean type named TRUE and FALSE , doing so would undoubtedly have broken many existing awk programs. Instead, having a “generator” function that creates Boolean values gives flexibility, without breaking as much existing code.

Next: Two-Way Communications with Another Process , Previous: Boolean Typed Values , Up: Advanced Features of gawk [ Contents ][ Index ]

12.3 Controlling Array Traversal and Array Sorting ¶

gawk lets you control the order in which a ‘ for ( indx in array ) ’ loop traverses an array.

In addition, two built-in functions, asort() and asorti() , let you sort arrays based on the array values and indices, respectively. These two functions also provide control over the sorting criteria used to order the elements during sorting.

Controlling Array Traversal
Sorting Array Values and Indices with gawk

Next: Sorting Array Values and Indices with gawk , Up: Controlling Array Traversal and Array Sorting [ Contents ][ Index ]

12.3.1 Controlling Array Traversal ¶

By default, the order in which a ‘ for ( indx in array ) ’ loop scans an array is not defined; it is generally based upon the internal implementation of arrays inside awk .

Often, though, it is desirable to be able to loop over the elements in a particular order that you, the programmer, choose. gawk lets you do this.

Using Predefined Array Scanning Orders with gawk describes how you can assign special, predefined values to PROCINFO["sorted_in"] in order to control the order in which gawk traverses an array during a for loop.

In addition, the value of PROCINFO["sorted_in"] can be a function name. 85 This lets you traverse an array based on any custom criterion. The array elements are ordered according to the return value of this function. The comparison function should be defined with at least four arguments:

Here, i1 and i2 are the indices, and v1 and v2 are the corresponding values of the two elements being compared. Either v1 or v2 , or both, can be arrays if the array being traversed contains subarrays as values. (See Arrays of Arrays for more information about subarrays.) The three possible return values are interpreted as follows:

Index i1 comes before index i2 during loop traversal.

Indices i1 and i2 come together, but the relative order with respect to each other is undefined.

Index i1 comes after index i2 during loop traversal.

Our first comparison function can be used to scan an array in numerical order of the indices:

Our second function traverses an array based on the string order of the element values rather than by indices:

The third comparison function makes all numbers, and numeric strings without any leading or trailing spaces, come out first during loop traversal:

Here is a main program to demonstrate how gawk behaves using each of the previous functions:

Here are the results when the program is run:

Consider sorting the entries of a GNU/Linux system password file according to login name. The following program sorts records by a specific field position and can be used for this purpose:

The first field in each entry of the password file is the user’s login name, and the fields are separated by colons. Each record defines a subarray, with each field as an element in the subarray. Running the program produces the following output:

The comparison should normally always return the same value when given a specific pair of array elements as its arguments. If inconsistent results are returned, then the order is undefined. This behavior can be exploited to introduce random order into otherwise seemingly ordered data:

As already mentioned, the order of the indices is arbitrary if two elements compare equal. This is usually not a problem, but letting the tied elements come out in arbitrary order can be an issue, especially when comparing item values. The partial ordering of the equal elements may change the next time the array is traversed, if other elements are added to or removed from the array. One way to resolve ties when comparing elements with otherwise equal values is to include the indices in the comparison rules. Note that doing this may make the loop traversal less efficient, so consider it only if necessary. The following comparison functions force a deterministic order, and are based on the fact that the (string) indices of two elements are never equal:

A custom comparison function can often simplify ordered loop traversal, and the sky is really the limit when it comes to designing such a function.

When string comparisons are made during a sort, either for element values where one or both aren’t numbers, or for element indices handled as strings, the value of IGNORECASE (see Predefined Variables ) controls whether the comparisons treat corresponding upper- and lowercase letters as equivalent or distinct.

Another point to keep in mind is that in the case of subarrays, the element values can themselves be arrays; a production comparison function should use the isarray() function (see Getting Type Information ) to check for this, and choose a defined sorting order for subarrays.

All sorting based on PROCINFO["sorted_in"] is disabled in POSIX mode, because the PROCINFO array is not special in that case.

As a side note, sorting the array indices before traversing the array has been reported to add a 15% to 20% overhead to the execution time of awk programs. For this reason, sorted array traversal is not the default.

Previous: Controlling Array Traversal , Up: Controlling Array Traversal and Array Sorting [ Contents ][ Index ]

12.3.2 Sorting Array Values and Indices with gawk ¶

In most awk implementations, sorting an array requires writing a sort() function. This can be educational for exploring different sorting algorithms, but usually that’s not the point of the program. gawk provides the built-in asort() and asorti() functions (see String-Manipulation Functions ) for sorting arrays. For example:

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 default comparison is based on the type of the elements (see Variable Typing and Comparison Expressions ). All numeric values come before all string values, which in turn come before all subarrays.

An important side effect of calling asort() is that the array’s original indices are irrevocably lost . As this isn’t always desirable, asort() accepts a second argument:

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, use the asorti() function. The interface and behavior are identical to that of asort() , except that the index values are used for sorting and become the values of the result array:

So far, so good. Now it starts to get interesting. Both asort() and asorti() accept a third string argument to control comparison of array elements. When we introduced asort() and asorti() in String-Manipulation Functions , we ignored this third argument; however, now is the time to describe how this argument affects these two functions.

Basically, the third argument specifies how the array is to be sorted. There are two possibilities. As with PROCINFO["sorted_in"] , this argument may be one of the predefined names that gawk provides (see Using Predefined Array Scanning Orders with gawk ), or it may be the name of a user-defined function (see Controlling Array Traversal ).

In the latter case, the function can compare elements in any way it chooses , taking into account just the indices, just the values, or both. This is extremely powerful.

Once the array is sorted, asort() takes the values in their final order and uses them to fill in the result array, whereas asorti() takes the indices in their final order and uses them to fill in the result array.

NOTE: 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.

You may use the same array for both the first and second arguments to asort() and asorti() . Doing so only makes sense if you are also supplying the third argument, since awk doesn’t provide a way to pass that third argument without also passing the first and second ones.

Because IGNORECASE affects string comparisons, the value of IGNORECASE also affects sorting for both asort() and asorti() . Note also that the locale’s sorting order does not come into play; comparisons are based on character values only. 86

The following example demonstrates the use of a comparison function with asort() . The comparison function, case_fold_compare() , maps both values to lowercase in order to compare them ignoring case.

And here is the test program for it:

NOTE: “Under the hood,” gawk uses the C library qsort() function to manage the sorting. qsort() can call itself recursively. This means that when you write a comparison function, you should be careful to avoid the use of global variables and arrays; use only local variables and arrays that you declare as additional parameters to the comparison function. Otherwise, you are likely to cause unintentional memory corruption in your global arrays and possibly cause gawk itself to fail.

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12.4 Two-Way Communications with Another Process ¶

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:

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. 87

However, with gawk , it is possible to open a two-way pipe to another process. The second process is termed a coprocess , as it runs in parallel with gawk . The two-way connection is created using the ‘ |& ’ operator (borrowed from the Korn shell, ksh ): 88

The first time an I/O operation is executed using the ‘ |& ’ operator, gawk creates a two-way pipeline to a child process that runs the other program. Output created with print or printf is written to the program’s standard input, and output from the program’s standard output can be read by the gawk program using getline . As is the case with processes started by ‘ | ’, the subprogram can be any program, or pipeline of programs, that can be started by the shell.

There are some cautionary items to be aware of:

As the code inside gawk currently stands, the coprocess’s standard error goes to the same place that the parent gawk ’s standard error goes. It is not possible to read the child’s standard error separately.
I/O buffering may be a problem. gawk automatically flushes all output down the pipe to the coprocess. 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 Closing Input and Output Redirections ). These strings tell gawk to close the end of the pipe that sends data to the coprocess or the end that reads from it, respectively.

This is particularly necessary in order to use the system sort utility as part of a coprocess; sort must read all of its input data before it can produce any output. The sort program does not receive an end-of-file indication until gawk closes the write end of the pipe.

When you have finished writing data to the sort utility, you can close the "to" end of the pipe, and then start reading sorted data via getline . For example:

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 . This is not strictly necessary here, but it’s good to know how to do this.

Be careful when closing the "from" end of a two-way pipe; in this case gawk waits for the child process to exit, which may cause your program to hang. (Thus, this particular feature is of much less use in practice than being able to close the "to" end.)

CAUTION: Normally, it is a fatal error to write to the "to" end of a two-way pipe which has been closed, and it is also a fatal error to read from the "from" end of a two-way pipe that has been closed. You may set PROCINFO[" command ", "NONFATAL"] to make such operations become nonfatal. If you do so, you then need to check ERRNO after each print , printf , or getline . See Enabling Nonfatal Output , for more information.

You may also 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 Built-in Variables That Convey Information ), like so:

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.

Using ptys usually avoids the buffer deadlock issues described earlier, at some loss in performance. This is because the tty driver buffers and sends data line-by-line. On systems with the stdbuf (part of the GNU Coreutils package ), you can use that program instead of ptys.

Note also that ptys are not fully transparent. Certain binary control codes, such Ctrl-d for end-of-file, are interpreted by the tty driver and not passed through.

CAUTION: Finally, coprocesses open up the possibility of deadlock between gawk and the program running in the coprocess. This can occur if you send “too much” data to the coprocess before reading any back; each process is blocked writing data with no one available to read what they’ve already written. There is no workaround for deadlock; careful programming and knowledge of the behavior of the coprocess are required.

The following example, due to Andrew Schorr, demonstrates how using ptys can help deal with buffering deadlocks.

Suppose gawk were unable to add numbers. You could use a coprocess to do it. Here’s an exceedingly simple program written for that purpose:

You could then write an exceedingly simple gawk program to add numbers by passing them to the coprocess:

And it would deadlock, because add.c fails to call ‘ setlinebuf(stdout) ’. The add program freezes.

Now try instead:

By using a pty, gawk fools the standard I/O library into thinking it has an interactive session, so it defaults to line buffering. And now, magically, it works!

Next: Profiling Your awk Programs , Previous: Two-Way Communications with Another Process , Up: Advanced Features of gawk [ Contents ][ Index ]

12.5 Using gawk for Network Programming ¶

EMRED : A host is a host from coast to coast, and nobody talks to a host that’s close, unless the host that isn’t close is busy, hung, or dead.

In addition to being able to open a two-way pipeline to a coprocess on the same system (see Two-Way Communications with Another Process ), it is possible to make a two-way connection to another process on another system across an IP network 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 one of ‘ /inet/ ’, ‘ /inet4/ ’, or ‘ /inet6/ ’.

The full syntax of the special file name is / net-type / protocol / local-port / remote-host / remote-port . The components are:

Specifies the kind of Internet connection to make. Use ‘ /inet4/ ’ to force IPv4, and ‘ /inet6/ ’ to force IPv6. Plain ‘ /inet/ ’ (which used to be the only option) uses the system default, most likely IPv4.

The protocol to use over IP. This must be either ‘ tcp ’, or ‘ udp ’, for a TCP or UDP IP connection, respectively. TCP should be used for most applications.

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 getaddrinfo() function.

The IP address or fully qualified domain name of the Internet host to which you want to connect.

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.

NOTE: Failure in opening a two-way socket will result in a nonfatal error being returned to the calling code. The value of ERRNO indicates the error (see Built-in Variables That Convey Information ).

Consider the following very simple example:

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.

NOTE: gawk can only open direct sockets. There is currently no way to access services available over Secure Socket Layer (SSL); this includes any web service whose URL starts with ‘ https:// ’.

Next: Preserving Data Between Runs , Previous: Using gawk for Network Programming , Up: Advanced Features of gawk [ Contents ][ Index ]

12.6 Profiling Your awk Programs ¶

You may produce execution traces of your awk programs. This is done by passing the option --profile to gawk . When gawk 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 gawk will write the profile:

In the preceding example, gawk places the profile in myprog.prof instead of in awkprof.out .

Here is a sample session showing a simple awk program, its input data, and the results from running gawk with the --profile option. First, the awk program:

Following is the input data:

Here is the awkprof.out that results from running the gawk profiler on this program and data (this example also illustrates that awk programmers sometimes get up very early in the morning to work):

This example illustrates many of the basic features of profiling output. They are as follows:

The program is printed in the order BEGIN rules, BEGINFILE rules, pattern–action rules, ENDFILE rules, END rules, and functions, listed alphabetically. Multiple BEGIN and END rules retain their separate identities, as do multiple BEGINFILE and ENDFILE rules.
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 and five, then multiply the total by four. However, ‘ 3 + 5 * 4 ’ has no parentheses, and means ‘ 3 + (5 * 4) ’. However, explicit parentheses in the source program are retained.
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.
gawk supplies leading comments in front of the BEGIN and END rules, the BEGINFILE and ENDFILE rules, the pattern–action rules, and the functions.
Functions are listed alphabetically. All functions in the awk namespace are listed first, in alphabetical order. Then come the functions in namespaces. The namespaces are listed in alphabetical order, and the functions within each namespace are listed alphabetically.

The profiled version of your program may not look exactly like what you typed when you wrote it. This is because gawk creates the profiled version by “pretty-printing” its internal representation of the program. The advantage to this is that gawk can produce a standard representation. Also, things such as:

come out as:

which is correct, but possibly unexpected. (If a program uses both ‘ print $0 ’ and plain ‘ print ’, that distinction is retained.)

Besides creating profiles when a program has completed, gawk 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 gawk with the --profile option in the background:

The shell prints a job number and process ID number; in this case, 13992. Use the kill command to send the USR1 signal to gawk :

As usual, the profiled version of the program is written to awkprof.out , or to a different file if one was specified with the --profile option.

Along with the regular profile, as shown earlier, the profile file includes a trace of any active functions:

You may send gawk 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, gawk produces the profile and the function call trace and then exits.

When gawk runs on MS-Windows systems, it uses the INT and QUIT signals for producing the profile, and in the case of the INT signal, gawk exits. This is because these systems don’t support the kill command, so the only signals you can deliver to a program are those generated by the keyboard. The INT signal is generated by the Ctrl-c or Ctrl-BREAK key, while the QUIT signal is generated by the Ctrl-\ key.

Finally, gawk also accepts another option, --pretty-print . When called this way, gawk “pretty-prints” the program into awkprof.out , without any execution counts.

NOTE: Once upon a time, the --pretty-print option would also run your program. This is no longer the case.

There is a significant difference between the output created when profiling, and that created when pretty-printing. Pretty-printed output preserves the original comments that were in the program, although their placement may not correspond exactly to their original locations in the source code. However, no comments should be lost. Also, gawk does the best it can to preserve the distinction between comments at the end of a statement and comments on lines by themselves. This isn’t always perfect, though.

However, as a deliberate design decision, profiling output omits the original program’s comments. This allows you to focus on the execution count data and helps you avoid the temptation to use the profiler for pretty-printing.

Additionally, pretty-printed output does not have the leading indentation that the profiling output does. This makes it easy to pretty-print your code once development is completed, and then use the result as the final version of your program.

Because the internal representation of your program is formatted to recreate an awk program, profiling and pretty-printing automatically disable gawk ’s default optimizations.

Profiling and pretty-printing also preserve the original format of numeric constants; if you used an octal or hexadecimal value in your source code, it will appear that way in the output.

Next: Builtin Features versus Extensions , Previous: Profiling Your awk Programs , Up: Advanced Features of gawk [ Contents ][ Index ]

12.7 Preserving Data Between Runs ¶

Starting with version 5.2, gawk supports persistent memory . This experimental feature stores the values of all of gawk ’s variables, arrays and user-defined functions in a persistent heap, which resides in a file in the filesystem. When persistent memory is not in use (the normal case), gawk ’s data resides in ephemeral system memory.

Persistent memory is enabled on certain 64-bit systems supporting the mmap() and munmap() system calls. gawk must be compiled as a non-PIE (Position Independent Executable) binary, since the persistent store ends up holding pointers to functions held within the gawk executable. This also means that to use the persistent memory, you must use the same gawk executable from run to run.

You can see if your version of gawk supports persistent memory like so:

If you see the ‘ PMA ’ with a version indicator, then it’s supported.

As of this writing, persistent memory has only been tested on GNU/Linux, Cygwin, Solaris 2.11, Intel architecture macOS systems, FreeBSD 13.1 and OpenBSD 7.1. On all others, persistent memory is disabled by default. You can force it to be enabled by exporting the shell variable REALLY_USE_PERSIST_MALLOC with a nonempty value before running configure (see Compiling gawk for Unix-Like Systems ). If you do so and all the tests pass, please let the maintainer know.

To use persistent memory, follow these steps:

Create a new, empty sparse file of the desired size. For example, four gigabytes. On a GNU/Linux system, you can use the truncate utility: $ truncate -s 4G data.pma
It is recommended (but not required) to change the permissions on the file so that only the owner can read and write it: $ chmod 0600 data.pma
Provide the path to the data file in the GAWK_PERSIST_FILE environment variable. This is best done by placing the value in the environment just for the run of gawk , like so: $ GAWK_PERSIST_FILE=data.pma gawk 'BEGIN { print ++i }' 1

As shown, in subsequent runs using the same data file, the values of gawk ’s variables are preserved. However, gawk ’s special variables, such as NR , are reset upon each run. Only the variables defined by the program are preserved across runs.

Interestingly, the program that you execute need not be the same from run to run; the persistent store only maintains the values of variables, arrays, and user-defined functions, not the totality of gawk ’s internal state. This lets you share data between unrelated programs, eliminating the need for scripts to communicate via text files.

Terence Kelly, the author of the persistent memory allocator gawk uses, provides the following advice about the backing file:

Regarding backing file size, I recommend making it far larger than all of the data that will ever reside in it, assuming that the file system supports sparse files. The “pay only for what you use” aspect of sparse files ensures that the actual storage resource footprint of the backing file will meet the application’s needs but will be as small as possible. If the file system does not support sparse files, there’s a dilemma: Making the backing file too large is wasteful, but making it too small risks memory exhaustion, i.e., pma_malloc() returns NULL . But persistent gawk should still work even without sparse files.

You can disable the use of the persistent memory allocator in gawk with the --disable-pma option to the configure command at the time that you build gawk (see Compiling and Installing gawk on Unix-Like Systems ).

You can set the PMA_VERBOSITY environment variable to a value between zero and three to control how much debugging and error information the persistent memory allocator will print. gawk sets the default to one. See the support/pma.c source code to understand what the different verbosity levels are.

There are a few constraints on the use of persistent memory:

Mixing and matching MPFR mode and regular mode with the same backing file is not allowed. gawk detects such a situation and issues a fatal error message.

The GNU/Linux CIFS filesystem is known to not work well with the PMA allocator. Don’t use a backing file on a CIFS filesystem.
If gawk is run by the root user, then persistent memory is not allowed. This is to avoid the possibility of private data “leaking” into the backing file and being recovered later by an attacker.
Over time, the backing file will be filled with memory “leaked” by gawk as it runs. Most notably this is the memory used to compile your program into an internal form before running it, which happens each time, but there are other leakages as well. (For an extreme example of this, see this thread in the “bug-gawk at gnu.org” mailing list archives.) It is up to you to use ‘ du -sh pmafile ’ occasionally to monitor how full the file is, and arrange to dump any data you may need before the backing file becomes full.

Terence Kelly has provided a separate Persistent-Memory gawk User Manual document, which is included in the gawk distribution. It is worth reading.

Here are additional articles and web links that provide more information about persistent memory and why it’s useful in a scripting language like gawk .

This is the canonical source for Terence Kelly’s Persistent Memory Allocator (PMA). The latest source code and user manual will always be available at this location. Kelly may be reached directly at any of the following email addresses: “tpkelly AT acm.org”, “tpkelly AT cs.princeton.edu”, or “tpkelly AT eecs.umich.edu”.

Terence Kelly, Zi Fan Tan, Jianan Li, and Haris Volos, ACM Queue magazine, Vol. 20 No. 2 (March/April 2022), PDF , HTML . This paper explains the design of the PMA allocator used in persistent gawk .

Zi Fan Tan, Jianan Li, Haris Volos, and Terence Kelly, Non-Volatile Memory Workshop (NVMW) 2022, http://nvmw.ucsd.edu/program/ . This paper motivates and describes a research prototype of persistent gawk and presents performance evaluations on Intel Optane non-volatile memory; note that the interface differs slightly.

Terence Kelly, ACM Queue magazine Vol. 17 No. 4 (July/Aug 2019), PDF , HTML . This paper describes simple techniques for persistent memory for C/C++ code on conventional computers that lack non-volatile memory hardware.

Terence Kelly, ACM Queue magazine Vol. 18 No. 2 (March/April 2020), PDF , HTML . This paper describes a simple and robust testbed for testing software against real power failures.

Terence Kelly, ACM Queue magazine Vol. 19 No. 4 (July/Aug 2021), PDF , HTML . This paper describes a crash-tolerance feature added to GNU DBM’ ( gdbm ).

When Terence Kelly published his papers, his collaborators produced a prototype integration of PMA with gawk . That version used a (mandatory!) option --persist= file to specify the file for storing the persistent heap. If this option is given to gawk , it produces a fatal error message instructing the user to use the GAWK_PERSIST_FILE environment variable instead. Except for this paragraph, that option is otherwise undocumented.

The prototype only supported persistent data; it did not support persistent functions.

As noted earlier, support for persistent memory is experimental . If it becomes burdensome, 89 then the feature will be removed.

Next: Summary , Previous: Preserving Data Between Runs , Up: Advanced Features of gawk [ Contents ][ Index ]

12.8 Builtin Features versus Extensions ¶

As this and subsequent chapters show, gawk has a large number of extensions over standard awk built-in to the program. These have developed over time. More recently, the focus has moved to using the extension mechanism (see Writing Extensions for gawk ) for adding features. This section discusses the “guiding philosophy” behind what should be added to the interpreter as a built-in feature versus what should be done in extensions.

There are several goals:

Keep the language awk ; it should not become unrecognizable, even if programs in it will only run on gawk .
Keep the core from getting any larger unless absolutely necessary.
Add new functionality either in awk scripts ( -f , @include ) or in loadable extensions written in C or C++ ( -l , @load ).
Truly desirable.
Cannot be done via library files or loadable extensions.
Can be implemented without too much pain in the core.

Combining modules with awk files is a powerful technique. Some of the sample extensions demonstrate this.

Loading extensions and library files should not be done automatically, because then there’s overhead that most users don’t want or need.

Previous: Builtin Features versus Extensions , Up: Advanced Features of gawk [ Contents ][ Index ]

12.9 Summary ¶

The --non-decimal-data option causes gawk to treat octal- and hexadecimal-looking input data as octal and hexadecimal. This option should be used with caution or not at all; use of strtonum() is preferable. Note that this option may disappear in a future version of gawk .
You can take over complete control of sorting in ‘ for ( indx in array ) ’ array traversal by setting PROCINFO["sorted_in"] to the name of a user-defined function that does the comparison of array elements based on index and value.
Similarly, you can supply the name of a user-defined comparison function as the third argument to either asort() or asorti() to control how those functions sort arrays. Or you may provide one of the predefined control strings that work for PROCINFO["sorted_in"] .
You can use the ‘ |& ’ operator to create a two-way pipe to a coprocess. You read from the coprocess with getline and write to it with print or printf . Use close() to close off the coprocess completely, or optionally, close off one side of the two-way communications.
By using special file names with the ‘ |& ’ operator, you can open a TCP/IP (or UDP/IP) connection to remote hosts on the Internet. gawk supports both IPv4 and IPv6.
You can generate statement count profiles of your program. This can help you determine which parts of your program may be taking the most time and let you tune them more easily. Sending the USR1 signal while profiling causes gawk to dump the profile and keep going, including a function call stack.
You can also just “pretty-print” the program.
Persistent memory allows you to preserve the values of variables and arrays between runs of gawk . This feature is currently experimental.
New features should be developed using the extension mechanism if possible; they should be added to the core interpreter only as a last resort.

Next: Debugging awk Programs , Previous: Advanced Features of gawk , Up: General Introduction [ Contents ][ Index ]

13 Internationalization with gawk ¶

Moon… Gorgeous… MEDITATION!

It probably sounded better in Japanese.

Once upon a time, computer makers wrote software that worked only in English. Eventually, hardware and software vendors noticed that if their systems worked in the native languages of non-English-speaking countries, they were able to sell more systems. As a result, internationalization and localization of programs and software systems became a common practice.

For many years, the ability to provide internationalization was largely restricted to programs written in C and C++. This chapter describes the underlying library gawk uses for internationalization, as well as how gawk makes internationalization features available at the awk program level. Having internationalization available at the awk level gives software developers additional flexibility—they are no longer forced to write in C or C++ when internationalization is a requirement.

Internationalization and Localization
GNU gettext
Internationalizing awk Programs
Translating awk Programs
A Simple Internationalization Example
gawk Can Speak Your Language

Next: GNU gettext , Up: Internationalization with gawk [ Contents ][ Index ]

13.1 Internationalization and Localization ¶

Internationalization means writing (or modifying) a program once, in such a way that it can use multiple languages without requiring further source code changes. Localization means providing the data necessary for an internationalized program to work in a particular language. Most typically, these terms refer to features such as the language used for printing error messages, the language used to read responses, and information related to how numerical and monetary values are printed and read.

Next: Internationalizing awk Programs , Previous: Internationalization and Localization , Up: Internationalization with gawk [ Contents ][ Index ]

13.2 GNU gettext ¶

gawk uses GNU gettext to provide its internationalization features. The facilities in GNU gettext focus on messages: strings printed by a program, either directly or via formatting with printf or sprintf() . 90

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:

The programmer reviews 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).
The programmer indicates the application’s text domain ( "guide" ) to the gettext library, by calling the textdomain() function.
Messages from the application are extracted from the source code and collected into a portable object template file ( guide.pot ), 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.
For each language with a translator, guide.pot is copied to a portable object file ( .po ) and translations are created and shipped with the application. For example, there might be a fr.po for a French translation.
Each language’s .po file is converted into a binary message object ( .gmo ) file. A message object file contains the original messages and their translations in a binary format that allows fast lookup of translations at runtime.
When guide is built and installed, the binary translation files are installed in a standard place.
For testing and development, it is possible to tell gettext to use .gmo files in a different directory than the standard one by using the bindtextdomain() function.
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.
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() :

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:

This reduces the typing overhead to just three extra characters per string and is considerably easier to read as well.

There are locale categories for different types of locale-related information. The defined locale categories that gettext knows about are:

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.)

Text-collation information (i.e., how different characters and/or groups of characters sort in a given language).

Character-type information (alphabetic, digit, upper- or lowercase, and so on) as well as character encoding. This information is accessed via the POSIX character classes in regular expressions, such as /[[:alnum:]]/ (see Using Bracket Expressions ).

Monetary information, such as the currency symbol, and whether the symbol goes before or after a number.

Numeric information, such as which characters to use for the decimal point and the thousands separator. 91

Time- and date-related information, such as 12- or 24-hour clock, month printed before or after the day in a date, local month abbreviations, and so on.

All of the above. (Not too useful in the context of gettext .)

NOTE: As described in Where You Are Makes a Difference , environment variables with the same name as the locale categories ( LC_CTYPE , LC_ALL , etc.) influence gawk ’s behavior (and that of other utilities). Normally, these variables also affect how the gettext library finds translations. However, the LANGUAGE environment variable overrides the LC_ xxx variables. Many GNU/Linux systems may define this variable without your knowledge, causing gawk to not find the correct translations. If this happens to you, look to see if LANGUAGE is defined, and if so, use the shell’s unset command to remove it.

For testing translations of gawk itself, you can set the GAWK_LOCALE_DIR environment variable. See the documentation for the C bindtextdomain() function and also see Other Environment Variables .

Next: Translating awk Programs , Previous: GNU gettext , Up: Internationalization with gawk [ Contents ][ Index ]

13.3 Internationalizing awk Programs ¶

gawk provides the following variables for internationalization:

This variable indicates the application’s text domain. For compatibility with GNU gettext , the default value is "messages" .

String constants marked with a leading underscore are candidates for translation at runtime. String constants without a leading underscore are not translated.

gawk provides the following functions for internationalization:

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.

The same remarks about argument order as for the dcgettext() function apply.

Change the directory in which gettext looks for .gmo files, in case they will not or cannot be placed in the standard locations (e.g., during testing). Return the directory in which domain is “bound.”

To use these facilities in your awk program, follow these steps:

Set the variable TEXTDOMAIN to the text domain of your program. This is best done in a BEGIN rule (see The BEGIN and END Special Patterns ), or it can also be done via the -v command-line option (see Command-Line Options ): BEGIN { TEXTDOMAIN = "guide" ... }
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)

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.

The previous example only works if ncustomers is greater than one. This example would be better done with dcngettext() :

During development, you might want to put the .gmo 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 A Simple Internationalization Example for an example program showing the steps to create and use translations from awk .

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13.4 Translating awk Programs ¶

Once a program’s translatable strings have been marked, they must be extracted to create the initial .pot file. As part of translation, it is often helpful to rearrange the order in which arguments to printf are output.

gawk ’s --gen-pot 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.

Extracting Marked Strings
Rearranging printf Arguments
awk Portability Issues

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13.4.1 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-pot command-line option to create the initial .pot file:

When run with --gen-pot , 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() . 93 You should distribute the generated .pot file with your awk program; translators will eventually use it to provide you translations that you can also then distribute. See A Simple Internationalization Example for the full list of steps to go through to create and test translations for guide .

Next: awk Portability Issues , Previous: Extracting Marked Strings , Up: Translating awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

13.4.2 Rearranging printf Arguments ¶

Format strings for printf and sprintf() (see Using printf Statements for Fancier Printing ) present a special problem for translation. Consider the following: 94

A possible German translation for this might be:

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 specifiers may have an additional optional element, which we call a positional specifier . For example:

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:

If present, positional specifiers come first in the format specification, before the flags, the field width, and/or the precision.

Positional specifiers can be used with the dynamic field width and precision capability:

NOTE: When using ‘ * ’ with a positional specifier, the ‘ * ’ comes first, then the integer position, and then the ‘ $ ’. This is somewhat counterintuitive.

gawk does not allow you to mix regular format specifiers and those with positional specifiers in the same string:

NOTE: There are some pathological cases that gawk may fail to diagnose. In such cases, the output may not be what you expect. It’s still a bad idea to try mixing them, even if gawk doesn’t detect it.

Although positional specifiers can be used directly in awk programs, their primary purpose is to help in producing correct translations of format strings into languages different from the one in which the program is first written.

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13.4.3 awk Portability Issues ¶

gawk ’s internationalization features were purposely chosen to have as little impact as possible on the portability of awk programs that use them to other versions of awk . Consider this program:

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, because 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. 95 Typically, the variable _ has the null string ( "" ) as its value, leaving the original string constant as the result.
By defining “dummy” functions to replace dcgettext() , dcngettext() , and bindtextdomain() , the awk program can be made to run, but all the messages are output in the original language. For example: function bindtextdomain(dir, domain) { return dir } function dcgettext(string, domain, category) { return string } function dcngettext(string1, string2, number, domain, category) { return (number == 1 ? string1 : string2) }
The use of positional specifications in printf or sprintf() is not portable. To support gettext() at the C level, many systems’ C versions of sprintf() do support positional specifiers. But it works only if enough arguments are supplied in the function call. Many versions of awk pass printf formats and arguments unchanged to the underlying C library version of sprintf() , but only one format and argument at a time. What happens if a positional specification is used is anybody’s guess. However, because the positional specifications are primarily for use in translated format strings, and because non-GNU awk s never retrieve the translated string, this should not be a problem in practice.

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13.5 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:

Run ‘ gawk --gen-pot ’ to create the .pot file:

This produces:

This original portable object template 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.pot file.

Next, the messages must be translated. Here is a translation to a hypothetical dialect of English, called “Mellow”: 96

Following are the translations:

NOTE: The following instructions apply to GNU/Linux with the GNU C Library. Be aware that the actual steps may change over time, that the following description may not be accurate for all GNU/Linux distributions, and that things may work entirely differently on other operating systems.

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 has the form locale /LC_MESSAGES , where locale is a locale name known to the C gettext routines.

How do we know which locale to use? It turns out that there are four different environment variables used by the C gettext routines. In order, they are $LANGUAGE , $LC_ALL , $LANG , and $LC_MESSAGES . 97 Thus, we check the value of $LANGUAGE :

We next make the directories:

The msgfmt utility converts the human-readable .po file into a machine-readable .mo file. By default, msgfmt creates a file named messages . This file must be renamed and placed in the proper directory (using the -o option) so that gawk can find it:

Finally, we run the program to test it:

If the three replacement functions for dcgettext() , dcngettext() , and bindtextdomain() (see awk Portability Issues ) are in a file named libintl.awk , then we can run guide.awk unchanged as follows:

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13.6 gawk Can Speak Your Language ¶

gawk itself has been internationalized using the GNU gettext package. (GNU gettext is described in complete detail in GNU gettext utilities .) As of this writing, the latest version of GNU gettext is version 0.19.8.1 .

If a translation of gawk ’s messages exists, then gawk produces usage messages, warnings, and fatal errors in the local language.

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13.7 Summary ¶

Internationalization means writing a program such that it can use multiple languages without requiring source code changes. Localization means providing the data necessary for an internationalized program to work in a particular language.
gawk uses GNU gettext to let you internationalize and localize awk programs. A program’s text domain identifies the program for grouping all messages and other data together.
You mark a program’s strings for translation by preceding them with an underscore. Once that is done, the strings are extracted into a .pot file. This file is copied for each language into a .po file, and the .po files are compiled into .gmo files for use at runtime.
You can use positional specifications with sprintf() and printf to rearrange the placement of argument values in formatted strings and output. This is useful for the translation of format control strings.
The internationalization features have been designed so that they can be easily worked around in a standard awk .
gawk itself has been internationalized and ships with a number of translations for its messages.

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14 Debugging awk Programs ¶

It would be nice if computer programs worked perfectly the first time they were run, but in real life, this rarely happens for programs of any complexity. Thus, most programming languages have facilities available for “debugging” programs, and awk is no exception.

The gawk debugger is purposely modeled after the GNU Debugger (GDB) command-line debugger. If you are familiar with GDB, learning how to use gawk for debugging your programs is easy.

Introduction to the gawk Debugger
Sample gawk Debugging Session
Main Debugger Commands
Readline Support
Limitations

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14.1 Introduction to the gawk Debugger ¶

This section introduces debugging in general and begins the discussion of debugging in gawk .

Debugging in General
Debugging Concepts
awk Debugging

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14.1.1 Debugging in General ¶

(If you have used debuggers in other languages, you may want to skip ahead to awk Debugging .)

Of course, a debugging program cannot remove bugs for you, because it has no way of knowing what you or your users consider a “bug” versus a “feature.” (Sometimes, we humans have a hard time with this ourselves.) In that case, what can you expect from such a tool? The answer to that depends on the language being debugged, but in general, you can expect at least the following:

The ability to watch a program execute its instructions one by one, giving you, the programmer, the opportunity to think about what is happening on a time scale of seconds, minutes, or hours, rather than the nanosecond time scale at which the code usually runs.
The opportunity to not only passively observe the operation of your program, but to control it and try different paths of execution, without having to change your source files.
The chance to see the values of data in the program at any point in execution, and also to change that data on the fly, to see how that affects what happens afterward. (This often includes the ability to look at internal data structures besides the variables you actually defined in your code.)
The ability to obtain additional information about your program’s state or even its internal structure.

All of these tools provide a great amount of help in using your own skills and understanding of the goals of your program to find where it is going wrong (or, for that matter, to better comprehend a perfectly functional program that you or someone else wrote).

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14.1.2 Debugging Concepts ¶

Before diving in to the details, we need to introduce several important concepts that apply to just about all debuggers. The following list defines terms used throughout the rest of this chapter:

Programs generally call functions during the course of their execution. One function can call another, or a function can call itself (recursion). You can view the chain of called functions (main program calls A, which calls B, which calls C), as a stack of executing functions: the currently running function is the topmost one on the stack, and when it finishes (returns), the next one down then becomes the active function. Such a stack is termed a call stack .

For each function on the call stack, the system maintains a data area that contains the function’s parameters, local variables, and return value, as well as any other “bookkeeping” information needed to manage the call stack. This data area is termed a stack frame .

gawk also follows this model, and gives you access to the call stack and to each stack frame. You can see the call stack, as well as from where each function on the stack was invoked. Commands that print the call stack print information about each stack frame (as detailed later on).

During debugging, you often wish to let the program run until it reaches a certain point, and then continue execution from there one statement (or instruction) at a time. The way to do this is to set a breakpoint within the program. A breakpoint is where the execution of the program should break off (stop), so that you can take over control of the program’s execution. You can add and remove as many breakpoints as you like.

A watchpoint is similar to a breakpoint. The difference is that breakpoints are oriented around the code: stop when a certain point in the code is reached. A watchpoint, however, specifies that program execution should stop when a data value is changed. This is useful, as sometimes it happens that a variable receives an erroneous value, and it’s hard to track down where this happens just by looking at the code. By using a watchpoint, you can stop whenever a variable is assigned to, and usually find the errant code quite quickly.

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14.1.3 awk Debugging ¶

Debugging an awk program has some specific aspects that are not shared with programs written in other languages.

First of all, the fact that awk programs usually take input line by line from a file or files and operate on those lines using specific rules makes it especially useful to organize viewing the execution of the program in terms of these rules. As we will see, each awk rule is treated almost like a function call, with its own specific block of instructions.

In addition, because awk is by design a very concise language, it is easy to lose sight of everything that is going on “inside” each line of awk code. The debugger provides the opportunity to look at the individual primitive instructions carried out by the higher-level awk commands. 98

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14.2 Sample gawk Debugging Session ¶

In order to illustrate the use of gawk as a debugger, let’s look at a sample debugging session. We will use the awk implementation of the POSIX uniq command presented earlier (see Printing Nonduplicated Lines of Text ) as our example.

How to Start the Debugger
Finding the Bug

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14.2.1 How to Start the Debugger ¶

Starting the debugger is almost exactly like running gawk normally, except you have to pass an additional option, --debug , or the corresponding short option, -D . The file(s) containing the program and any supporting code are given on the command line as arguments to one or more -f options. ( gawk is not designed to debug command-line programs, only programs contained in files.) In our case, we invoke the debugger like this:

where both getopt.awk and uniq.awk are in $AWKPATH . (Experienced users of GDB or similar debuggers should note that this syntax is slightly different from what you are used to. With the gawk debugger, you give the arguments for running the program in the command line to the debugger rather than as part of the run command at the debugger prompt.) The -- ends gawk ’s command line options. It’s not strictly necessary here, but it is needed if an option to the awk program conflicts with a gawk option. The -1 is an option to uniq.awk .

Instead of immediately running the program on inputfile , as gawk would ordinarily do, the debugger merely loads all the program source files, compiles them internally, and then gives us a prompt:

from which we can issue commands to the debugger. At this point, no code has been executed.

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14.2.2 Finding the Bug ¶

Let’s say that we are having a problem using (a faulty version of) uniq.awk in “field-skipping” mode, and it doesn’t seem to be catching lines which should be identical when skipping the first field, such as:

This could happen if we were thinking (C-like) of the fields in a record as being numbered in a zero-based fashion, so instead of the lines:

The first thing we usually want to do when trying to investigate a problem like this is to put a breakpoint in the program so that we can watch it at work and catch what it is doing wrong. A reasonable spot for a breakpoint in uniq.awk is at the beginning of the function are_equal() , which compares the current line with the previous one. To set the breakpoint, use the b (breakpoint) command:

The debugger tells us the file and line number where the breakpoint is. Now type ‘ r ’ or ‘ run ’ and the program runs until it hits the breakpoint for the first time:

Now we can look at what’s going on inside our program. First of all, let’s see how we got to where we are. At the prompt, we type ‘ bt ’ (short for “backtrace”), and the debugger responds with a listing of the current stack frames:

This tells us that are_equal() was called by the main program at line 88 of uniq.awk . (This is not a big surprise, because this is the only call to are_equal() in the program, but in more complex programs, knowing who called a function and with what parameters can be the key to finding the source of the problem.)

Now that we’re in are_equal() , we can start looking at the values of some variables. Let’s say we type ‘ p n ’ ( p is short for “print”). We would expect to see the value of n , a parameter to are_equal() . Actually, the debugger gives us:

In this case, n is an uninitialized local variable, because the function was called without arguments (see Function Calls ).

A more useful variable to display might be the current record:

This might be a bit puzzling at first, as this is the second line of our test input. Let’s look at NR :

So we can see that are_equal() was only called for the second record of the file. Of course, this is because our program contains a rule for ‘ NR == 1 ’:

OK, let’s just check that that rule worked correctly:

Everything we have done so far has verified that the program has worked as planned, up to and including the call to are_equal() , so the problem must be inside this function. To investigate further, we must begin “stepping through” the lines of are_equal() . We start by typing ‘ n ’ (for “next”):

This tells us that gawk is now ready to execute line 66, which decides whether to give the lines the special “field-skipping” treatment indicated by the -1 command-line option. (Notice that we skipped from where we were before, at line 63, to here, because the condition in line 63, ‘ if (fcount == 0 && charcount == 0) ’, was false.)

Continuing to step, we now get to the splitting of the current and last records:

At this point, we should be curious to see what our records were split into, so we try to look:

(The p command can take more than one argument, similar to awk ’s print statement.)

This is kind of disappointing, though. All we found out is that there are five elements in alast ; m and aline don’t have values because we are at line 68 but haven’t executed it yet. This information is useful enough (we now know that none of the words were accidentally left out), but what if we want to see inside the array?

The first choice would be to use subscripts:

This would be kind of slow for a 100-member array, though, so gawk provides a shortcut (reminiscent of another language not to be mentioned):

It looks like we got this far OK. Let’s take another step or two:

Well, here we are at our error (sorry to spoil the suspense). What we had in mind was to join the fields starting from the second one to make the virtual record to compare, and if the first field were numbered zero, this would work. Let’s look at what we’ve got:

Hey, those look pretty familiar! They’re just our original, unaltered input records. A little thinking (the human brain is still the best debugging tool), and we realize that we were off by one!

We get out of the debugger:

Then we get into an editor:

and problem solved!

Next: Readline Support , Previous: Sample gawk Debugging Session , Up: Debugging awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

14.3 Main Debugger Commands ¶

The gawk debugger command set can be divided into the following categories:

Breakpoint control
Execution control
Viewing and changing data
Working with the stack
Getting information
Miscellaneous

Each of these are discussed in the following subsections. In the following descriptions, commands that may be abbreviated show the abbreviation on a second description line. A debugger command name may also be truncated if that partial name is unambiguous. The debugger has the built-in capability to automatically repeat the previous command just by hitting Enter . This works for the commands list , next , nexti , step , stepi , and continue executed without any argument.

Control of Breakpoints
Control of Execution
Viewing and Changing Data
Working with the Stack
Obtaining Information About the Program and the Debugger State
Miscellaneous Commands

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14.3.1 Control of Breakpoints ¶

As we saw earlier, the first thing you probably want to do in a debugging session is to get your breakpoints set up, because your program will otherwise just run as if it was not under the debugger. The commands for controlling breakpoints are:

Without any argument, set a breakpoint at the next instruction to be executed in the selected stack frame. Arguments can be one of the following:

Set a breakpoint at line number n in the current source file.

Set a breakpoint at line number n in source file filename .

Set a breakpoint at entry to (the first instruction of) function function .

Each breakpoint is assigned a number that can be used to delete it from the breakpoint list using the delete command.

With a breakpoint, you may also supply a condition. This is an awk expression (enclosed in double quotes) that the debugger evaluates whenever the breakpoint is reached. If the condition is true, then the debugger stops execution and prompts for a command. Otherwise, it continues executing the program.

Without any argument, delete any breakpoint at the next instruction to be executed in the selected stack frame. If the program stops at a breakpoint, this deletes that breakpoint so that the program does not stop at that location again. Arguments can be one of the following:

Delete breakpoint(s) set at line number n in the current source file.

Delete breakpoint(s) set at line number n in source file filename .

Delete breakpoint(s) set at entry to function function .

Add a condition to existing breakpoint or watchpoint n . The condition is an awk expression enclosed in double quotes that the debugger evaluates whenever the breakpoint or watchpoint is reached. If the condition is true, then the debugger stops execution and prompts for a command. Otherwise, the debugger continues executing the program. If the condition expression is not specified, any existing condition is removed (i.e., the breakpoint or watchpoint is made unconditional).

Delete specified breakpoints or a range of breakpoints. Delete all defined breakpoints if no argument is supplied.

Disable specified breakpoints or a range of breakpoints. Without any argument, disable all breakpoints.

Enable specified breakpoints or a range of breakpoints. Without any argument, enable all breakpoints. Optionally, you can specify how to enable the breakpoints:

Enable the breakpoints temporarily, then delete each one when the program stops at it.

Enable the breakpoints temporarily, then disable each one when the program stops at it.

Ignore breakpoint number n the next count times it is hit.

Set a temporary breakpoint (enabled for only one stop). The arguments are the same as for break .

Next: Viewing and Changing Data , Previous: Control of Breakpoints , Up: Main Debugger Commands [ Contents ][ Index ]

14.3.2 Control of Execution ¶

Now that your breakpoints are ready, you can start running the program and observing its behavior. There are more commands for controlling execution of the program than we saw in our earlier example:

Set a list of commands to be executed upon stopping at a breakpoint or watchpoint. n is the breakpoint or watchpoint number. Without a number, the last one set is used. The actual commands follow, starting on the next line, and terminated by the end command. If the command silent is in the list, the usual messages about stopping at a breakpoint and the source line are not printed. Any command in the list that resumes execution (e.g., continue ) terminates the list (an implicit end ), and subsequent commands are ignored. For example:

Resume program execution. If continued from a breakpoint and count is specified, ignore the breakpoint at that location the next count times before stopping.

Execute until the selected stack frame returns. Print the returned value.

Continue execution to the next source line, stepping over function calls. The argument count controls how many times to repeat the action, as in step .

Execute one (or count ) instruction(s), stepping over function calls.

Cancel execution of a function call. If value (either a string or a number) is specified, it is used as the function’s return value. If used in a frame other than the innermost one (the currently executing function; i.e., frame number 0), discard all inner frames in addition to the selected one, and the caller of that frame becomes the innermost frame.

Start/restart execution of the program. When restarting, the debugger retains the current breakpoints, watchpoints, command history, automatic display variables, and debugger options.

Continue execution until control reaches a different source line in the current stack frame, stepping inside any function called within the line. If the argument count is supplied, steps that many times before stopping, unless it encounters a breakpoint or watchpoint.

Execute one (or count ) instruction(s), stepping inside function calls. (For illustration of what is meant by an “instruction” in gawk , see the output shown under dump in Miscellaneous Commands .)

Without any argument, continue execution until a line past the current line in the current stack frame is reached. With an argument, continue execution until the specified location is reached, or the current stack frame returns.

Next: Working with the Stack , Previous: Control of Execution , Up: Main Debugger Commands [ Contents ][ Index ]

14.3.3 Viewing and Changing Data ¶

The commands for viewing and changing variables inside of gawk are:

Add variable var (or field $ n ) to the display list. The value of the variable or field is displayed each time the program stops. Each variable added to the list is identified by a unique number:

This displays the assigned item number, the variable name, and its current value. If the display variable refers to a function parameter, it is silently deleted from the list as soon as the execution reaches a context where no such variable of the given name exists. Without argument, display displays the current values of items on the list.

Evaluate awk statements in the context of the running program. You can do anything that an awk program would do: assign values to variables, call functions, and so on.

NOTE: You cannot use eval to execute a statement containing any of the following: exit , getline , next , nextfile , or return .

This form of eval is similar, but it allows you to define “local variables” that exist in the context of the awk statements , instead of using variables or function parameters defined by the program.

Print the value of a gawk variable or field. Fields must be referenced by constants:

This prints the third field in the input record (if the specified field does not exist, it prints ‘ Null field ’). A variable can be an array element, with the subscripts being constant string values. To print the contents of an array, prefix the name of the array with the ‘ @ ’ symbol:

This prints the indices and the corresponding values for all elements in the array a .

Print formatted text. The format may include escape sequences, such as ‘ \n ’ (see Escape Sequences ). No newline is printed unless one is specified.

Assign a constant (number or string) value to an awk variable or field. String values must be enclosed between double quotes ( " … " ).

You can also set special awk variables, such as FS , NF , NR , and so on.

Add variable var (or field $ n ) to the watch list. The debugger then stops whenever the value of the variable or field changes. Each watched item is assigned a number that can be used to delete it from the watch list using the unwatch command.

With a watchpoint, you may also supply a condition. This is an awk expression (enclosed in double quotes) that the debugger evaluates whenever the watchpoint is reached. If the condition is true, then the debugger stops execution and prompts for a command. Otherwise, gawk continues executing the program.

Remove item number n (or all items, if no argument) from the automatic display list.

Remove item number n (or all items, if no argument) from the watch list.

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14.3.4 Working with the Stack ¶

Whenever you run a program that contains any function calls, gawk maintains a stack of all of the function calls leading up to where the program is right now. You can see how you got to where you are, and also move around in the stack to see what the state of things was in the functions that called the one you are in. The commands for doing this are:

Print a backtrace of all function calls (stack frames), or innermost count frames if count > 0. Print the outermost count frames if count < 0. The backtrace displays the name and arguments to each function, the source file name, and the line number. The alias where for backtrace is provided for longtime GDB users who may be used to that command.

Move count (default 1) frames down the stack toward the innermost frame. Then select and print the frame.

Select and print stack frame n . Frame 0 is the currently executing, or innermost , frame (function call); frame 1 is the frame that called the innermost one. The highest-numbered frame is the one for the main program. The printed information consists of the frame number, function and argument names, source file, and the source line.

Move count (default 1) frames up the stack toward the outermost frame. Then select and print the frame.

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14.3.5 Obtaining Information About the Program and the Debugger State ¶

Besides looking at the values of variables, there is often a need to get other sorts of information about the state of your program and of the debugging environment itself. The gawk debugger has one command that provides this information, appropriately called info . info is used with one of a number of arguments that tell it exactly what you want to know:

The value for what should be one of the following:

List arguments of the selected frame.

List all currently set breakpoints.

List all items in the automatic display list.

Give a description of the selected stack frame.

List all function definitions including source file names and line numbers.

List local variables of the selected frame.

Print the name of the current source file. Each time the program stops, the current source file is the file containing the current instruction. When the debugger first starts, the current source file is the first file included via the -f option. The ‘ list filename : lineno ’ command can be used at any time to change the current source.

List all program sources.

List all global variables.

List all items in the watch list.

Additional commands give you control over the debugger, the ability to save the debugger’s state, and the ability to run debugger commands from a file. The commands are:

Without an argument, display the available debugger options and their current values. ‘ option name ’ shows the current value of the named option. ‘ option name = value ’ assigns a new value to the named option. The available options are:

Set the maximum number of lines to keep in the history file ./.gawk_history . The default is 100.

Specify the number of lines that list prints. The default is 15.

Send gawk output to a file; debugger output still goes to standard output. An empty string ( "" ) resets output to standard output.

Change the debugger prompt. The default is ‘ gawk> ’.

Save command history to file ./.gawk_history . The default is on .

Save current options to file ./.gawkrc upon exit. The default is on . Options are read back into the next session upon startup.

Turn instruction tracing on or off. The default is off .

Save the commands from the current session to the given file name, so that they can be replayed using the source command.

Run command(s) from a file; an error in any command does not terminate execution of subsequent commands. Comments (lines starting with ‘ # ’) are allowed in a command file. Empty lines are ignored; they do not repeat the last command. You can’t restart the program by having more than one run command in the file. Also, the list of commands may include additional source commands; however, the gawk debugger will not source the same file more than once in order to avoid infinite recursion.

In addition to, or instead of, the source command, you can use the -D file or --debug= file command-line options to execute commands from a file non-interactively (see Command-Line Options ).

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14.3.6 Miscellaneous Commands ¶

There are a few more commands that do not fit into the previous categories, as follows:

Dump byte code of the program to standard output or to the file named in filename . This prints a representation of the internal instructions that gawk executes to implement the awk commands in a program. This can be very enlightening, as the following partial dump of Davide Brini’s obfuscated code (see And Now for Something Completely Different ) demonstrates:

Exit the debugger. See the entry for ‘ quit ’, later in this list.

Print a list of all of the gawk debugger commands with a short summary of their usage. ‘ help command ’ prints the information about the command command .

Print the specified lines (default 15) from the current source file or the file named filename . The possible arguments to list are as follows:

Print lines before the lines last printed.

Print lines after the lines last printed. list without any argument does the same thing.

Print lines centered around line number n .

Print lines from n to m .

Print lines centered around line number n in source file filename . This command may change the current source file.

Print lines centered around the beginning of the function function . This command may change the current source file.

Exit the debugger. Debugging is great fun, but sometimes we all have to tend to other obligations in life, and sometimes we find the bug and are free to go on to the next one! As we saw earlier, if you are running a program, the debugger warns you when you type ‘ q ’ or ‘ quit ’, to make sure you really want to quit.

Turn on or off continuous printing of the instructions that are about to be executed, along with the awk lines they implement. The default is off .

It is to be hoped that most of the “opcodes” in these instructions are fairly self-explanatory, and using stepi and nexti while trace is on will make them into familiar friends.

Next: Limitations , Previous: Main Debugger Commands , Up: Debugging awk Programs [ Contents ][ Index ]

14.4 Readline Support ¶

If gawk is compiled with the GNU Readline library , you can take advantage of that library’s command completion and history expansion features. The following types of completion are available:

Command names.

Source file names. Relevant commands are break , clear , list , tbreak , and until .

Non-numeric arguments to a command. Relevant commands are enable and info .

Global variable names, and function arguments in the current context if the program is running. Relevant commands are display , print , set , and watch .

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14.5 Limitations ¶

We hope you find the gawk debugger useful and enjoyable to work with, but as with any program, especially in its early releases, it still has some limitations. A few that it’s worth being aware of are:

At this point, the debugger does not give a detailed explanation of what you did wrong when you type in something it doesn’t like. Rather, it just responds ‘ syntax error ’. When you do figure out what your mistake was, though, you’ll feel like a real guru.

Unfortunately, as of now, the gawk debugger does not allow you to examine the stack’s contents. That is, the intermediate results of expression evaluation are on the stack, but cannot be printed. Rather, only variables that are defined in the program can be printed. Of course, a workaround for this is to use more explicit variables at the debugging stage and then change back to obscure, perhaps more optimal code later.

There is no way to look “inside” the process of compiling regular expressions to see if you got it right. As an awk programmer, you are expected to know the meaning of /[^[:alnum:][:blank:]]/ .
The gawk debugger is designed to be used by running a program (with all its parameters) on the command line, as described in How to Start the Debugger . There is no way (as of now) to attach or “break into” a running program. This seems reasonable for a language that is used mainly for quickly executing, short programs.
The gawk debugger only accepts source code supplied with the -f option. If you have a shell script that provides an awk program as a command line parameter, and you need to use the debugger, you can write the script to a temporary file, and use that as the program, with the -f option. This might look like this: cat << \EOF > /tmp/script.$$ ... Your program here EOF gawk -D -f /tmp/script.$$ rm /tmp/script.$$

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14.6 Summary ¶

Programs rarely work correctly the first time. Finding bugs is called debugging, and a program that helps you find bugs is a debugger. gawk has a built-in debugger that works very similarly to the GNU Debugger, GDB.
Debuggers let you step through your program one statement at a time, examine and change variable and array values, and do a number of other things that let you understand what your program is actually doing (as opposed to what it is supposed to do).
Like most debuggers, the gawk debugger works in terms of stack frames, and lets you set both breakpoints (stop at a point in the code) and watchpoints (stop when a data value changes).
The debugger command set is fairly complete, providing control over breakpoints, execution, viewing and changing data, working with the stack, getting information, and other tasks.
If the GNU Readline library is available when gawk is compiled, it is used by the debugger to provide command-line history and editing.
Usually, the debugger does not affect the program being debugged, but occasionally it can.

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15 Namespaces in gawk ¶

This chapter describes a feature that is specific to gawk .

CAUTION: This feature described in this chapter is new. It is entirely possible, and even likely, that there are dark corners (if not bugs) still lurking within the implementation. If you find any such, please report them (See Reporting Problems and Bugs ).

Standard awk ’s Single Namespace
Qualified Names
The Default Namespace
Changing The Namespace
Namespace and Component Naming Rules
Internal Name Management
Namespace Example
Namespaces and Other gawk Features

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15.1 Standard awk ’s Single Namespace ¶

In standard awk , there is a single, global, namespace . This means that all function names and global variable names must be unique. For example, two different awk source files cannot both define a function named min() , or define the same identifier, used as a scalar in one and as an array in the other.

This situation is okay when programs are small, say a few hundred lines, or even a few thousand, but it prevents the development of reusable libraries of awk functions, and can inadvertently cause independently-developed library files to accidentally step on each other’s “private” global variables (see Naming Library Function Global Variables ).

Most other programming languages solve this issue by providing some kind of namespace control: a way to say “this function is in namespace xxx , and that function is in namespace yyy .” (Of course, there is then still a single namespace for the namespaces, but the hope is that there are much fewer namespaces in use by any given program, and thus much less chance for collisions.) These facilities are sometimes referred to as packages or modules .

Starting with version 5.0, gawk provides a simple mechanism to put functions and global variables into separate namespaces.

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15.2 Qualified Names ¶

A qualified name is an identifier that includes a namespace name, the namespace separator :: , and a component name. For example, one might have a function named posix::getpid() . Here, the namespace is posix and the function name within the namespace (the component) is getpid() . The namespace and component names are separated by a double-colon. Only one such separator is allowed in a qualified name.

NOTE: Unlike C++, the :: is not an operator. No spaces are allowed between the namespace name, the :: , and the component name.

You must use qualified names from one namespace to access variables and functions in another. This is especially important when using variable names to index the special SYMTAB array (see Built-in Variables That Convey Information ), and when making indirect function calls (see Indirect Function Calls ).

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15.3 The Default Namespace ¶

The default namespace, not surprisingly, is awk . All of the predefined awk and gawk variables are in this namespace, and thus have qualified names like awk::ARGC , awk::NF , and so on.

Furthermore, even when you have changed the namespace for your current source file (see Changing The Namespace ), gawk forces unqualified identifiers whose names are all uppercase letters to be in the awk namespace. This makes it possible for you to easily reference gawk ’s global variables from different namespaces. It also keeps your code looking natural.

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15.4 Changing The Namespace ¶

In order to set the current namespace, use an @namespace directive at the top level of your program:

After this directive, all simple non-completely-uppercase identifiers are placed into the passwd namespace.

You can change the namespace multiple times within a single source file, although this is likely to become confusing if you do it too much.

NOTE: Association of unqualified identifiers to a namespace is handled while gawk parses your program, before it starts to run. There is no concept of a “current” namespace once your program starts executing. Be sure you understand this.

Each source file for -i and -f starts out with an implicit ‘ @namespace "awk" ’. Similarly, each chunk of command-line code supplied with -e has such an implicit initial statement (see Command-Line Options ).

Files included with @include (see Including Other Files into Your Program ) “push” and “pop” the current namespace. That is, each @include saves the current namespace and starts over with an implicit ‘ @namespace "awk" ’ which remains in effect until an explicit @namespace directive is seen. When gawk finishes processing the included file, the saved namespace is restored and processing continues where it left off in the original file.

The use of @namespace has no influence upon the order of execution of BEGIN , BEGINFILE , END , and ENDFILE rules.

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15.5 Namespace and Component Naming Rules ¶

A number of rules apply to the namespace and component names, as follows.

It is a syntax error to use qualified names for function parameter names.
It is a syntax error to use any standard awk reserved word (such as if or for ), or the name of any standard built-in function (such as sin() or gsub() ) as either part of a qualified name. Thus, the following produces a syntax error: @namespace "example" function gsub(str, pat, result) { ... }
Outside the awk namespace, the names of the additional gawk built-in functions (such as gensub() or strftime() ) may be used as component names. The same set of names may be used as namespace names, although this has the potential to be confusing.

When run, it produces output like this:

gawk pre-defined variable names may be used: NF::NR is valid, if possibly not all that useful.

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15.6 Internal Name Management ¶

For backwards compatibility, all identifiers in the awk namespace are stored internally as unadorned identifiers (that is, without a leading ‘ awk:: ’). This is mainly relevant when using such identifiers as indices for SYMTAB , FUNCTAB , and PROCINFO["identifiers"] (see Built-in Variables That Convey Information ), and for use in indirect function calls (see Indirect Function Calls ).

In program code, to refer to variables and functions in the awk namespace from another namespace, you must still use the ‘ awk:: ’ prefix. For example:

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15.7 Namespace Example ¶

The following example is a revised version of the suite of routines developed in Reading the User Database . See there for an explanation of how the code works.

The formulation here, due mainly to Andrew Schorr, is rather elegant. All of the implementation functions and variables are in the passwd namespace, whereas the main interface functions are defined in the awk namespace.

As you can see, this version also follows the convention mentioned in Naming Library Function Global Variables , whereby global variable and function names start with a capital letter.

Here is a simple test program. Since it’s in a separate file, unadorned identifiers are sought for in the awk namespace:

Here’s what happens when it’s run:

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15.8 Namespaces and Other gawk Features ¶

This section looks briefly at how the namespace facility interacts with other important gawk features.

The profiler and pretty-printer (see Profiling Your awk Programs ) have been enhanced to understand namespaces and the namespace naming rules presented in Namespace and Component Naming Rules . In particular, the output groups functions in the same namespace together, and has @namespace directives in front of rules as necessary. This allows component names to be simple identifiers, instead of using qualified identifiers everywhere.

Interaction with the debugger (see Introduction to the gawk Debugger ) has not had to change (at least as of this writing). Some of the internal byte codes changed in order to accommodate namespaces, and the debugger’s dump command was adjusted to match.

The extension API (see Writing Extensions for gawk ) has always allowed for placing functions into a different namespace, although this was not previously implemented. However, the symbol lookup and symbol update routines did not have provision for including a namespace. That has now been corrected (see Variable Access and Update by Name ). See Enabling In-Place File Editing , for a nice example of an extension that leverages a namespace shared by cooperating awk and C code.

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15.9 Summary ¶

Standard awk provides a single namespace for all global identifiers (scalars, arrays, and functions). This is limiting when one wants to develop libraries of reusable functions or function suites.
gawk provides multiple namespaces by using qualified names: names consisting of a namespace name, a double colon, :: , and a component name. Namespace names might still possibly conflict, but this is true of any language providing namespaces, modules, or packages.
The default namespace is awk . The rules for namespace and component names are provided in Namespace and Component Naming Rules . The rules are designed in such a way as to make namespace-aware code continue to look and work naturally while still providing the necessary power and flexibility.
Other parts of gawk have been extended as necessary to integrate namespaces smoothly with their operation. This applies most notably to the profiler / pretty-printer (see Profiling Your awk Programs ) and to the extension facility (see Writing Extensions for gawk ).
Overall, the namespace facility was designed and implemented such that backwards compatibility is paramount. Programs that don’t use namespaces should see absolutely no difference in behavior when run by a namespace-capable version of gawk .

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16 Arithmetic and Arbitrary-Precision Arithmetic with gawk ¶

This chapter introduces some basic concepts relating to how computers do arithmetic and defines some important terms. It then proceeds to describe floating-point arithmetic, which is what awk uses for all its computations, including a discussion of arbitrary-precision floating-point arithmetic, which is a feature available only in gawk . It continues on to present arbitrary-precision integers, and concludes with a description of some points where gawk and the POSIX standard are not quite in agreement.

NOTE: Most users of gawk can safely skip this chapter. But if you want to do scientific calculations with gawk , this is the place to be.

A General Description of Computer Arithmetic
Other Stuff to Know
Arbitrary-Precision Arithmetic Features in gawk
Floating-Point Arithmetic: Caveat Emptor!
Arbitrary-Precision Integer Arithmetic with gawk
How To Check If MPFR Is Available
Standards Versus Existing Practice

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16.1 A General Description of Computer Arithmetic ¶

Until now, we have worked with data as either numbers or strings. Ultimately, however, computers represent everything in terms of binary digits , or bits . A decimal digit can take on any of 10 values: zero through nine. A binary digit can take on any of two values, zero or one. Using binary, computers (and computer software) can represent and manipulate numerical and character data. In general, the more bits you can use to represent a particular thing, the greater the range of possible values it can take on.

Modern computers support at least two, and often more, ways to do arithmetic. Each kind of arithmetic uses a different representation (organization of the bits) for the numbers. The kinds of arithmetic that interest us are:

This is the kind of arithmetic you learned in elementary school, using paper and pencil (and/or a calculator). In theory, numbers can have an arbitrary number of digits on either side (or both sides) of the decimal point, and the results of a computation are always exact.

Some modern systems can do decimal arithmetic in hardware, but usually you need a special software library to provide access to these instructions. There are also libraries that do decimal arithmetic entirely in software.

Despite the fact that some users expect gawk to be performing decimal arithmetic, 99 it does not do so.

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.

In computers, integer values come in two flavors: signed and unsigned . Signed values may be negative or positive, whereas unsigned values are always greater than or equal to zero.

In computer systems, integer arithmetic is exact, but the possible range of values is limited. Integer arithmetic is generally faster than floating-point arithmetic.

Floating-point numbers represent what were called in school “real” numbers (i.e., those that 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 than can integers. The disadvantage is that there are numbers that they cannot represent exactly.

Modern systems support floating-point arithmetic in hardware, with a limited range of values. There are software libraries that allow the use of arbitrary-precision floating-point calculations.

POSIX awk uses double-precision floating-point numbers, which can hold more digits than single-precision floating-point numbers. gawk has facilities for performing arbitrary-precision floating-point arithmetic, which we describe in more detail shortly.

Computers work with integer and floating-point values of different ranges. Integer values are usually either 32 or 64 bits in size. Single-precision floating-point values occupy 32 bits, whereas double-precision floating-point values occupy 64 bits. (Quadruple-precision floating point values also exist. They occupy 128 bits, but such numbers are not available in awk .) Floating-point values are always signed. The possible ranges of values are shown in Table 16.1 and Table 16.2 .

Table 16.1: Value ranges for integer representations

Table 16.2: Approximate value ranges for floating-point number representations

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16.2 Other Stuff to Know ¶

The rest of this chapter uses a number of terms. Here are some informal definitions that should help you work your way through the material here:

A floating-point calculation’s accuracy is how close it comes to the real (paper and pencil) value.

The difference between what the result of a computation “should be” and what it actually is. It is best to minimize error as much as possible.

The order of magnitude of a value; some number of bits in a floating-point value store the exponent.

A special value representing infinity. Operations involving another number and infinity produce infinity.

“Not a number.” A special value that results from attempting a calculation that has no answer as a real number. See Floating Point Values They Didn’t Talk About In School , for more information about infinity and not-a-number values.

How the significand (see later in this list) is usually stored. The value is adjusted so that the first bit is one, and then that leading one is assumed instead of physically stored. This provides one extra bit of precision.

The number of bits used to represent a floating-point number. The more bits, the more digits you can represent. Binary and decimal precisions are related approximately, according to the formula:

Here, prec denotes the binary precision (measured in bits) and dps (short for decimal places) is the decimal digits.

How numbers are rounded up or down when necessary. More details are provided later.

A floating-point value consists of the significand multiplied by 10 to the power of the exponent. For example, in 1.2345e67 , the significand is 1.2345 .

From the Wikipedia article on numerical stability : “Calculations that can be proven not to magnify approximation errors are called numerically stable .”

See the Wikipedia article on accuracy and precision for more information on some of those terms.

On modern systems, floating-point hardware uses the representation and operations defined by the IEEE 754 standard. Three of the standard IEEE 754 types are 32-bit single precision, 64-bit double precision, and 128-bit quadruple precision. The standard also specifies extended precision formats to allow greater precisions and larger exponent ranges. ( awk uses only the 64-bit double-precision format.)

Table 16.3 lists the precision and exponent field values for the basic IEEE 754 binary formats.

Table 16.3: Basic IEEE format values

NOTE: The precision numbers include the implied leading one that gives them one extra bit of significand.

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16.3 Arbitrary-Precision Arithmetic Features in gawk ¶

This section briefly describes arbitrary-precision arithmetic in gawk .

Arbitrary Precision Arithmetic is On Parole!
Arbitrary Precision Introduction

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16.3.1 Arbitrary Precision Arithmetic is On Parole! ¶

As of version 5.2, arbitrary precision arithmetic in gawk is “on parole.” The primary gawk maintainer is no longer maintaining it. Fortunately, a volunteer from the development team has agreed to take it over.

This feature is on parole because its inclusion was a mistake. It has led to endless bug reports, misuse of the feature and public abuse of the maintainer, for no real increased value.

If the situation with support changes, the feature will be removed from gawk .

If you use this feature, you should consider finding a different toolset with which to accomplish your goals. 100

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16.3.2 Arbitrary Precision Introduction ¶

By default, gawk uses the double-precision floating-point values supplied by the hardware of the system it runs on. However, if it was compiled to do so, and the -M command-line option is supplied, gawk uses the GNU MPFR and GNU MP (GMP) libraries for arbitrary-precision arithmetic on numbers. You can see if MPFR support is available like so:

(You may see different version numbers than what’s shown here. That’s OK; what’s important is to see that GNU MPFR and GNU MP are listed in the output.)

Additionally, there are a few elements available in the PROCINFO array to provide information about the MPFR and GMP libraries (see Built-in Variables That Convey Information ).

The MPFR library provides precise control over precisions and rounding modes, and gives correctly rounded, reproducible, platform-independent results. With the -M command-line option, all floating-point arithmetic operators and numeric functions can yield results to any desired precision level supported by MPFR.

Two predefined variables, PREC and ROUNDMODE , provide control over the working precision and the rounding mode. The precision and the rounding mode are set globally for every operation to follow. See Setting the Precision and Setting the Rounding Mode for more information.

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16.4 Floating-Point Arithmetic: Caveat Emptor! ¶

Math class is tough!

This section provides a high-level overview of the issues involved when doing lots of floating-point arithmetic. 101 The discussion applies to both hardware and arbitrary-precision floating-point arithmetic.

CAUTION: The material here is purposely general. If you need to do serious computer arithmetic, you should do some research first, and not rely just on what we tell you.

Floating-Point Arithmetic Is Not Exact
Getting the Accuracy You Need
Try a Few Extra Bits of Precision and Rounding
Setting the Precision
Setting the Rounding Mode

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16.4.1 Floating-Point Arithmetic Is Not Exact ¶

Binary floating-point representations and arithmetic are inexact. Simple values like 0.1 cannot be precisely represented using binary floating-point numbers, and the limited precision of floating-point numbers means that slight changes in the order of operations or the precision of intermediate storage can change the result. To make matters worse, with arbitrary-precision floating-point arithmetic, you can set the precision before starting a computation, but then you cannot be sure of the number of significant decimal places in the final result.

Many Numbers Cannot Be Represented Exactly
Be Careful Comparing Values
Errors Accumulate
Floating Point Values They Didn’t Talk About In School

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16.4.1.1 Many Numbers Cannot Be Represented Exactly ¶

So, before you start to write any code, you should think about what you really want and what’s really happening. Consider the two numbers in the following example:

Unlike the number in y , the number stored in x is exactly representable in binary because it can be written as a finite sum of one or more fractions whose denominators are all powers of two. When gawk reads a floating-point number from program source, it automatically rounds that number to whatever precision your machine supports. If you try to print the numeric content of a variable using an output format string of "%.17g" , it may not produce the same number as you assigned to it:

Often the error is so small you do not even notice it, and if you do, you can always specify how much precision you would like in your output. Usually this is a format string like "%.15g" , which, when used in the previous example, produces an output identical to the input.

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16.4.1.2 Be Careful Comparing Values ¶

Because the underlying representation can be a little bit off from the exact value, comparing floating-point values to see if they are exactly equal is generally a bad idea. Here is an example where it does not work like you would expect:

The general wisdom when comparing floating-point values is to see if they are within some small range of each other (called a delta , or tolerance ). You have to decide how small a delta is important to you. Code to do this looks something like the following:

(We assume that you have a simple absolute value function named abs() defined elsewhere in your program.) If you write a function to compare values with a delta, you should be sure to use ‘ difference < abs(delta) ’ in case someone passes in a negative delta value.

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16.4.1.3 Errors Accumulate ¶

The loss of accuracy during a single computation with floating-point numbers usually isn’t enough to worry about. However, if you compute a value that is the result of a sequence of floating-point operations, the error can accumulate and greatly affect the computation itself. Here is an attempt to compute the value of pi using one of its many series representations:

When run, the early errors propagate through later computations, causing the loop to terminate prematurely after attempting to divide by zero:

Here is an additional example where the inaccuracies in internal representations yield an unexpected result:

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16.4.1.4 Floating Point Values They Didn’t Talk About In School ¶

Both IEEE 754 floating-point hardware, and MPFR, support two kinds of values that you probably didn’t learn about in school. The first is infinity , a special value, that can be either negative or positive, and which is either smaller than any other value (negative infinity), or larger than any other value (positive infinity). When such values are generated, gawk prints them as either ‘ -inf ’ or ‘ +inf ’, respectively. It accepts those strings as data input and converts them to the proper floating-point values internally.

Infinity values of the same sign compare as equal to each other. Otherwise, operations (addition, subtraction, etc.) involving another number and infinity produce mathematically reasonable results.

The second kind of value is “not a number”, or NaN for short. 102 This is a special value that results from attempting a calculation that has no answer as a real number. In such a case, programs can either receive a floating-point exception, or get NaN back as the result. The IEEE 754 standard recommends that systems return NaN. Some examples:

This makes sense in the range of complex numbers, but not in the range of real numbers, so the result is NaN.

−8 is out of the domain of log() , so the result is NaN.

NaN values are strange. In particular, they cannot be compared with other floating point values; any such comparison, except for “is not equal to”, returns false. NaN values are so much unequal to other values that even comparing two identical NaN values with != returns true!

NaN values can also be signed, although it depends upon the implementation as to which sign you get for any operation that returns a NaN. For example, on some systems, sqrt(-1) returns a negative NaN. On others, it returns a positive NaN.

When such values are generated, gawk prints them as either ‘ -nan ’ or ‘ +nan ’, respectively. Here too, gawk accepts those strings as data input and converts them to the proper floating-point values internally.

If you want to dive more deeply into this topic, you can find test programs in C, awk and Python in the directory awklib/eg/test-programs in the gawk distribution. These programs enable comparison among programming languages as to how they handle NaN and infinity values.

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16.4.2 Getting the Accuracy You Need ¶

Can arbitrary-precision arithmetic give exact results? There are no easy answers. The standard rules of algebra often do not apply when using floating-point arithmetic. Among other things, the distributive and associative laws do not hold completely, and order of operation may be important for your computation. Rounding error, cumulative precision loss, and underflow are often troublesome.

When gawk tests the expressions ‘ 0.1 + 12.2 ’ and ‘ 12.3 ’ for equality using the machine double-precision arithmetic, it decides that they are not equal! (See Be Careful Comparing Values .) You can get the result you want by increasing the precision; 56 bits in this case does the job:

If adding more bits is good, perhaps adding even more bits of precision is better? Here is what happens if we use an even larger value of PREC :

This is not a bug in gawk or in the MPFR library. It is easy to forget that the finite number of bits used to store the value is often just an approximation after proper rounding. The test for equality succeeds if and only if all bits in the two operands are exactly the same. Because this is not necessarily true after floating-point computations with a particular precision and effective rounding mode, a straight test for equality may not work. Instead, compare the two numbers to see if they are within the desirable delta of each other.

In applications where 15 or fewer decimal places suffice, hardware double-precision arithmetic can be adequate, and is usually much faster. But you need to keep in mind that every floating-point operation can suffer a new rounding error with catastrophic consequences, as illustrated by our earlier attempt to compute the value of pi . Extra precision can greatly enhance the stability and the accuracy of your computation in such cases.

Additionally, you should understand that repeated addition is not necessarily equivalent to multiplication in floating-point arithmetic. In the example in Errors Accumulate :

you may or may not succeed in getting the correct result by choosing an arbitrarily large value for PREC . Reformulation of the problem at hand is often the correct approach in such situations.

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16.4.3 Try a Few Extra Bits of Precision and Rounding ¶

Instead of arbitrary-precision floating-point arithmetic, often all you need is an adjustment of your logic or a different order for the operations in your calculation. The stability and the accuracy of the computation of pi in the earlier example can be enhanced by using the following simple algebraic transformation:

After making this change, the program converges to pi in under 30 iterations:

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16.4.4 Setting the Precision ¶

gawk uses a global working precision; it does not keep track of the precision or accuracy of individual numbers. Performing an arithmetic operation or calling a built-in function rounds the result to the current working precision. The default working precision is 53 bits, which you can modify using the predefined variable PREC . You can also set the value to one of the predefined case-insensitive strings shown in Table 16.4 , to emulate an IEEE 754 binary format.

Table 16.4: Predefined precision strings for PREC

The following example illustrates the effects of changing precision on arithmetic operations:

CAUTION: Be wary of floating-point constants! When reading a floating-point constant from program source code, gawk uses the default precision (that of a C double ), unless overridden by an assignment to the special variable PREC on the command line, to store it internally as an MPFR number. Changing the precision using PREC in the program text does not change the precision of a constant. If you need to represent a floating-point constant at a higher precision than the default and cannot use a command-line assignment to PREC , you should either specify the constant as a string, or as a rational number, whenever possible. The following example illustrates the differences among various ways to print a floating-point constant: $ gawk -M 'BEGIN { PREC = 113; printf("%0.25f\n", 0.1) }' -| 0.1000000000000000055511151 $ gawk -M -v PREC=113 'BEGIN { printf("%0.25f\n", 0.1) }' -| 0.1000000000000000000000000 $ gawk -M 'BEGIN { PREC = 113; printf("%0.25f\n", "0.1") }' -| 0.1000000000000000000000000 $ gawk -M 'BEGIN { PREC = 113; printf("%0.25f\n", 1/10) }' -| 0.1000000000000000000000000

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16.4.5 Setting the Rounding Mode ¶

The ROUNDMODE variable provides program-level control over the rounding mode. The correspondence between ROUNDMODE and the IEEE rounding modes is shown in Table 16.5 .

Table 16.5: gawk rounding modes

ROUNDMODE has the default value "N" , which selects the IEEE 754 rounding mode roundTiesToEven . In Table 16.5 , the value "A" selects rounding away from zero. This is only available if your version of the MPFR library supports it; otherwise, setting ROUNDMODE to "A" has no effect.

The default mode roundTiesToEven is the most preferred, but the least intuitive. This method does the obvious thing for most values, by rounding them up or down to the nearest digit. For example, rounding 1.132 to two digits yields 1.13, and rounding 1.157 yields 1.16.

However, when it comes to rounding a value that is exactly halfway between, things do not work the way you probably learned in school. In this case, the number is rounded to the nearest even digit. So rounding 0.125 to two digits rounds down to 0.12, but rounding 0.6875 to three digits rounds up to 0.688. You probably have already encountered this rounding mode when using printf to format floating-point numbers. For example:

produces the following output when run on the author’s system: 103

The theory behind roundTiesToEven is that it more or less evenly distributes upward and downward rounds of exact halves, which might cause any accumulating round-off error to cancel itself out. This is the default rounding mode for IEEE 754 computing functions and operators.

The other rounding modes are rarely used. Rounding toward positive infinity ( roundTowardPositive ) and toward negative infinity ( roundTowardNegative ) are often used to implement interval arithmetic, where you adjust the rounding mode to calculate upper and lower bounds for the range of output. The roundTowardZero mode can be used for converting floating-point numbers to integers. When rounding away from zero, the nearest number with magnitude greater than or equal to the value is selected.

Some numerical analysts will tell you that your choice of rounding style has tremendous impact on the final outcome, and advise you to wait until final output for any rounding. Instead, you can often avoid round-off error problems by setting the precision initially to some value sufficiently larger than the final desired precision, so that the accumulation of round-off error does not influence the outcome. If you suspect that results from your computation are sensitive to accumulation of round-off error, look for a significant difference in output when you change the rounding mode to be sure.

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16.5 Arbitrary-Precision Integer Arithmetic with gawk ¶

When given the -M option, gawk performs all integer arithmetic using GMP arbitrary-precision integers. Any number that looks like an integer in a source or data file is stored as an arbitrary-precision integer. The size of the integer is limited only by the available memory. For example, the following computes 5 4 3 2 , the result of which is beyond the limits of ordinary hardware double-precision floating-point values:

If instead you were to compute the same value using arbitrary-precision floating-point values, the precision needed for correct output (using the formula ‘ prec = 3.322 * dps ’) would be 3.322 x 183231, or 608693.

The result from an arithmetic operation with an integer and a floating-point value is a floating-point value with a precision equal to the working precision. The following program calculates the eighth term in Sylvester’s sequence 104 using a recurrence:

The output differs from the actual number, 113,423,713,055,421,844,361,000,443, because the default precision of 53 bits is not enough to represent the floating-point results exactly. You can either increase the precision (100 bits is enough in this case), or replace the floating-point constant ‘ 2.0 ’ with an integer, to perform all computations using integer arithmetic to get the correct output.

Sometimes gawk must implicitly convert an arbitrary-precision integer into an arbitrary-precision floating-point value. This is primarily because the MPFR library does not always provide the relevant interface to process arbitrary-precision integers or mixed-mode numbers as needed by an operation or function. In such a case, the precision is set to the minimum value necessary for exact conversion, and the working precision is not used for this purpose. If this is not what you need or want, you can employ a subterfuge and convert the integer to floating point first, like this:

You can avoid this issue altogether by specifying the number as a floating-point value to begin with:

Note that for this particular example, it is likely best to just use the following:

When dividing two arbitrary precision integers with either ‘ / ’ or ‘ % ’, the result is typically an arbitrary precision floating point value (unless the denominator evenly divides into the numerator).

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16.6 How To Check If MPFR Is Available ¶

Occasionally, you might like to be able to check if gawk was invoked with the -M option, enabling arbitrary-precision arithmetic. You can do so with the following function, contributed by Andrew Schorr:

Here is code that invokes the function in order to check if arbitrary-precision arithmetic is available:

Please be aware that exit will jump to the END rules, if present (see The exit Statement ).

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16.7 Standards Versus Existing Practice ¶

Historically, awk has converted any nonnumeric-looking string to the numeric value zero, when required. Furthermore, the original definition of the language and the original POSIX standards specified that awk only understands decimal numbers (base 10), and not octal (base 8) or hexadecimal numbers (base 16).

Changes in the language of the 2001 and 2004 POSIX standards can be interpreted to imply that awk should support additional features. These features are:

Interpretation of floating-point data values specified in hexadecimal notation (e.g., 0xDEADBEEF ). (Note: data values, not source code constants.)
Support for the special IEEE 754 floating-point values “not a number” (NaN), positive infinity (“inf”), and negative infinity (“−inf”). In particular, the format for these values is as specified by the ISO 1999 C standard, which ignores case and can allow implementation-dependent additional characters after the ‘ nan ’ and allow either ‘ inf ’ or ‘ infinity ’.

The first problem is that both of these are clear changes to historical practice:

The gawk maintainer feels that supporting hexadecimal floating-point values, in particular, is ugly, and was never intended by the original designers to be part of the language.
Allowing completely alphabetic strings to have valid numeric values is also a very severe departure from historical practice.

The second problem is that the gawk maintainer feels that this interpretation of the standard, which required a certain amount of “language lawyering” to arrive at in the first place, was not even intended by the standard developers. In other words, “We see how you got where you are, but we don’t think that that’s where you want to be.”

Recognizing these issues, but attempting to provide compatibility with the earlier versions of the standard, the 2008 POSIX standard added explicit wording to allow, but not require, that awk support hexadecimal floating-point values and special values for “not a number” and infinity.

Although the gawk maintainer continues to feel that providing those features is inadvisable, nevertheless, on systems that support IEEE floating point, it seems reasonable to provide some way to support NaN and infinity values. The solution implemented in gawk is as follows:

With the --posix command-line option, gawk becomes “hands off.” String values are passed directly to the system library’s strtod() function, and if it successfully returns a numeric value, that is what’s used. 105 By definition, the results are not portable across different systems. They are also a little surprising: $ echo nanny | gawk --posix '{ print $1 + 0 }' -| nan $ echo 0xDeadBeef | gawk --posix '{ print $1 + 0 }' -| 3735928559

gawk ignores case in the four special values. Thus, ‘ +nan ’ and ‘ +NaN ’ are the same.

Besides handling input, gawk also needs to print “correct” values on output when a value is either NaN or infinity. Starting with version 4.2.2, for such values gawk prints one of the four strings just described: ‘ +inf ’, ‘ -inf ’, ‘ +nan ’, or ‘ -nan ’. Similarly, in POSIX mode, gawk prints the result of the system’s C printf() function using the %g format string for the value, whatever that may be.

NOTE: The sign used for NaN values can vary! The result depends upon both the underlying system architecture and the underlying library used to format NaN values. In particular, it’s possible to get different results for the same function call depending upon whether or not gawk is running in MPFR mode ( -M ) or not. Caveat Emptor!

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16.8 Summary ¶

Most computer arithmetic is done using either integers or floating-point values. Standard awk uses double-precision floating-point values.
Not all numbers can be represented exactly.
Comparing values should use a delta, instead of being done directly with ‘ == ’ and ‘ != ’.
Errors accumulate.
Operations are not always truly associative or distributive.
Increasing the accuracy can help, but it is not a panacea.
Often, increasing the accuracy and then rounding to the desired number of digits produces reasonable results.
Use -M (or --bignum ) to enable MPFR arithmetic. Use PREC to set the precision in bits, and ROUNDMODE to set the IEEE 754 rounding mode.
With -M , gawk performs arbitrary-precision integer arithmetic using the GMP library. This is faster and more space-efficient than using MPFR for the same calculations.
There are several areas with respect to floating-point numbers where gawk disagrees with the POSIX standard. It pays to be aware of them.
Overall, there is no need to be unduly suspicious about the results from floating-point arithmetic. The lesson to remember is that floating-point arithmetic is always more complex than arithmetic using pencil and paper. In order to take advantage of the power of floating-point arithmetic, you need to know its limitations and work within them. For most casual use of floating-point arithmetic, you will often get the expected result if you simply round the display of your final results to the correct number of significant decimal digits.
As general advice, avoid presenting numerical data in a manner that implies better precision than is actually the case.

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17 Writing Extensions for gawk ¶

It is possible to add new functions written in C or C++ to gawk using dynamically loaded libraries. This facility is available on systems that support the C dlopen() and dlsym() functions. This chapter describes how to create extensions using code written in C or C++.

If you don’t know anything about C programming, you can safely skip this chapter, although you may wish to review the documentation on the extensions that come with gawk (see The Sample Extensions in the gawk Distribution ), and the information on the gawkextlib project (see The gawkextlib Project ). The sample extensions are automatically built and installed when gawk is.

NOTE: When --sandbox is specified, extensions are disabled (see Command-Line Options ).

Introduction
Extension Licensing
How It Works at a High Level
API Description
How gawk Finds Extensions
Example: Some File Functions
The Sample Extensions in the gawk Distribution
The gawkextlib Project

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17.1 Introduction ¶

An extension (sometimes called a plug-in ) is a piece of external compiled code that gawk can load at runtime to provide additional functionality, over and above the built-in capabilities described in the rest of this Web page.

Extensions are useful because they allow you (of course) to extend gawk ’s functionality. For example, they can provide access to system calls (such as chdir() to change directory) and to other C library routines that could be of use. As with most software, “the sky is the limit”; if you can imagine something that you might want to do and can write in C or C++, you can write an extension to do it!

Extensions are written in C or C++, using the application programming interface (API) defined for this purpose by the gawk developers. The rest of this chapter explains the facilities that the API provides and how to use them, and presents a small example extension. In addition, it documents the sample extensions included in the gawk distribution and describes the gawkextlib project. See Extension API Design , for a discussion of the extension mechanism goals and design.

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17.2 Extension Licensing ¶

Every dynamic extension must be distributed under a license that is compatible with the GNU GPL (see GNU General Public License ).

In order for the extension to tell gawk that it is properly licensed, the extension must define the global symbol plugin_is_GPL_compatible . If this symbol does not exist, gawk emits a fatal error and exits when it tries to load your extension.

The declared type of the symbol should be int . It does not need to be in any allocated section, though. The code merely asserts that the symbol exists in the global scope. Something like this is enough:

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17.3 How It Works at a High Level ¶

Communication between gawk and an extension is two-way. First, when an extension is loaded, gawk passes it a pointer to a struct whose fields are function pointers. This is shown in Figure 17.1 .

Figure 17.1: Loading the extension

The extension can call functions inside gawk through these function pointers, at runtime, without needing (link-time) access to gawk ’s symbols. One of these function pointers is to a function for “registering” new functions. This is shown in Figure 17.2 .

Figure 17.2: Registering a new function

In the other direction, the extension registers its new functions with gawk by passing function pointers to the functions that provide the new feature ( do_chdir() , for example). gawk associates the function pointer with a name and can then call it, using a defined calling convention. This is shown in Figure 17.3 .

Figure 17.3: Calling the new function

The do_ xxx () function, in turn, then uses the function pointers in the API struct to do its work, such as updating variables or arrays, printing messages, setting ERRNO , and so on.

Convenience macros make calling through the function pointers look like regular function calls so that extension code is quite readable and understandable.

Although all of this sounds somewhat complicated, the result is that extension code is quite straightforward to write and to read. You can see this in the sample extension filefuncs.c (see Example: Some File Functions ) and also in the testext.c code for testing the APIs.

Some other bits and pieces:

The API provides access to gawk ’s do_ xxx values, reflecting command-line options, like do_lint , do_profiling , and so on (see API Variables ). These are informational: an extension cannot affect their values inside gawk . In addition, attempting to assign to them produces a compile-time error.
The API also provides major and minor version numbers, so that an extension can check if the gawk it is loaded with supports the facilities it was compiled with. (Version mismatches “shouldn’t” happen, but we all know how that goes.) See API Version Constants and Variables for details.

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17.4 API Description ¶

C or C++ code for an extension must include the header file gawkapi.h , which declares the functions and defines the data types used to communicate with gawk . This (rather large) section describes the API in detail.

General-Purpose Data Types
Memory Allocation Functions and Convenience Macros
Constructor Functions
Managing MPFR and GMP Values
Registration Functions
Printing Messages
Updating ERRNO
Requesting Values
Accessing and Updating Parameters
Symbol Table Access
Array Manipulation
Accessing and Manipulating Redirections
API Variables
Boilerplate Code
Changes From Version 1 of the API

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17.4.1 Introduction ¶

Access to facilities within gawk is achieved by calling through function pointers passed into your extension.

API function pointers are provided for the following kinds of operations:

Allocating, reallocating, and releasing memory.
Extension functions
Exit callbacks
A version string
Input parsers
Output wrappers
Two-way processors

All of these are discussed in detail later in this chapter.

Printing fatal, warning, and “lint” warning messages.
Updating ERRNO , or unsetting it.
Accessing parameters, including converting an undefined parameter into an array.
Symbol table access: retrieving a global variable, creating one, or changing one.
Creating and releasing cached values; this provides an efficient way to use values for multiple variables and can be a big performance win.
Retrieving, adding, deleting, and modifying elements
Getting the count of elements in an array
Creating a new array
Clearing an array
Flattening an array for easy C-style looping over all its indices and elements
Accessing and manipulating redirections.

Some points about using the API:

Table 17.1: Standard header files needed by API

Due to portability concerns, especially to systems that are not fully standards-compliant, it is your responsibility to include the correct files in the correct way. This requirement is necessary in order to keep gawkapi.h clean, instead of becoming a portability hodge-podge as can be seen in some parts of the gawk source code.

If your extension uses MPFR facilities, and you wish to receive such values from gawk and/or pass such values to it, you must include the <mpfr.h> header before including <gawkapi.h> .
The gawkapi.h file may be included more than once without ill effect. Doing so, however, is poor coding practice.
Although the API only uses ISO C 90 features, there is an exception; the “constructor” functions use the inline keyword. If your compiler does not support this keyword, you should either place ‘ -Dinline='' ’ on your command line or use the GNU Autotools and include a config.h file in your extensions.

Memory for all strings passed into gawk from the extension must come from calling one of gawk_malloc() , gawk_calloc() , or gawk_realloc() , and is managed by gawk from then on.

Memory for MPFR/GMP values that come from gawk should also be treated as read-only. However, unlike strings, memory for MPFR/GMP values allocated by an extension and passed into gawk is copied by gawk ; the extension should then free the values itself to avoid memory leaks. This is discussed further in API Ownership of MPFR and GMP Values .

String values maintain both pointer and length, because embedded NUL characters are allowed.

NOTE: By intent, gawk maintains strings using the current multibyte encoding (as defined by LC_ xxx environment variables) and not using wide characters. This matches how gawk stores strings internally and also how characters are likely to be input into and output from files.

NOTE: String values passed to an extension by gawk are always NUL -terminated. Thus it is safe to pass such string values to standard library and system routines. However, because gawk allows embedded NUL characters in string data, before using the data as a regular C string, you should check that the length for that string passed to the extension matches the return value of strlen() for it.

However, if the request and actual type don’t match, the access function returns “false” and fills in the type of the actual value that is there, so that the extension can, e.g., print an error message (such as “scalar passed where array expected”).

You may call the API functions by using the function pointers directly, but the interface is not so pretty. To make extension code look more like regular code, the gawkapi.h header file defines several macros that you should use in your code. This section presents the macros as if they were functions.

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17.4.2 General-Purpose Data Types ¶

I have a true love/hate relationship with unions.

That’s the thing about unions: the compiler will arrange things so they can accommodate both love and hate.

The extension API defines a number of simple types and structures for general-purpose use. Additional, more specialized, data structures are introduced in subsequent sections, together with the functions that use them.

The general-purpose types and structures are as follows:

A value of this type is received from gawk when an extension is loaded. That value must then be passed back to gawk as the first parameter of each API function.

This macro expands to ‘ const ’ when compiling an extension, and to nothing when compiling gawk itself. This makes certain fields in the API data structures unwritable from extension code, while allowing gawk to use them as it needs to.

A simple Boolean type.

This represents a mutable string. gawk owns the memory pointed to if it supplied the value. Otherwise, it takes ownership of the memory pointed to. Such memory must come from calling one of the gawk_malloc() , gawk_calloc() , or gawk_realloc() functions!

As mentioned earlier, strings are maintained using the current multibyte encoding.

This enum indicates the type of a value. It is used in the following struct .

An “ awk value.” The val_type member indicates what kind of value the union holds, and each member is of the appropriate type.

Using these macros makes accessing the fields of the awk_value_t more readable.

This enum is used in the following structure for defining the type of numeric value that is being worked with. It is declared at the top level of the file so that it works correctly for C++ as well as for C.

This represents a numeric value. Internally, gawk stores every number as either a C double , a GMP integer, or an MPFR arbitrary-precision floating-point value. In order to allow extensions to also support GMP and MPFR values, numeric values are passed in this structure.

The double-precision d element is always populated in data received from gawk . In addition, by examining the type member, an extension can determine if the ptr member is either a GMP integer (type mpz_ptr ), or an MPFR floating-point value (type mpfr_ptr_t ), and cast it appropriately.

CAUTION: Any MPFR or MPZ values that you create and pass to gawk to save are copied . This means you are responsible to release the storage once you’re done with it. See the sample intdiv extension for some example code.

Scalars can be represented as an opaque type. These values are obtained from gawk and then passed back into it. This is discussed in a general fashion in the text following this list, and in more detail in Variable Access and Update by Cookie .

A “value cookie” is an opaque type representing a cached value. This is also discussed in a general fashion in the text following this list, and in more detail in Creating and Using Cached Values .

Scalar values in awk are numbers, strings, strnums, or typed regexps. The awk_value_t struct represents values. The val_type member indicates what is in the union .

Representing numbers is easy—the API uses a C double . Strings require more work. Because gawk allows embedded NUL bytes in string values, a string must be represented as a pair containing a data pointer and length. This is the awk_string_t type.

A strnum (numeric string) value is represented as a string and consists of user input data that appears to be numeric. When an extension creates a strnum value, the result is a string flagged as user input. Subsequent parsing by gawk then determines whether it looks like a number and should be treated as a strnum, or as a regular string.

This is useful in cases where an extension function would like to do something comparable to the split() function which sets the strnum attribute on the array elements it creates. For example, an extension that implements CSV splitting would want to use this feature. This is also useful for a function that retrieves a data item from a database. The PostgreSQL PQgetvalue() function, for example, returns a string that may be numeric or textual depending on the contents.

Typed regexp values (see Strongly Typed Regexp Constants ) are not of much use to extension functions. Extension functions can tell that they’ve received them, and create them for scalar values. Otherwise, they can examine the text of the regexp through regex_value.str and regex_value.len .

Identifiers (i.e., the names of global variables) can be associated with either scalar values or with arrays. In addition, gawk provides true arrays of arrays, where any given array element can itself be an array. Discussion of arrays is delayed until Array Manipulation .

The various macros listed earlier make it easier to use the elements of the union as if they were fields in a struct ; this is a common coding practice in C. Such code is easier to write and to read, but it remains your responsibility to make sure that the val_type member correctly reflects the type of the value in the awk_value_t struct.

Conceptually, the first three members of the union (number, string, and array) are all that is needed for working with awk values. However, because the API provides routines for accessing and changing the value of a global scalar variable only by using the variable’s name, there is a performance penalty: gawk must find the variable each time it is accessed and changed. This turns out to be a real issue, not just a theoretical one.

Thus, if you know that your extension will spend considerable time reading and/or changing the value of one or more scalar variables, you can obtain a scalar cookie 106 object for that variable, and then use the cookie for getting the variable’s value or for changing the variable’s value. The awk_scalar_t type holds a scalar cookie, and the scalar_cookie macro provides access to the value of that type in the awk_value_t struct. Given a scalar cookie, gawk can directly retrieve or modify the value, as required, without having to find it first.

The awk_value_cookie_t type and value_cookie macro are similar. If you know that you wish to use the same numeric or string value for one or more variables, you can create the value once, retaining a value cookie for it, and then pass in that value cookie whenever you wish to set the value of a variable. This saves storage space within the running gawk process and reduces the time needed to create the value.

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17.4.3 Memory Allocation Functions and Convenience Macros ¶

The API provides a number of memory allocation functions for allocating memory that can be passed to gawk , as well as a number of convenience macros. This subsection presents them all as function prototypes, in the way that extension code would use them:

Call the correct version of malloc() to allocate storage that may be passed to gawk .

Call the correct version of calloc() to allocate storage that may be passed to gawk .

Call the correct version of realloc() to allocate storage that may be passed to gawk .

Call the correct version of free() to release storage that was allocated with gawk_malloc() , gawk_calloc() , or gawk_realloc() .

The API has to provide these functions because it is possible for an extension to be compiled and linked against a different version of the C library than was used for the gawk executable. 107 If gawk were to use its version of free() when the memory came from an unrelated version of malloc() , unexpected behavior would likely result.

Three convenience macros may be used for allocating storage from gawk_malloc() , gawk_calloc , and gawk_realloc() . If the allocation fails, they cause gawk to exit with a fatal error message. They should be used as if they were procedure calls that do not return a value:

The arguments to this macro are as follows:

The pointer variable to point at the allocated storage.

The type of the pointer variable. This is used to create a cast for the call to gawk_malloc() .

The total number of bytes to be allocated.

A message to be prefixed to the fatal error message. Typically this is the name of the function using the macro.

For example, you might allocate a string value like so:

This is like emalloc() , but it calls gawk_calloc() instead of gawk_malloc() . The arguments are the same as for the emalloc() macro, but this macro guarantees that the memory returned is initialized to zero.

This is like emalloc() , but it calls gawk_realloc() instead of gawk_malloc() . The arguments are the same as for the emalloc() macro.

Two additional functions allocate MPFR and GMP objects for use by extension functions that need to create and then return such values.

NOTE: These functions are obsolete. Extension functions that need local MPFR and GMP values should simply allocate them on the stack and clear them, as any other code would.

The functions are:

Allocate and initialize an MPFR object and return a pointer to it. If the allocation fails, gawk exits with a fatal “out of memory” error. If gawk was compiled without MPFR support, calling this function causes a fatal error.

Allocate and initialize a GMP object and return a pointer to it. If the allocation fails, gawk exits with a fatal “out of memory” error. If gawk was compiled without MPFR support, calling this function causes a fatal error.

Both of these functions return ‘ void * ’, since the gawkapi.h header file should not have dependency upon <mpfr.h> (and <gmp.h> , which is included from <mpfr.h> ). The actual return values are of types mpfr_ptr and mpz_ptr respectively, and you should cast the return values appropriately before assigning the results to variables of the correct types.

The memory allocated by these functions should be freed with gawk_free() .

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17.4.4 Constructor Functions ¶

The API provides a number of constructor functions for creating string and numeric values, as well as a number of convenience macros. This subsection presents them all as function prototypes, in the way that extension code would use them:

This function creates a string value in the awk_value_t variable pointed to by result . It expects string to be a C string constant (or other string data), and automatically creates a copy of the data for storage in result . It returns result .

This function creates a string value in the awk_value_t variable pointed to by result . It expects string to be a ‘ char * ’ value pointing to data previously obtained from gawk_malloc() , gawk_calloc() , or gawk_realloc() . The idea here is that the data is passed directly to gawk , which assumes responsibility for it. It returns result .

This specialized function creates a null string (the “undefined” value) in the awk_value_t variable pointed to by result . It returns result .

This function simply creates a numeric value in the awk_value_t variable pointed to by result .

This function creates a GMP number value in result . The mpz must be from a call to get_mpz_ptr() (and thus be of real underlying type mpz_ptr ).

This function creates an MPFR number value in result . The mpfr must be from a call to get_mpfr_ptr() .

This function is identical to make_const_string() , but the string is flagged as user input that should be treated as a strnum value if the contents of the string are numeric.

This function is identical to make_malloced_string() , but the string is flagged as user input that should be treated as a strnum value if the contents of the string are numeric.

This function creates a strongly typed regexp value by allocating a copy of the string. string is the regular expression of length len .

This function creates a strongly typed regexp value. string is the regular expression of length len . It expects string to be a ‘ char * ’ value pointing to data previously obtained from gawk_malloc() , gawk_calloc() , or gawk_realloc() .

This function creates a boolean value in the awk_value_t variable pointed to by result .

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17.4.5 Managing MPFR and GMP Values ¶

MPFR and GMP values are different from string values, where you can “take ownership” of the value simply by assigning pointers. For example:

MPFR and GMP objects are indeed allocated on the stack or dynamically, but the MPFR and GMP libraries treat these objects as values, the same way that you would pass an int or a double by value. There is no way to “transfer ownership” of MPFR and GMP objects.

The final results of an MPFR or GMP calculation should be passed back to gawk , by value, as you would a string or a double . gawk will take care of freeing the storage.

Thus, code in an extension should look like this:

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17.4.6 Registration Functions ¶

This section describes the API functions for registering parts of your extension with gawk .

Registering An Extension Function
Registering An Exit Callback Function
Registering An Extension Version String
Customized Input Parsers
Customized Output Wrappers
Customized Two-way Processors

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17.4.6.1 Registering An Extension Function ¶

Extension functions are described by the following record:

The fields are:

The name of the new function. awk -level code calls the function by this name. This is a regular C string.

Function names must obey the rules for awk identifiers. That is, they must begin with either an English letter or an underscore, which may be followed by any number of letters, digits, and underscores. Letter case in function names is significant.

This is a pointer to the C function that provides the extension’s functionality. The function must fill in *result with either a number, a string, or a regexp. gawk takes ownership of any string memory. As mentioned earlier, string memory must come from one of gawk_malloc() , gawk_calloc() , or gawk_realloc() .

The num_actual_args argument tells the C function how many actual parameters were passed from the calling awk code.

The finfo parameter is a pointer to the awk_ext_func_t for this function. The called function may access data within it as desired, or not.

The function must return the value of result . This is for the convenience of the calling code inside gawk .

This is the maximum number of arguments the function expects to receive. If called with more arguments than this, and if lint checking has been enabled, then gawk prints a warning message. For more information, see the entry for suppress_lint , later in this list.

This is the minimum number of arguments the function expects to receive. If called with fewer arguments, gawk prints a fatal error message and exits.

This flag tells gawk not to print a lint message if lint checking has been enabled and if more arguments were supplied in the call than expected. An extension function can tell if gawk already printed at least one such message by checking if ‘ num_actual_args > finfo->max_expected_args ’. If so, and the function does not want more lint messages to be printed, it should set finfo->suppress_lint to awk_true .

This is an opaque pointer to any data that an extension function may wish to have available when called. Passing the awk_ext_func_t structure to the extension function, and having this pointer available in it enable writing a single C or C++ function that implements multiple awk -level extension functions.

Once you have a record representing your extension function, you register it with gawk using this API function:

This function returns true upon success, false otherwise. The name_space parameter is the namespace in which to place the function (see Namespaces in gawk ). Use an empty string ( "" ) or "awk" to place the function in the default awk namespace. The func pointer is the address of a struct representing your function, as just described.

gawk does not modify what func points to, but the extension function itself receives this pointer and can modify what it points to, thus it is purposely not declared to be const .

The combination of min_required_args , max_expected_args , and suppress_lint may be confusing. Here is how you should set things up.

Set min_required_args and max_expected_args to zero and set suppress_lint to awk_true .

Set min_required_args to the minimum required. Set max_expected_args to zero and set suppress_lint to awk_true .

Set min_required_args to the minimum required. Set max_expected_args to the maximum expected. Set suppress_lint to awk_false .

Set min_required_args to the minimum required. Set max_expected_args to the maximum expected. Set suppress_lint to awk_false . In your extension function, check that num_actual_args does not exceed f->max_expected_args . If it does, issue a fatal error message.

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17.4.6.2 Registering An Exit Callback Function ¶

An exit callback function is a function that gawk calls before it exits. Such functions are useful if you have general “cleanup” tasks that should be performed in your extension (such as closing database connections or other resource deallocations). You can register such a function with gawk using the following function:

The parameters are:

A pointer to the function to be called before gawk exits. The data parameter will be the original value of arg0 . The exit_status parameter is the exit status value that gawk intends to pass to the exit() system call.

A pointer to private data that gawk saves in order to pass to the function pointed to by funcp .

Exit callback functions are called in last-in, first-out (LIFO) order—that is, in the reverse order in which they are registered with gawk .

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17.4.6.3 Registering An Extension Version String ¶

You can register a version string that indicates the name and version of your extension with gawk , as follows:

Register the string pointed to by version with gawk . Note that gawk does not copy the version string, so it should not be changed.

gawk prints all registered extension version strings when it is invoked with the --version option.

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17.4.6.4 Customized Input Parsers ¶

By default, gawk reads text files as its input. It uses the value of RS to find the end of an input record, and then uses FS (or FIELDWIDTHS or FPAT ) to split it into fields (see Reading Input Files ). Additionally, it sets the value of RT (see Predefined Variables ).

If you want, you can provide your own custom input parser. An input parser’s job is to return a record to the gawk record-processing code, along with indicators for the value and length of the data to be used for RT , if any.

To provide an input parser, you must first provide two functions (where XXX is a prefix name for your extension):

This function examines the information available in iobuf (which we discuss shortly). Based on the information there, it decides if the input parser should be used for this file. If so, it should return true. Otherwise, it should return false. It should not change any state (variable values, etc.) within gawk .

When gawk decides to hand control of the file over to the input parser, it calls this function. This function in turn must fill in certain fields in the awk_input_buf_t structure and ensure that certain conditions are true. It should then return true. If an error of some kind occurs, it should not fill in any fields and should return false; then gawk will not use the input parser. The details are presented shortly.

Your extension should package these functions inside an awk_input_parser_t , which looks like this:

The name of the input parser. This is a regular C string.

A pointer to your XXX _can_take_file() function.

A pointer to your XXX _take_control_of() function.

This is for use by gawk ; therefore it is marked awk_const so that the extension cannot modify it.

The steps are as follows:

Create a static awk_input_parser_t variable and initialize it appropriately.
When your extension is loaded, register your input parser with gawk using the register_input_parser() API function (described next).

An awk_input_buf_t looks like this:

The fields can be divided into two categories: those for use (initially, at least) by XXX _can_take_file() , and those for use by XXX _take_control_of() . The first group of fields and their uses are as follows:

The name of the file.

A file descriptor for the file. gawk attempts to open the file for reading using the open() system call. If it was able to open the file, then fd will not be equal to INVALID_HANDLE . Otherwise, it will.

An extension can decide that it doesn’t want to use the open file descriptor provided by gawk . In such a case it can close the file and set fd to INVALID_HANDLE , or it can leave it alone and keep it’s own file descriptor in private data pointed to by the opaque pointer (see further in this list). In any case, if the file descriptor is valid, it should not just overwrite the value with something else; doing so would cause a resource leak.

If the file descriptor is valid, then gawk will have filled in this structure via a call to the fstat() system call. Otherwise, if the lstat() system call is available, it will use that. If lstat() is not available, then it uses stat() .

Getting the file’s information allows extensions to check the type of the file even if it could not be opened. This occurs, for example, on Windows systems when trying to use open() on a directory.

If gawk was not able to get the file information, then sbuf will be zeroed out. In particular, extension code can check if ‘ sbuf.st_mode == 0 ’. If that’s true, then there is no information in sbuf .

The XXX _can_take_file() function should examine these fields and decide if the input parser should be used for the file. The decision can be made based upon gawk state (the value of a variable defined previously by the extension and set by awk code), the name of the file, whether or not the file descriptor is valid, the information in the struct stat , or any combination of these factors.

Once XXX _can_take_file() has returned true, and gawk has decided to use your input parser, it calls XXX _take_control_of() . That function then fills either the get_record field or the read_func field in the awk_input_buf_t . It must also ensure that fd is not set to INVALID_HANDLE . The following list describes the fields that may be filled by XXX _take_control_of() :

This is used to hold any state information needed by the input parser for this file. It is “opaque” to gawk . The input parser is not required to use this pointer.

This function pointer should point to a function that creates the input records. Said function is the core of the input parser. Its behavior is described in the text following this list.

This function pointer should point to a function that has the same behavior as the standard POSIX read() system call. It is an alternative to the get_record pointer. Its behavior is also described in the text following this list.

This function pointer should point to a function that does the “teardown.” It should release any resources allocated by XXX _take_control_of() . It may also close the file. If it does so, it should set the fd field to INVALID_HANDLE .

If fd is still not INVALID_HANDLE after the call to this function, gawk calls the regular close() system call.

Having a “teardown” function is optional. If your input parser does not need it, do not set this field. Then, gawk calls the regular close() system call on the file descriptor, so it should be valid.

The XXX _get_record() function does the work of creating input records. The parameters are as follows:

This is a pointer to a char * variable that is set to point to the record. gawk makes its own copy of the data, so your extension must manage this storage.

This is the awk_input_buf_t for the file. Two of its fields should be used by your extension: fd for reading data, and opaque for managing any private state.

If an error occurs, *errcode should be set to an appropriate code from <errno.h> .

If the concept of a “record terminator” makes sense, then *rt_start should be set to point to the data to be used for RT , and *rt_len should be set to the length of the data. Otherwise, *rt_len should be set to zero. Here too, gawk makes its own copy of this data, so your extension must manage this storage.

If field_width is not NULL , then *field_width will be initialized to NULL , and the function may set it to point to a structure supplying field width information to override the default field parsing mechanism. Note that this structure will not be copied by gawk ; it must persist at least until the next call to get_record or close_func . Note also that field_width is NULL when getline is assigning the results to a variable, thus field parsing is not needed.

If the parser sets *field_width , then gawk uses this layout to parse the input record, and the PROCINFO["FS"] value will be "API" while this record is active in $0 . The awk_fieldwidth_info_t data structure is described below.

The return value is the length of the buffer pointed to by *out , or EOF if end-of-file was reached or an error occurred.

It is guaranteed that errcode is a valid pointer, so there is no need to test for a NULL value. gawk sets *errcode to zero, so there is no need to set it unless an error occurs.

If an error does occur, the function should return EOF and set *errcode to a value greater than zero. In that case, if *errcode does not equal zero, gawk automatically updates the ERRNO variable based on the value of *errcode . (In general, setting ‘ *errcode = errno ’ should do the right thing.)

As an alternative to supplying a function that returns an input record, you may instead supply a function that simply reads bytes, and let gawk parse the data into records. If you do so, the data should be returned in the multibyte encoding of the current locale. Such a function should follow the same behavior as the read() system call, and you fill in the read_func pointer with its address in the awk_input_buf_t structure.

By default, gawk sets the read_func pointer to point to the read() system call. So your extension need not set this field explicitly.

NOTE: You must choose one method or the other: either a function that returns a record, or one that returns raw data. In particular, if you supply a function to get a record, gawk will call it, and will never call the raw read function.

gawk ships with a sample extension that reads directories, returning records for each entry in a directory (see Reading Directories ). You may wish to use that code as a guide for writing your own input parser.

When writing an input parser, you should think about (and document) how it is expected to interact with awk code. You may want it to always be called, and to take effect as appropriate (as the readdir extension does). Or you may want it to take effect based upon the value of an awk variable, as the XML extension from the gawkextlib project does (see The gawkextlib Project ). In the latter case, code in a BEGINFILE rule can look at FILENAME and ERRNO to decide whether or not to activate your input parser (see The BEGINFILE and ENDFILE Special Patterns ).

If you would like to override the default field parsing mechanism for a given record, then you must populate an awk_fieldwidth_info_t structure, which looks like this:

Set this to awk_true if the field lengths are specified in terms of potentially multi-byte characters, and set it to awk_false if the lengths are in terms of bytes. Performance will be better if the values are supplied in terms of bytes.

Set this to the number of fields in the input record, i.e. NF .

This is a variable-length array whose actual dimension should be nf . For each field, the skip element should be set to the number of characters or bytes, as controlled by the use_chars flag, to skip before the start of this field. The len element provides the length of the field. The values in fields[0] provide the information for $1 , and so on through the fields[nf-1] element containing the information for $NF .

A convenience macro awk_fieldwidth_info_size(numfields) is provided to calculate the appropriate size of a variable-length awk_fieldwidth_info_t structure containing numfields fields. This can be used as an argument to malloc() or in a union to allocate space statically. Please refer to the readdir_test sample extension for an example.

You register your input parser with the following function:

Next: Customized Two-way Processors , Previous: Customized Input Parsers , Up: Registration Functions [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.4.6.5 Customized Output Wrappers ¶

An output wrapper is the mirror image of an input parser. It allows an extension to take over the output to a file opened with the ‘ > ’ or ‘ >> ’ I/O redirection operators (see Redirecting Output of print and printf ).

The output wrapper is very similar to the input parser structure:

The members are as follows:

This is the name of the output wrapper.

This points to a function that examines the information in the awk_output_buf_t structure pointed to by outbuf . It should return true if the output wrapper wants to take over the file, and false otherwise. It should not change any state (variable values, etc.) within gawk .

The function pointed to by this field is called when gawk decides to let the output wrapper take control of the file. It should fill in appropriate members of the awk_output_buf_t structure, as described next, and return true if successful, false otherwise.

The awk_output_buf_t structure looks like this:

Here too, your extension will define XXX _can_take_file() and XXX _take_control_of() functions that examine and update data members in the awk_output_buf_t . The data members are as follows:

The name of the output file.

The mode string (as would be used in the second argument to fopen() ) with which the file was opened.

The FILE pointer from <stdio.h> . gawk opens the file before attempting to find an output wrapper.

This field must be set to true by the XXX _take_control_of() function.

This pointer is opaque to gawk . The extension should use it to store a pointer to any private data associated with the file.

These pointers should be set to point to functions that perform the equivalent function as the <stdio.h> functions do, if appropriate. gawk uses these function pointers for all output. gawk initializes the pointers to point to internal “pass-through” functions that just call the regular <stdio.h> functions, so an extension only needs to redefine those functions that are appropriate for what it does.

The XXX _can_take_file() function should make a decision based upon the name and mode fields, and any additional state (such as awk variable values) that is appropriate. gawk attempts to open the named file for writing. The fp member will be NULL only if it fails.

When gawk calls XXX _take_control_of() , that function should fill in the other fields as appropriate, except for fp , which it should just use normally if it’s not NULL .

You register your output wrapper with the following function:

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17.4.6.6 Customized Two-way Processors ¶

A two-way processor combines an input parser and an output wrapper for two-way I/O with the ‘ |& ’ operator (see Redirecting Output of print and printf ). It makes identical use of the awk_input_parser_t and awk_output_buf_t structures as described earlier.

A two-way processor is represented by the following structure:

The fields are as follows:

The name of the two-way processor.

The function pointed to by this field should return true if it wants to take over two-way I/O for this file name. It should not change any state (variable values, etc.) within gawk .

The function pointed to by this field should fill in the awk_input_buf_t and awk_output_buf_t structures pointed to by inbuf and outbuf , respectively. These structures were described earlier.

As with the input parser and output processor, you provide “yes I can take this” and “take over for this” functions, XXX _can_take_two_way() and XXX _take_control_of() .

You register your two-way processor with the following function:

Next: Updating ERRNO , Previous: Registration Functions , Up: API Description [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.4.7 Printing Messages ¶

You can print different kinds of warning messages from your extension, as described here. Note that for these functions, you must pass in the extension ID received from gawk when the extension was loaded: 108

Print a message and then cause gawk to exit immediately.

Print a nonfatal error message.

Print a warning message.

Print a “lint warning.” Normally this is the same as printing a warning message, but if gawk was invoked with ‘ --lint=fatal ’, then lint warnings become fatal error messages.

All of these functions are otherwise like the C printf() family of functions, where the format parameter is a string with literal characters and formatting codes intermixed.

Next: Requesting Values , Previous: Printing Messages , Up: API Description [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.4.8 Updating ERRNO ¶

The following functions allow you to update the ERRNO variable:

Set ERRNO to the string equivalent of the error code in errno_val . The value should be one of the defined error codes in <errno.h> , and gawk turns it into a (possibly translated) string using the C strerror() function.

Set ERRNO directly to the string value of ERRNO . gawk makes a copy of the value of string .

Unset ERRNO .

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17.4.9 Requesting Values ¶

All of the functions that return values from gawk work in the same way. You pass in an awk_valtype_t value to indicate what kind of value you expect. If the actual value matches what you requested, the function returns true and fills in the awk_value_t result. Otherwise, the function returns false, and the val_type member indicates the type of the actual value. You may then print an error message or reissue the request for the actual value type, as appropriate. This behavior is summarized in Table 17.2 .

Table 17.2: API value types returned

Next: Symbol Table Access , Previous: Requesting Values , Up: API Description [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.4.10 Accessing and Updating Parameters ¶

Two functions give you access to the arguments (parameters) passed to your extension function. They are:

Fill in the awk_value_t structure pointed to by result with the count th argument. Return true if the actual type matches wanted , and false otherwise. In the latter case, result-> val_type indicates the actual type (see Table 17.2 ). Counts are zero-based—the first argument is numbered zero, the second one, and so on. wanted indicates the type of value expected.

Convert a parameter that was undefined into an array; this provides call by reference for arrays. Return false if count is too big, or if the argument’s type is not undefined. See Array Manipulation for more information on creating arrays.

Next: Array Manipulation , Previous: Accessing and Updating Parameters , Up: API Description [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.4.11 Symbol Table Access ¶

Two sets of routines provide access to global variables, and one set allows you to create and release cached values.

Variable Access and Update by Name
Variable Access and Update by Cookie
Creating and Using Cached Values

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17.4.11.1 Variable Access and Update by Name ¶

The following routines provide the ability to access and update global awk -level variables by name. In compiler terminology, identifiers of different kinds are termed symbols , thus the “sym” in the routines’ names. The data structure that stores information about symbols is termed a symbol table . The functions are as follows:

Fill in the awk_value_t structure pointed to by result with the value of the variable named by the string name , which is a regular C string. wanted indicates the type of value expected. Return true if the actual type matches wanted , and false otherwise. In the latter case, result->val_type indicates the actual type (see Table 17.2 ).

This is like sym_lookup() , but the name_space parameter allows you to specify which namespace name is part of. name_space cannot be NULL . If it is "" or "awk" , then name is searched for in the default awk namespace.

Note that namespace is a C++ keyword. For interoperability with C++, you should avoid using that identifier in C code.

Update the variable named by the string name , which is a regular C string. The variable is added to gawk ’s symbol table if it is not there. Return true if everything worked, and false otherwise.

Changing types (scalar to array or vice versa) of an existing variable is not allowed, nor may this routine be used to update an array. This routine cannot be used to update any of the predefined variables (such as ARGC or NF ).

This is like sym_update() , but the name_space parameter allows you to specify which namespace name is part of. name_space cannot be NULL . If it is "" or "awk" , then name is searched for in the default awk namespace.

An extension can look up the value of gawk ’s special variables. However, with the exception of the PROCINFO array, an extension cannot change any of those variables.

When searching for or updating variables outside the awk namespace (see Namespaces in gawk ), function and variable names must be simple identifiers. 109 In addition, namespace names and variable and function names must follow the rules given in Namespace and Component Naming Rules .

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17.4.11.2 Variable Access and Update by Cookie ¶

A scalar cookie is an opaque handle that provides access to a global variable or array. It is an optimization that avoids looking up variables in gawk ’s symbol table every time access is needed. This was discussed earlier, in General-Purpose Data Types .

The following functions let you work with scalar cookies:

Retrieve the current value of a scalar cookie. Once you have obtained a scalar cookie using sym_lookup() , you can use this function to get its value more efficiently. Return false if the value cannot be retrieved.

Update the value associated with a scalar cookie. Return false if the new value is not of type AWK_STRING , AWK_STRNUM , AWK_REGEX , or AWK_NUMBER . Here too, the predefined variables may not be updated.

It is not obvious at first glance how to work with scalar cookies or what their raison d’être really is. In theory, the sym_lookup() and sym_update() routines are all you really need to work with variables. For example, you might have code that looks up the value of a variable, evaluates a condition, and then possibly changes the value of the variable based on the result of that evaluation, like so:

This code looks (and is) simple and straightforward. So what’s the problem?

Well, consider what happens if awk -level code associated with your extension calls the magic() function (implemented in C by do_magic() ), once per record, while processing hundreds of thousands or millions of records. The MAGIC_VAR variable is looked up in the symbol table once or twice per function call!

The symbol table lookup is really pure overhead; it is considerably more efficient to get a cookie that represents the variable, and use that to get the variable’s value and update it as needed. 110

Thus, the way to use cookies is as follows. First, install your extension’s variable in gawk ’s symbol table using sym_update() , as usual. Then get a scalar cookie for the variable using sym_lookup() :

Next, use the routines in this section for retrieving and updating the value through the cookie. Thus, do_magic() now becomes something like this:

NOTE: The previous code omitted error checking for presentation purposes. Your extension code should be more robust and carefully check the return values from the API functions.

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17.4.11.3 Creating and Using Cached Values ¶

The routines in this section allow you to create and release cached values. Like scalar cookies, in theory, cached values are not necessary. You can create numbers and strings using the functions in Constructor Functions . You can then assign those values to variables using sym_update() or sym_update_scalar() , as you like.

However, you can understand the point of cached values if you remember that every string value’s storage must come from gawk_malloc() , gawk_calloc() , or gawk_realloc() . If you have 20 variables, all of which have the same string value, you must create 20 identical copies of the string. 111

It is clearly more efficient, if possible, to create a value once, and then tell gawk to reuse the value for multiple variables. That is what the routines in this section let you do. The functions are as follows:

Create a cached string or numeric value from value for efficient later assignment. Only values of type AWK_NUMBER , AWK_REGEX , AWK_STRNUM , and AWK_STRING are allowed. Any other type is rejected. AWK_UNDEFINED could be allowed, but doing so would result in inferior performance.

Release the memory associated with a value cookie obtained from create_value() .

You use value cookies in a fashion similar to the way you use scalar cookies. In the extension initialization routine, you create the value cookie:

Once the value is created, you can use it as the value of any number of variables:

Using value cookies in this way saves considerable storage, as all of VAR1 through VAR100 share the same value.

You might be wondering, “Is this sharing problematic? What happens if awk code assigns a new value to VAR1 ; are all the others changed too?”

That’s a great question. The answer is that no, it’s not a problem. Internally, gawk uses reference-counted strings . This means that many variables can share the same string value, and gawk keeps track of the usage. When a variable’s value changes, gawk simply decrements the reference count on the old value and updates the variable to use the new value.

Finally, as part of your cleanup action (see Registering An Exit Callback Function ) you should release any cached values that you created, using release_value() .

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17.4.12 Array Manipulation ¶

The primary data structure 112 in awk is the associative array (see Arrays in awk ). Extensions need to be able to manipulate awk arrays. The API provides a number of data structures for working with arrays, functions for working with individual elements, and functions for working with arrays as a whole. This includes the ability to “flatten” an array so that it is easy for C code to traverse every element in an array. The array data structures integrate nicely with the data structures for values to make it easy to both work with and create true arrays of arrays (see General-Purpose Data Types ).

Array Data Types
Array Functions
Working With All The Elements of an Array
How To Create and Populate Arrays

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17.4.12.1 Array Data Types ¶

The data types associated with arrays are as follows:

If you request the value of an array variable, you get back an awk_array_t value. This value is opaque 113 to the extension; it uniquely identifies the array but can only be used by passing it into API functions or receiving it from API functions. This is very similar to way ‘ FILE * ’ values are used with the <stdio.h> library routines.

The awk_element_t is a “flattened” array element. awk produces an array of these inside the awk_flat_array_t (see the next item). Individual elements may be marked for deletion. New elements must be added individually, one at a time, using the separate API for that purpose. The fields are as follows:

This pointer is for the convenience of extension writers. It allows an extension to create a linked list of new elements that can then be added to an array in a loop that traverses the list.

A set of flag values that convey information between the extension and gawk . Currently there is only one: AWK_ELEMENT_DELETE . Setting it causes gawk to delete the element from the original array upon release of the flattened array.

The index and value of the element, respectively. All memory pointed to by index and value belongs to gawk .

This is a flattened array. When an extension gets one of these from gawk , the elements array is of actual size count . The opaque1 and opaque2 pointers are for use by gawk ; therefore they are marked awk_const so that the extension cannot modify them.

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17.4.12.2 Array Functions ¶

The following functions relate to individual array elements:

For the array represented by a_cookie , place in *count the number of elements it contains. A subarray counts as a single element. Return false if there is an error.

For the array represented by a_cookie , return in *result the value of the element whose index is index . wanted specifies the type of value you wish to retrieve. Return false if wanted does not match the actual type or if index is not in the array (see Table 17.2 ).

The value for index can be numeric, in which case gawk converts it to a string. Using nonintegral values is possible, but requires that you understand how such values are converted to strings (see Conversion of Strings and Numbers ); thus, using integral values is safest.

As with all strings passed into gawk from an extension, the string value of index must come from gawk_malloc() , gawk_calloc() , or gawk_realloc() , and gawk releases the storage.

In the array represented by a_cookie , create or modify the element whose index is given by index . The ARGV and ENVIRON arrays may not be changed, although the PROCINFO array can be.

Like set_array_element() , but take the index and value from element . This is a convenience macro.

Remove the element with the given index from the array represented by a_cookie . Return true if the element was removed, or false if the element did not exist in the array.

The following functions relate to arrays as a whole:

Create a new array to which elements may be added. See How To Create and Populate Arrays for a discussion of how to create a new array and add elements to it.

Clear the array represented by a_cookie . Return false if there was some kind of problem, true otherwise. The array remains an array, but after calling this function, it has no elements. This is equivalent to using the delete statement (see The delete Statement ).

Clear the array represented by a_cookie and release the array allocated by create_array . Return false if there was some kind of problem, true otherwise. The array will no longer exist and cannot be used again.

For the array represented by a_cookie , create an awk_flat_array_t structure and fill it in with indices and values of the requested types. Set the pointer whose address is passed as data to point to this structure. Return true upon success, or false otherwise. See Working With All The Elements of an Array , for a discussion of how to flatten an array and work with it.

For the array represented by a_cookie , create an awk_flat_array_t structure and fill it in with AWK_STRING indices and AWK_UNDEFINED values. This is superseded by flatten_array_typed() . It is provided as a macro, and remains for convenience and for source code compatibility with the previous version of the API.

When done with a flattened array, release the storage using this function. You must pass in both the original array cookie and the address of the created awk_flat_array_t structure. The function returns true upon success, false otherwise.

Next: How To Create and Populate Arrays , Previous: Array Functions , Up: Array Manipulation [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.4.12.3 Working With All The Elements of an Array ¶

To flatten an array is to create a structure that represents the full array in a fashion that makes it easy for C code to traverse the entire array. Some of the code in extension/testext.c does this, and also serves as a nice example showing how to use the APIs.

We walk through that part of the code one step at a time. First, the gawk script that drives the test extension:

This code creates an array with split() (see String-Manipulation Functions ) and then calls dump_array_and_delete() . That function looks up the array whose name is passed as the first argument, and deletes the element at the index passed in the second argument. The awk code then prints the return value and checks if the element was indeed deleted. Here is the C code that implements dump_array_and_delete() . It has been edited slightly for presentation.

The first part declares variables, sets up the default return value in result , and checks that the function was called with the correct number of arguments:

The function then proceeds in steps, as follows. First, retrieve the name of the array, passed as the first argument, followed by the array itself. If either operation fails, print an error message and return:

For testing purposes and to make sure that the C code sees the same number of elements as the awk code, the second step is to get the count of elements in the array and print it:

The third step is to actually flatten the array, and then to double-check that the count in the awk_flat_array_t is the same as the count just retrieved:

The fourth step is to retrieve the index of the element to be deleted, which was passed as the second argument. Remember that argument counts passed to get_argument() are zero-based, and thus the second argument is numbered one:

The fifth step is where the “real work” is done. The function loops over every element in the array, printing the index and element values. In addition, upon finding the element with the index that is supposed to be deleted, the function sets the AWK_ELEMENT_DELETE bit in the flags field of the element. When the array is released, gawk traverses the flattened array, and deletes any elements that have this flag bit set:

The sixth step is to release the flattened array. This tells gawk that the extension is no longer using the array, and that it should delete any elements marked for deletion. gawk also frees any storage that was allocated, so you should not use the pointer ( flat_array in this code) once you have called release_flattened_array() :

Finally, because everything was successful, the function sets the return value to success, and returns:

Here is the output from running this part of the test:

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17.4.12.4 How To Create and Populate Arrays ¶

Besides working with arrays created by awk code, you can create arrays and populate them as you see fit, and then awk code can access them and manipulate them.

There are two important points about creating arrays from extension code:

Similarly, if installing a new array as a subarray of an existing array, you must add the new array to its parent before adding any elements to it.

Thus, the correct way to build an array is to work “top down.” Create the array, and immediately install it in gawk ’s symbol table using sym_update() , or install it as an element in a previously existing array using set_array_element() . We show example code shortly.

If installing an array as a subarray, you must also retrieve the value of the array cookie after the call to set_element() .

The following C code is a simple test extension to create an array with two regular elements and with a subarray. The leading #include directives and boilerplate variable declarations (see Boilerplate Code ) are omitted for brevity. The first step is to create a new array and then install it in the symbol table:

Note how a_cookie is reset from the array_cookie field in the value structure.

The second step is to install two regular values into new_array :

The third step is to create the subarray and install it:

The final step is to populate the subarray with its own element:

Here is a sample script that loads the extension and then dumps the array:

Here is the result of running the script:

(See How gawk Finds Extensions for more information on the AWKLIBPATH environment variable.)

Next: API Variables , Previous: Array Manipulation , Up: API Description [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.4.13 Accessing and Manipulating Redirections ¶

The following function allows extensions to access and manipulate redirections.

Look up file name in gawk ’s internal redirection table. If name is NULL or name_len is zero, return data for the currently open input file corresponding to FILENAME . (This does not access the filetype argument, so that may be undefined). If the file is not already open, attempt to open it. The filetype argument must be zero-terminated and should be one of:

A file opened for output.

A file opened for append.

A file opened for input.

A pipe opened for output.

A pipe opened for input.

A two-way coprocess.

On error, return awk_false . Otherwise, return awk_true , and return additional information about the redirection in the ibufp and obufp pointers.

For input redirections, the *ibufp value should be non- NULL , and *obufp should be NULL . For output redirections, the *obufp value should be non- NULL , and *ibufp should be NULL . For two-way coprocesses, both values should be non- NULL .

In the usual case, the extension is interested in (*ibufp)->fd and/or fileno((*obufp)->fp) . If the file is not already open, and the fd argument is nonnegative, gawk will use that file descriptor instead of opening the file in the usual way. If fd is nonnegative, but the file exists already, gawk ignores fd and returns the existing file. It is the caller’s responsibility to notice that neither the fd in the returned awk_input_buf_t nor the fd in the returned awk_output_buf_t matches the requested value.

Note that supplying a file descriptor is currently not supported for pipes. However, supplying a file descriptor should work for input, output, append, and two-way (coprocess) sockets. If filetype is two-way, gawk assumes that it is a socket! Note that in the two-way case, the input and output file descriptors may differ. To check for success, you must check whether either matches.

It is anticipated that this API function will be used to implement I/O multiplexing and a socket library.

Next: Boilerplate Code , Previous: Accessing and Manipulating Redirections , Up: API Description [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.4.14 API Variables ¶

The API provides two sets of variables. The first provides information about the version of the API (both with which the extension was compiled, and with which gawk was compiled). The second provides information about how gawk was invoked.

API Version Constants and Variables
GMP and MPFR Version Information
Informational Variables

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17.4.14.1 API Version Constants and Variables ¶

The API provides both a “major” and a “minor” version number. The API versions are available at compile time as C preprocessor defines to support conditional compilation, and as enum constants to facilitate debugging:

Table 17.3: gawk API version constants

The minor version increases when new functions are added to the API. Such new functions are always added to the end of the API struct .

The major version increases (and the minor version is reset to zero) if any of the data types change size or member order, or if any of the existing functions change signature.

It could happen that an extension may be compiled against one version of the API but loaded by a version of gawk using a different version. For this reason, the major and minor API versions of the running gawk are included in the API struct as read-only constant integers:

The major version of the running gawk .

The minor version of the running gawk .

It is up to the extension to decide if there are API incompatibilities. Typically, a check like this is enough:

Such code is included in the boilerplate dl_load_func() macro provided in gawkapi.h (discussed in Boilerplate Code ).

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17.4.14.2 GMP and MPFR Version Information ¶

The API also includes information about the versions of GMP and MPFR with which the running gawk was compiled (if any). They are included in the API struct as read-only constant integers:

The major version of the GMP library used to compile gawk .

The minor version of the GMP library used to compile gawk .

The major version of the MPFR library used to compile gawk .

The minor version of the MPFR library used to compile gawk .

These fields are set to zero if gawk was compiled without MPFR support.

You can check if the versions of MPFR and GMP that you are using match those of gawk with the following macro:

The extension is the extension id passed to all the other macros and functions defined in gawkapi.h . If you have not included the <mpfr.h> header file, then this macro will be defined to do nothing.

If you have included that file, then this macro compares the MPFR and GMP major and minor versions against those of the library you are compiling against. If your libraries are newer than gawk ’s, it produces a fatal error message.

The dl_load_func() macro (see Boilerplate Code ) calls check_mpfr_version() .

Previous: GMP and MPFR Version Information , Up: API Variables [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.4.14.3 Informational Variables ¶

The API provides access to several variables that describe whether the corresponding command-line options were enabled when gawk was invoked. The variables are:

This variable is true if gawk was invoked with --csv option.

This variable is true if gawk was invoked with --debug option.

This variable is true if gawk was invoked with --lint option.

This variable is true if gawk was invoked with --bignum option.

This variable is true if gawk was invoked with --profile option.

This variable is true if gawk was invoked with --sandbox option.

This variable is true if gawk was invoked with --traditional option.

The value of do_lint can change if awk code modifies the LINT predefined variable (see Predefined Variables ). The others should not change during execution.

Next: Changes From Version 1 of the API , Previous: API Variables , Up: API Description [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.4.15 Boilerplate Code ¶

As mentioned earlier (see How It Works at a High Level ), the function definitions as presented are really macros. To use these macros, your extension must provide a small amount of boilerplate code (variables and functions) toward the top of your source file, using predefined names as described here. The boilerplate needed is also provided in comments in the gawkapi.h header file:

These variables and functions are as follows:

This asserts that the extension is compatible with the GNU GPL (see GNU General Public License ). If your extension does not have this, gawk will not load it (see Extension Licensing ).

This global static variable should be set to point to the gawk_api_t pointer that gawk passes to your dl_load() function. This variable is used by all of the macros.

This global static variable should be set to the awk_ext_id_t value that gawk passes to your dl_load() function. This variable is used by all of the macros.

This global static variable should be set either to NULL , or to point to a string giving the name and version of your extension.

This is an array of one or more awk_ext_func_t structures, as described earlier (see Registering An Extension Function ). It can then be looped over for multiple calls to add_ext_func() .

If you need to do some initialization work, you should define a function that does it (creates variables, opens files, etc.) and then define the init_func pointer to point to your function. The function should return awk_false upon failure, or awk_true if everything goes well.

If you don’t need to do any initialization, define the pointer and initialize it to NULL .

This macro expands to a dl_load() function that performs all the necessary initializations.

The point of all the variables and arrays is to let the dl_load() function (from the dl_load_func() macro) do all the standard work. It does the following:

Check the API versions. If the extension major version does not match gawk ’s, or if the extension minor version is greater than gawk ’s, it prints a fatal error message and exits.
Check the MPFR and GMP versions. If there is a mismatch, it prints a fatal error message and exits.
Load the functions defined in func_table . If any of them fails to load, it prints a warning message but continues on.
If the init_func pointer is not NULL , call the function it points to. If it returns awk_false , print a warning message.
If ext_version is not NULL , register the version string with gawk .

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17.4.16 Changes From Version 1 of the API ¶

The current API is not binary compatible with version 1 of the API. You will have to recompile your extensions in order to use them with the current version of gawk .

Fortunately, at the possible expense of some compile-time warnings, the API remains source-code–compatible with the previous API. The major differences are the additional members in the awk_ext_func_t structure, and the addition of the third argument to the C implementation function (see Registering An Extension Function ).

Here is a list of individual features that changed from version 1 to version 2 of the API:

Numeric values can now have MPFR/MPZ variants (see General-Purpose Data Types ).
There are new string types: AWK_REGEX and AWK_STRNUM (see General-Purpose Data Types ).
The ezalloc() macro is new (see Memory Allocation Functions and Convenience Macros ).
The awk_ext_func_t structure changed. Instead of num_expected_args , it now has max_expected and min_required (see Registering An Extension Function ).
For get_record() , an input parser can now specify field widths (see Customized Input Parsers ).
Extensions can now produce nonfatal error messages (see Printing Messages ).
When flattening an array, you can now specify the index and value types (see Array Functions ).
The get_file() API is new (see Accessing and Manipulating Redirections ).

Next: Example: Some File Functions , Previous: API Description , Up: Writing Extensions for gawk [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.5 How gawk Finds Extensions ¶

Compiled extensions have to be installed in a directory where gawk can find them. If gawk is configured and built in the default fashion, the directory in which to find extensions is /usr/local/lib/gawk . You can also specify a search path with a list of directories to search for compiled extensions. See The AWKLIBPATH Environment Variable for more information.

Next: The Sample Extensions in the gawk Distribution , Previous: How gawk Finds Extensions , Up: Writing Extensions for gawk [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.6 Example: Some File Functions ¶

No matter where you go, there you are.

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). In order to illustrate the API in action, this section implements these functions for gawk in an extension.

Using chdir() and stat()
C Code for chdir() and stat()
Integrating the Extensions

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17.6.1 Using chdir() and stat() ¶

This section shows how to use the new functions at the awk level once they’ve been integrated into the running gawk interpreter. Using chdir() is very straightforward. It takes one argument, the new directory to change to:

The return value is negative if the chdir() failed, and ERRNO (see Predefined Variables ) is set to a string indicating the error.

Using stat() is a bit more complicated. The C stat() function fills in a structure that has a fair amount of information. The right way to model this in awk is to fill in an associative array with the appropriate information:

The stat() function always clears the data array, even if the stat() fails. It fills in the following elements:

The name of the file that was stat() ed.

The file’s device and inode numbers, respectively.

The file’s mode, as a numeric value. This includes both the file’s type and its permissions.

The number of hard links (directory entries) the file has.

The numeric user and group ID numbers of the file’s owner.

The size in bytes of the file.

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.

The file’s last access, modification, and inode update times, respectively. These are numeric timestamps, suitable for formatting with strftime() (see Time Functions ).

The file’s “printable mode.” This is a string representation of the file’s type and permissions, such as is produced by ‘ ls -l ’—for example, "drwxr-xr-x" .

A printable string representation of the file’s type. The value is one of the following:

The file is a block or character device (“special file”).

The file is a directory.

The file is a named pipe (also known as a FIFO).

The file is just a regular file.

The file is an AF_UNIX (“Unix domain”) socket in the filesystem.

The file is a symbolic link.

The size of a block for the element indexed by "blocks" . This information is derived from either the DEV_BSIZE constant defined in <sys/param.h> on most systems, or the S_BLKSIZE constant in <sys/stat.h> on BSD systems. For some other systems, a priori knowledge is used to provide a value. Where no value can be determined, it defaults to 512.

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 Referring to an Array Element ):

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.

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).

If the file is a block or character device file, then these values represent the numeric device number and the major and minor components of that number, respectively.

Next: Integrating the Extensions , Previous: Using chdir() and stat() , Up: Example: Some File Functions [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.6.2 C Code for chdir() and stat() ¶

Here is the C code for these extensions. 114

The file includes a number of standard header files, and then includes the gawkapi.h header file, which provides the API definitions. Those are followed by the necessary variable declarations to make use of the API macros and boilerplate code (see Boilerplate Code ):

By convention, for an awk function foo() , the C function that implements it is called do_foo() . The function should have two arguments. The first is an int , usually called nargs , that represents the number of actual arguments for the function. The second is a pointer to an awk_value_t structure, usually named result :

The newdir variable represents the new directory to change to, which is retrieved with get_argument() . Note that the first argument is numbered zero.

If the argument is retrieved successfully, the function calls the chdir() system call. Otherwise, if the chdir() fails, it updates ERRNO :

Finally, the function returns the return value to the awk level:

The stat() extension is more involved. First comes a function that turns a numeric mode into a printable representation (e.g., octal 0644 becomes ‘ -rw-r--r-- ’). This is omitted here for brevity:

Next comes a function for reading symbolic links, which is also omitted here for brevity:

Two helper functions simplify entering values in the array that will contain the result of the stat() :

The following function does most of the work to fill in the awk_array_t result array with values obtained from a valid struct stat . This work is done in a separate function to support the stat() function for gawk and also to support the fts() extension, which is included in the same file but whose code is not shown here (see File-Related Functions ).

The first part of the function is variable declarations, including a table to map file types to strings:

The destination array is cleared, and then code fills in various elements based on values in the struct stat :

The latter part of the function makes selective additions to the destination array, depending upon the availability of certain members and/or the type of the file. It then returns zero, for success:

The third argument to stat() was not discussed previously. This argument is optional. If present, it causes do_stat() to use the stat() system call instead of the lstat() system call. This is done by using a function pointer: statfunc . statfunc is initialized to point to lstat() (instead of stat() ) to get the file information, in case the file is a symbolic link. However, if the third argument is included, statfunc is set to point to stat() , instead.

Here is the do_stat() function, which starts with variable declarations and argument checking:

Then comes the actual work. First, the function gets the arguments. Next, it gets the information for the file. If the called function ( lstat() or stat() ) returns an error, the code sets ERRNO and returns:

The tedious work is done by fill_stat_array() , shown earlier. When done, the function returns the result from fill_stat_array() :

Finally, it’s necessary to provide the “glue” that loads the new function(s) into gawk .

The filefuncs extension also provides an fts() function, which we omit here (see File-Related Functions ). For its sake, there is an initialization function:

We are almost done. We need an array of awk_ext_func_t structures for loading each function into gawk :

Each extension must have a routine named dl_load() to load everything that needs to be loaded. It is simplest to use the dl_load_func() macro in gawkapi.h :

And that’s it!

Previous: C Code for chdir() and stat() , Up: Example: Some File Functions [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.6.3 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 gawkapi.h header file, the following steps 115 create a GNU/Linux shared library:

Once the library exists, it is loaded by using the @load keyword:

The AWKLIBPATH environment variable tells gawk where to find extensions (see How gawk Finds Extensions ). We set it to the current directory and run the program:

Next: The gawkextlib Project , Previous: Example: Some File Functions , Up: Writing Extensions for gawk [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.7 The Sample Extensions in the gawk Distribution ¶

This section provides a brief overview of the sample extensions that come in the gawk distribution. Some of them are intended for production use (e.g., the filefuncs , readdir , and inplace extensions). Others mainly provide example code that shows how to use the extension API.

File-Related Functions
Interface to fnmatch()
Interface to fork() , wait() , and waitpid()
Enabling In-Place File Editing
Character and Numeric values: ord() and chr()
Reading Directories
Reversing Output
Two-Way I/O Example
Dumping and Restoring an Array
Reading an Entire File
Extension Time Functions

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17.7.1 File-Related Functions ¶

The filefuncs extension provides three different functions, as follows. The usage is:

This is how you load the extension.

The chdir() function is a direct hook to the chdir() system call to change the current directory. It returns zero upon success or a value less than zero upon error. In the latter case, it updates ERRNO .

The stat() function provides a hook into the stat() system call. It returns zero upon success or a value less than zero upon error. In the latter case, it updates ERRNO .

By default, it uses the lstat() system call. However, if passed a third argument, it uses stat() instead.

In all cases, it clears the statdata array. When the call is successful, stat() fills the statdata array with information retrieved from the filesystem, as follows:

Walk the file trees provided in pathlist and fill in the filedata array, as described next. flags is the bitwise OR of several predefined values, also described in a moment. Return zero if there were no errors, otherwise return −1.

The fts() function provides a hook to the C library fts() routines for traversing file hierarchies. Instead of returning data about one file at a time in a stream, it fills in a multidimensional array with data about each file and directory encountered in the requested hierarchies.

An array of file names. The element values are used; the index values are ignored.

This should be the bitwise OR of one or more of the following predefined constant flag values. At least one of FTS_LOGICAL or FTS_PHYSICAL must be provided; otherwise fts() returns an error value and sets ERRNO . The flags are:

Do a “logical” file traversal, where the information returned for a symbolic link refers to the linked-to file, and not to the symbolic link itself. This flag is mutually exclusive with FTS_PHYSICAL .

Do a “physical” file traversal, where the information returned for a symbolic link refers to the symbolic link itself. This flag is mutually exclusive with FTS_LOGICAL .

As a performance optimization, the C library fts() routines change directory as they traverse a file hierarchy. This flag disables that optimization.

Immediately follow a symbolic link named in pathlist , whether or not FTS_LOGICAL is set.

By default, the C library fts() routines do not return entries for . (dot) and .. (dot-dot). This option causes entries for dot-dot to also be included. (The extension always includes an entry for dot; more on this in a moment.)

During a traversal, do not cross onto a different mounted filesystem.

The filedata array holds the results. fts() first clears it. Then it creates an element in filedata for every element in pathlist . The index is the name of the directory or file given in pathlist . The element for this index is itself an array. There are two cases:

In this case, the array contains two or three elements:

The full path to this file, starting from the “root” that was given in the pathlist array.

This element is itself an array, containing the same information as provided by the stat() function described earlier for its statdata argument. The element may not be present if the stat() system call for the file failed.

If some kind of error was encountered, the array will also contain an element named "error" , which is a string describing the error.

In this case, the array contains one element for each entry in the directory. If an entry is a file, that element is the same as for files, just described. If the entry is a directory, that element is (recursively) an array describing the subdirectory. If FTS_SEEDOT was provided in the flags, then there will also be an element named ".." . This element will be an array containing the data as provided by stat() .

In addition, there will be an element whose index is "." . This element is an array containing the same two or three elements as for a file: "path" , "stat" , and "error" .

The fts() function returns zero if there were no errors. Otherwise, it returns −1.

NOTE: The fts() extension does not exactly mimic the interface of the C library fts() routines, choosing instead to provide an interface that is based on associative arrays, which is more comfortable to use from an awk program. This includes the lack of a comparison function, because gawk already provides powerful array sorting facilities. Although an fts_read() -like interface could have been provided, this felt less natural than simply creating a multidimensional array to represent the file hierarchy and its information.

See test/fts.awk in the gawk distribution for an example use of the fts() extension function.

Next: Interface to fork() , wait() , and waitpid() , Previous: File-Related Functions , Up: The Sample Extensions in the gawk Distribution [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.7.2 Interface to fnmatch() ¶

This extension provides an interface to the C library fnmatch() function. The usage is:

The return value is zero on success, FNM_NOMATCH if the string did not match the pattern, or a different nonzero value if an error occurred.

In addition to the fnmatch() function, the fnmatch extension adds one constant ( FNM_NOMATCH ), and an array of flag values named FNM .

The arguments to fnmatch() are:

The file name wildcard to match

The file name string

Either zero, or the bitwise OR of one or more of the flags in the FNM array

The flags are as follows:

Here is an example:

Next: Enabling In-Place File Editing , Previous: Interface to fnmatch() , Up: The Sample Extensions in the gawk Distribution [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.7.3 Interface to fork() , wait() , and waitpid() ¶

The fork extension adds three functions, as follows:

This function creates a new process. The return value is zero in the child and the process ID number of the child in the parent, or −1 upon error. In the latter case, ERRNO indicates the problem. In the child, PROCINFO["pid"] and PROCINFO["ppid"] are updated to reflect the correct values.

This function takes a numeric argument, which is the process ID to wait for. The return value is that of the waitpid() system call.

This function waits for the first child to die. The return value is that of the wait() system call.

There is no corresponding exec() function.

Next: Character and Numeric values: ord() and chr() , Previous: Interface to fork() , wait() , and waitpid() , Up: The Sample Extensions in the gawk Distribution [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.7.4 Enabling In-Place File Editing ¶

The inplace extension emulates GNU sed ’s -i option, which performs “in-place” editing of each input file. It uses the bundled inplace.awk include file to invoke the extension properly. This extension makes use of the namespace facility to place all the variables and functions in the inplace namespace (see Namespaces in gawk ):

For each regular file that is processed, the extension redirects standard output to a temporary file configured to have the same owner and permissions as the original. After the file has been processed, the extension restores standard output to its original destination. If inplace::suffix is not an empty string, the original file is linked to a backup file name created by appending that suffix. Finally, the temporary file is renamed to the original file name.

Note that the use of this feature can be controlled by placing ‘ inplace::enable=0 ’ on the command-line prior to listing files that should not be processed this way. You can reenable inplace editing by adding an ‘ inplace::enable=1 ’ argument prior to files that should be subject to inplace editing.

The inplace::filename variable serves to keep track of the current file name so as to not invoke inplace::end() before processing the first file.

If any error occurs, the extension issues a fatal error to terminate processing immediately without damaging the original file.

Here are some simple examples:

To keep a backup copy of the original files, try this:

Please note that, while the extension does attempt to preserve ownership and permissions, it makes no attempt to copy the ACLs from the original file.

If the program dies prematurely, as might happen if an unhandled signal is received, a temporary file may be left behind.

Next: Reading Directories , Previous: Enabling In-Place File Editing , Up: The Sample Extensions in the gawk Distribution [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.7.5 Character and Numeric values: ord() and chr() ¶

The ordchr extension adds two functions, named ord() and chr() , as follows:

Return the numeric value of the first character in string .

Return a string whose first character is that represented by number .

These functions are inspired by the Pascal language functions of the same name. Here is an example:

Next: Reversing Output , Previous: Character and Numeric values: ord() and chr() , Up: The Sample Extensions in the gawk Distribution [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.7.6 Reading Directories ¶

The readdir extension adds an input parser for directories. The usage is as follows:

When this extension is in use, instead of skipping directories named on the command line (or with getline ), they are read, with each entry returned as a record.

The record consists of three fields separated by forward slash characters. The first two are the inode number and the file name, and the third field is a single letter indicating the type of the file. The letters and their corresponding file types are shown in Table 17.4 .

Table 17.4: File types returned by the readdir extension

On systems where the directory entry contains the file type, the third field is filled in from that information. On systems without the file type information, the extension falls back to calling the stat() system call in order to provide the information. Thus the third field should never be ‘ u ’ (for “unknown”).

Normally, when reading directories, you should set FS equal to "/" . However, you may instead chose to create PROCINFO["readdir_override"] (with any value). If this element exists when the directory is opened, then the extension automatically sets the fields in each record for you.

By default, if a directory cannot be opened (due to permission problems, for example), gawk will exit. As with regular files, this situation can be handled using a BEGINFILE rule that checks ERRNO and prints an error or otherwise handles the problem.

Next: Two-Way I/O Example , Previous: Reading Directories , Up: The Sample Extensions in the gawk Distribution [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.7.7 Reversing Output ¶

The revoutput extension adds a simple output wrapper that reverses the characters in each output line. Its main purpose is to show how to write an output wrapper, although it may be mildly amusing for the unwary. Here is an example:

The output from this program is ‘ cinap t'nod ’.

Next: Dumping and Restoring an Array , Previous: Reversing Output , Up: The Sample Extensions in the gawk Distribution [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.7.8 Two-Way I/O Example ¶

The revtwoway extension adds a simple two-way processor that reverses the characters in each line sent to it for reading back by the awk program. Its main purpose is to show how to write a two-way processor, although it may also be mildly amusing. The following example shows how to use it:

The output from this program also is: ‘ cinap t'nod ’.

Next: Reading an Entire File , Previous: Two-Way I/O Example , Up: The Sample Extensions in the gawk Distribution [ Contents ][ Index ]

17.7.9 Dumping and Restoring an Array ¶

The rwarray extension adds four functions, named writea() , reada() , writeall() and readall() , as follows:

This function takes a string argument, which is the name of the file to which to dump the array, and the array itself as the second argument. writea() understands arrays of arrays. It returns one on success, or zero upon failure.

reada() is the inverse of writea() ; it reads the file named as its first argument, filling in the array named as the second argument. It clears the array first. Here too, the return value is one on success, or zero upon failure.

This function takes a string argument, which is the name of the file to which to dump the state of all variables. Calling this function is completely equivalent to calling writea(file, SYMTAB) . It returns one on success, or zero upon failure

This function takes a string argument, which is the name of the file from which to read the contents of various global variables. For each variable in the file, the data is loaded unless the variable has already been assigned a value or used as an array. In that case, the data for that variable in the file is ignored. It returns one on success, or zero upon failure.

The array created by reada() is identical to that written by writea() in the sense that the contents are the same. However, due to implementation issues, the array traversal order of the re-created array is likely to be different from that of the original array. As array traversal order in awk is by default undefined, this is (technically) not a problem. If you need to guarantee a particular traversal order, use the array sorting features in gawk to do so (see Controlling Array Traversal and Array Sorting ).

The file contains binary data. All integral values are written in network byte order. However, double-precision floating-point values are written as native binary data. Thus, arrays containing only string data can theoretically be dumped on systems with one byte order and restored on systems with a different one, but this has not been tried.

Note that the writeall() and readall() functions provide a mechanism for maintaining persistent state across repeated invocations of a program. If, for example, a program calculates some statistics based on the data in a series of files, it could save state using writeall() after processing N files, and then reload the state using readall() when the N+1st file arrives to update the results.

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17.7.10 Reading an Entire File ¶

The readfile extension adds a single function named readfile() , and an input parser:

The argument is the name of the file to read. The return value is a string containing the entire contents of the requested file. Upon error, the function returns the empty string and sets ERRNO .

In addition, the extension adds an input parser that is activated if PROCINFO["readfile"] exists. When activated, each input file is returned in its entirety as $0 . RT is set to the null string.

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17.7.11 Extension Time Functions ¶

The time extension adds three functions, named gettimeofday() sleep() , and strptime() , as follows:

Return the time in seconds that has elapsed since 1970-01-01 UTC as a floating-point value. If the time is unavailable on this platform, return −1 and set ERRNO . The returned time should have sub-second precision, but the actual precision may vary based on the platform. If the standard C gettimeofday() system call is available on this platform, then it simply returns the value. Otherwise, if on MS-Windows, it tries to use GetSystemTimeAsFileTime() .

Attempt to sleep for seconds seconds. If seconds is negative, or the attempt to sleep fails, return −1 and set ERRNO . Otherwise, return zero after sleeping for the indicated amount of time. Note that seconds may be a floating-point (nonintegral) value. Implementation details: depending on platform availability, this function tries to use nanosleep() or select() to implement the delay.

This function takes two arguments, a string representing a date and time, and a format string describing the data in the string. It calls the C library strptime() function with the given values. If the parsing succeeds, the results are passed to the C library mktime() function, and its result is returned, expressing the time in seconds since the epoch in the current local timezone, regardless of any timezone specified in the string arguments. (This is the same as gawk ’s built-in systime() function.) Otherwise it returns −1 upon error. In the latter case,

Note that the underlying strptime() C library routine apparently ignores any time zone indication in the date string, producing values relative to the current time zone.

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17.7.12 API Tests ¶

The testext extension exercises parts of the extension API that are not tested by the other samples. The extension/testext.c file contains both the C code for the extension and awk test code inside C comments that run the tests. The testing framework extracts the awk code and runs the tests. See the source file for more information.

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17.8 The gawkextlib Project ¶

The gawkextlib project provides a number of gawk extensions, including one for processing XML files. This is the evolution of the original xgawk (XML gawk ) project.

There are a number of extensions. Some of the more interesting ones are:

abort extension. It allows you to exit immediately from your awk program without running the END rules.
json extension. This serializes a multidimensional array into a JSON string, and can deserialize a JSON string into a gawk array. This extension is interesting since it is written in C++ instead of C.
MPFR library extension. This provides access to a number of MPFR functions that gawk ’s native MPFR support does not.
Select extension. It provides functionality based on the select() system call.
XML parser extension, using the Expat XML parsing library

You can check out the code for the gawkextlib project using the Git distributed source code control system. The command is as follows:

You will need to have the RapidJson JSON parser library installed in order to build and use the json extension.

You will need to have the Expat XML parser library installed in order to build and use the XML extension.

In addition, you must have the GNU Autotools installed ( Autoconf , Automake , Libtool , and GNU gettext ).

The simple recipe for building and testing gawkextlib is as follows. First, build and install gawk :

Next, go to https://sourceforge.net/projects/gawkextlib/files to download gawkextlib and any extensions that you would like to build. The README file at that site explains how to build the code. If you installed gawk in a non-standard location, you will need to specify ‘ ./configure --with-gawk= /path/to/gawk ’ to find it. You may need to use the sudo utility to install both gawk and gawkextlib , depending upon how your system works.

If you write an extension that you wish to share with other gawk users, consider doing so through the gawkextlib project. See the project’s website for more information.

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17.9 Summary ¶

You can write extensions (sometimes called plug-ins) for gawk in C or C++ using the application programming interface (API) defined by the gawk developers.
Extensions must have a license compatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL), and they must assert that fact by declaring a variable named plugin_is_GPL_compatible .
Communication between gawk and an extension is two-way. gawk passes a struct to the extension that contains various data fields and function pointers. The extension can then call into gawk via the supplied function pointers to accomplish certain tasks.
One of these tasks is to “register” the name and implementation of new awk -level functions with gawk . The implementation takes the form of a C function pointer with a defined signature. By convention, implementation functions are named do_ XXXX () for some awk -level function XXXX () .
The API is defined in a header file named gawkapi.h . You must include a number of standard header files before including it in your source file.
Allocating, reallocating, and releasing memory
Registration functions (you may register extension functions, exit callbacks, a version string, input parsers, output wrappers, and two-way processors)
Printing fatal, nonfatal, warning, and “lint” warning messages
Updating ERRNO , or unsetting it
Accessing parameters, including converting an undefined parameter into an array
Symbol table access (retrieving a global variable, creating one, or changing one)
Creating and releasing cached values; this provides an efficient way to use values for multiple variables and can be a big performance win
Manipulating arrays (retrieving, adding, deleting, and modifying elements; getting the count of elements in an array; creating a new array; clearing an array; and flattening an array for easy C-style looping over all its indices and elements)
The API defines a number of standard data types for representing awk values, array elements, and arrays.
The API provides convenience functions for constructing values. It also provides memory management functions to ensure compatibility between memory allocated by gawk and memory allocated by an extension.
All memory passed from gawk to an extension must be treated as read-only by the extension.
All memory passed from an extension to gawk must come from the API’s memory allocation functions. gawk takes responsibility for the memory and releases it when appropriate.
The API provides information about the running version of gawk so that an extension can make sure it is compatible with the gawk that loaded it.
It is easiest to start a new extension by copying the boilerplate code described in this chapter. Macros in the gawkapi.h header file make this easier to do.
The gawk distribution includes a number of small but useful sample extensions. The gawkextlib project includes several more (larger) extensions. If you wish to write an extension and contribute it to the community of gawk users, the gawkextlib project is the place to do so.

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17.10 Exercises ¶

Add functions to implement system calls such as chown() , chmod() , and umask() to the file operations extension presented in C Code for chdir() and stat() .

Why is standard error a better choice than standard output for writing the prompt? Which reading mechanism should you replace, the one to get a record, or the one to read raw bytes?

Write a wrapper script that provides an interface similar to ‘ sed -i ’ for the “inplace” extension presented in Enabling In-Place File Editing .

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Part IV: Appendices ¶

The Evolution of the awk Language
Installing gawk
Implementation Notes
Basic Programming Concepts

Appendix A The Evolution of the awk Language ¶

This Web page describes the GNU implementation of awk , which follows the POSIX specification. Many longtime 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, for a while, some systems derived from 4.4BSD-Lite, used various versions of gawk for their awk .) This chapter briefly describes the evolution of the awk language, with cross-references to other parts of the Web page where you can find more information.

Major Changes Between V7 and SVR3.1
Changes Between SVR3.1 and SVR4
Changes Between SVR4 and POSIX awk
Extensions in Brian Kernighan’s awk
Extensions in gawk Not in POSIX awk
History of gawk Features
Common Extensions Summary
Regexp Ranges and Locales: A Long Sad Story
Major Contributors to gawk

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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 awk Statements Versus Lines )
User-defined functions and the return statement (see User-Defined Functions )
The delete statement (see The delete Statement )
The do - while statement (see The do - while Statement )
The built-in functions atan2() , cos() , sin() , rand() , and srand() (see Numeric Functions )
The built-in functions gsub() , sub() , and match() (see String-Manipulation Functions )
The built-in functions close() and system() (see Input/Output Functions )
The ARGC , ARGV , FNR , RLENGTH , RSTART , and SUBSEP predefined variables (see Predefined Variables )
Assignable $0 (see Changing the Contents of a Field )
The conditional expression using the ternary operator ‘ ?: ’ (see Conditional Expressions )
The expression ‘ indx in array ’ outside of for statements (see Referring to an Array Element )
The exponentiation operator ‘ ^ ’ (see Arithmetic Operators ) and its assignment operator form ‘ ^= ’ (see Assignment Expressions )
C-compatible operator precedence, which breaks some old awk programs (see Operator Precedence (How Operators Nest) )
Regexps as the value of FS (see Specifying How Fields Are Separated ) and as the third argument to the split() function (see String-Manipulation Functions ), rather than using only the first character of FS
Dynamic regexps as operands of the ‘ ~ ’ and ‘ !~ ’ operators (see Using Dynamic Regexps )
The escape sequences ‘ \b ’, ‘ \f ’, and ‘ \r ’ (see Escape Sequences )
Redirection of input for the getline function (see Explicit Input with getline )
Multiple BEGIN and END rules (see The BEGIN and END Special Patterns )
Multidimensional arrays (see Multidimensional Arrays )

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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 array (see Predefined Variables )
Multiple -f options on the command line (see Command-Line Options )
The -v option for assigning variables before program execution begins (see Command-Line Options )
The -- signal for terminating command-line options
The ‘ \a ’, ‘ \v ’, and ‘ \x ’ escape sequences (see Escape Sequences )
A defined return value for the srand() built-in function (see Numeric Functions )
The toupper() and tolower() built-in string functions for case translation (see String-Manipulation Functions )
A cleaner specification for the ‘ %c ’ format-control letter in the printf function (see Format-Control Letters )
The ability to dynamically pass the field width and precision ( "%*.*d" ) in the argument list of printf and sprintf() (see Format-Control Letters )
The use of regexp constants, such as /foo/ , as expressions, where they are equivalent to using the matching operator, as in ‘ $0 ~ /foo/ ’ (see Using Regular Expression Constants )
Processing of escape sequences inside command-line variable assignments (see Assigning Variables on the Command Line )

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A.3 Changes Between SVR4 and POSIX awk ¶

The POSIX Command Language and Utilities standard for awk (1992) introduced the following changes into the language:

The use of -W for implementation-specific options (see Command-Line Options )
The use of CONVFMT for controlling the conversion of numbers to strings (see Conversion of Strings and Numbers )
The concept of a numeric string and tighter comparison rules to go with it (see Variable Typing and Comparison Expressions )
The use of predefined variables as function parameter names is forbidden (see Function Definition Syntax )
More complete documentation of many of the previously undocumented features of the language

In 2012, a number of extensions that had been commonly available for many years were finally added to POSIX. They are:

The fflush() built-in function for flushing buffered output (see Input/Output Functions )
The nextfile statement (see The nextfile Statement )
The ability to delete all of an array at once with ‘ delete array ’ (see The delete Statement )

See Common Extensions Summary for a list of common extensions not permitted by the POSIX standard.

The 2018 POSIX standard can be found online at https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/ .

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A.4 Extensions in Brian Kernighan’s awk ¶

Brian Kernighan has made his version available via his home page (see Other Freely Available awk Implementations ).

This section describes common extensions that originally appeared in his version of awk :

The ‘ ** ’ and ‘ **= ’ operators (see Arithmetic Operators and Assignment Expressions )
The use of func as an abbreviation for function (see Function Definition Syntax )

See Common Extensions Summary for a full list of the extensions available in his awk .

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A.5 Extensions in gawk Not in POSIX awk ¶

The GNU implementation, gawk , adds a large number of features. They can all be disabled with either the --traditional or --posix options (see Command-Line Options ).

A number of features have come and gone over the years. This section summarizes the additional features over POSIX awk that are in the current version of gawk .

The ARGIND , BINMODE , ERRNO , FIELDWIDTHS , FPAT , IGNORECASE , LINT , PROCINFO , RT , and TEXTDOMAIN variables (see Predefined Variables )
The /dev/stdin , /dev/stdout , /dev/stderr , and /dev/fd/ N special file names (see Special File names in gawk )
The /inet , /inet4 , and /inet6 special files for TCP/IP networking using ‘ |& ’ to specify which version of the IP protocol to use (see Using gawk for Network Programming )
The ‘ \x ’ escape sequence (see Escape Sequences )
Full support for both POSIX and GNU regexps (see Regular Expressions )
The ability for FS and for the third argument to split() to be null strings (see Making Each Character a Separate Field )
The ability for RS to be a regexp (see How Input Is Split into Records )
The ability to use octal and hexadecimal constants in awk program source code (see Octal and Hexadecimal Numbers )
The ‘ |& ’ operator for two-way I/O to a coprocess (see Two-Way Communications with Another Process )
Indirect function calls (see Indirect Function Calls )
Directories on the command line produce a warning and are skipped (see Directories on the Command Line )
Output with print and printf need not be fatal (see Enabling Nonfatal Output )
The BEGINFILE and ENDFILE special patterns (see The BEGINFILE and ENDFILE Special Patterns )
The switch statement (see The switch Statement )
The optional second argument to close() that allows closing one end of a two-way pipe to a coprocess (see Two-Way Communications with Another Process )
POSIX compliance for gsub() and sub() with --posix
The length() function accepts an array argument and returns the number of elements in the array (see String-Manipulation Functions )
The optional third argument to the match() function for capturing text-matching subexpressions within a regexp (see String-Manipulation Functions )
Positional specifiers in printf formats for making translations easier (see Rearranging printf Arguments )
The split() function’s additional optional fourth argument, which is an array to hold the text of the field separators (see String-Manipulation Functions )
The gensub() , patsplit() , and strtonum() functions for more powerful text manipulation (see String-Manipulation Functions )
The asort() and asorti() functions for sorting arrays (see Controlling Array Traversal and Array Sorting )
The mktime() , systime() , and strftime() functions for working with timestamps (see Time Functions )
The and() , compl() , lshift() , or() , rshift() , and xor() functions for bit manipulation (see Bit-Manipulation Functions )
The isarray() function to check if a variable is an array or not (see Getting Type Information )
The bindtextdomain() , dcgettext() , and dcngettext() functions for internationalization (see Internationalizing awk Programs )
The AWKPATH environment variable for specifying a path search for the -f command-line option (see Command-Line Options )
The AWKLIBPATH environment variable for specifying a path search for the -l command-line option (see Command-Line Options )
The -b , -c , -C , -d , -D , -e , -E , -g , -h , -i , -l , -L , -M , -n , -N , -o , -O , -p , -P , -r , -s , -S , -t , and -V short options. Also, the ability to use GNU-style long-named options that start with -- , and the --assign , --bignum , --characters-as-bytes , --copyright , --debug , --dump-variables , --exec , --field-separator , --file , --gen-pot , --help , --include , --lint , --lint-old , --load , --non-decimal-data , --optimize , --no-optimize , --posix , --pretty-print , --profile , --re-interval , --sandbox , --source , --traditional , --use-lc-numeric , and --version long options (see Command-Line Options ).
MIPS RiscOS
MS-DOS with the Microsoft Compiler
MS-Windows with the Microsoft Compiler
SunOS 3.x, Sun 386 (Road Runner)
Tandem (non-POSIX)
Prestandard VAX C compiler for VAX/VMS
GCC for Alpha has not been tested for a while.
GNU/Linux on Alpha

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A.6 History of gawk Features ¶

This section describes the features in gawk over and above those in POSIX awk , in the order they were added to gawk .

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 Command-Line Options ).
The IGNORECASE variable and its effects (see Case Sensitivity in Matching ).
The /dev/stdin , /dev/stdout , /dev/stderr and /dev/fd/ N special file names (see Special File names in gawk ).

Version 2.13 of gawk introduced the following features:

The FIELDWIDTHS variable and its effects (see Reading Fixed-Width Data ).
The systime() and strftime() built-in functions for obtaining and printing timestamps (see Time Functions ).
The -W lint option to provide error and portability checking for both the source code and at runtime.
The -W compat option to turn off the GNU extensions.
The -W posix option for full POSIX compliance.

Version 2.14 of gawk introduced the following feature:

The next file statement for skipping to the next data file (see The nextfile Statement ).

Version 2.15 of gawk introduced the following features:

ARGIND , which tracks the movement of FILENAME through ARGV .
ERRNO , which contains the system error message when getline returns −1 or close() fails.
The /dev/pid , /dev/ppid , /dev/pgrpid , and /dev/user special file names. These have since been removed.
The ability to delete all of an array at once with ‘ delete array ’ (see The delete Statement ).
The ability to use GNU-style long-named options that start with -- .
The --source option for mixing command-line and library-file source code.

Version 3.0 of gawk introduced the following features:

IGNORECASE changed, now applying to string comparison as well as regexp operations (see Case Sensitivity in Matching ).
RT , which contains the input text that matched RS (see How Input Is Split into Records ).
Full support for both POSIX and GNU regexps (see Regular Expressions ).
The gensub() function for more powerful text manipulation (see String-Manipulation Functions ).
The strftime() function acquired a default time format, allowing it to be called with no arguments (see Time Functions ).
The ability for FS and for the third argument to split() to be null strings (see Making Each Character a Separate Field ).
The ability for RS to be a regexp (see How Input Is Split into Records ).
The next file statement became nextfile (see The nextfile Statement ).
The fflush() function from BWK awk (then at Bell Laboratories; see Input/Output Functions ).
The --lint-old option to warn about constructs that are not available in the original Version 7 Unix version of awk (see Major Changes Between V7 and SVR3.1 ).
The -m option from BWK awk . (Brian was still at Bell Laboratories at the time.) This was later removed from both his awk and from gawk .
The --re-interval option to provide interval expressions in regexps (see Regular Expression Operators ).
The --traditional option was added as a better name for --compat (see Command-Line Options ).
The use of GNU Autoconf to control the configuration process (see Compiling gawk for Unix-Like Systems ).
Amiga support. This has since been removed.

Version 3.1 of gawk introduced the following features:

BINMODE , for non-POSIX systems, which allows binary I/O for input and/or output files (see Using gawk on PC Operating Systems ).
LINT , which dynamically controls lint warnings.
PROCINFO , an array for providing process-related information.
TEXTDOMAIN , for setting an application’s internationalization text domain (see Internationalization with gawk ).
The ability to use octal and hexadecimal constants in awk program source code (see Octal and Hexadecimal Numbers ).
The ‘ |& ’ operator for two-way I/O to a coprocess (see Two-Way Communications with Another Process ).
The /inet special files for TCP/IP networking using ‘ |& ’ (see Using gawk for Network Programming ).
The optional second argument to close() that allows closing one end of a two-way pipe to a coprocess (see Two-Way Communications with Another Process ).
The optional third argument to the match() function for capturing text-matching subexpressions within a regexp (see String-Manipulation Functions ).
Positional specifiers in printf formats for making translations easier (see Rearranging printf Arguments ).
The asort() and asorti() functions for sorting arrays (see Controlling Array Traversal and Array Sorting ).
The bindtextdomain() , dcgettext() and dcngettext() functions for internationalization (see Internationalizing awk Programs ).
The extension() function and the ability to add new built-in functions dynamically. This has seen removed. It was replaced by the new extension mechanism. See Writing Extensions for gawk .
The mktime() function for creating timestamps (see Time Functions ).
The and() , or() , xor() , compl() , lshift() , rshift() , and strtonum() functions (see Bit-Manipulation Functions ).
The support for ‘ next file ’ as two words was removed completely (see The nextfile Statement ).
The --dump-variables option to print a list of all global variables.
The --exec option, for use in CGI scripts.
The --gen-po command-line option and the use of a leading underscore to mark strings that should be translated (see Extracting Marked Strings ).
The --non-decimal-data option to allow non-decimal input data (see Allowing Nondecimal Input Data ).
The --profile option and pgawk , the profiling version of gawk , for producing execution profiles of awk programs (see Profiling Your awk Programs ).
The --use-lc-numeric option to force gawk to use the locale’s decimal point for parsing input data (see Conversion of Strings and Numbers ).
The use of GNU Automake to help in standardizing the configuration process (see Compiling gawk for Unix-Like Systems ).
The use of GNU gettext for gawk ’s own message output (see gawk Can Speak Your Language ).
BeOS support. This was later removed.
Tandem support. This was later removed.
The Atari port became officially unsupported and was later removed entirely.
The source code changed to use ISO C standard-style function definitions.
POSIX compliance for sub() and gsub() (see More about ‘ \ ’ and ‘ & ’ with sub() , gsub() , and gensub() ).
The length() function was extended to accept an array argument and return the number of elements in the array (see String-Manipulation Functions ).
The strftime() function acquired a third argument to enable printing times as UTC (see Time Functions ).

Version 4.0 of gawk introduced the following features:

FPAT , which allows you to specify a regexp that matches the fields, instead of matching the field separator (see Defining Fields by Content ).
If PROCINFO["sorted_in"] exists, ‘ for (iggy in foo) ’ loops sort the indices before looping over them. The value of this element provides control over how the indices are sorted before the loop traversal starts (see Using Predefined Array Scanning Orders with gawk ).
PROCINFO["strftime"] , which holds the default format for strftime() (see Time Functions ).
The special files /dev/pid , /dev/ppid , /dev/pgrpid and /dev/user were removed.
Support for IPv6 was added via the /inet6 special file. /inet4 forces IPv4 and /inet chooses the system default, which is probably IPv4 (see Using gawk for Network Programming ).
The use of ‘ \s ’ and ‘ \S ’ escape sequences in regular expressions (see gawk -Specific Regexp Operators ).
Interval expressions became part of default regular expressions (see Regular Expression Operators ).
POSIX character classes work even with --traditional (see Regular Expression Operators ).
break and continue became invalid outside a loop, even with --traditional (see The break Statement , and also see The continue Statement ).
fflush() , nextfile , and ‘ delete array ’ are allowed if --posix or --traditional , since they are all now part of POSIX.
An optional third argument to asort() and asorti() , specifying how to sort (see String-Manipulation Functions ).
The behavior of fflush() changed to match BWK awk and for POSIX; now both ‘ fflush() ’ and ‘ fflush("") ’ flush all open output redirections (see Input/Output Functions ).
The isarray() function which distinguishes if an item is an array or not, to make it possible to traverse arrays of arrays (see Getting Type Information ).
The patsplit() function which gives the same capability as FPAT , for splitting (see String-Manipulation Functions ).
An optional fourth argument to the split() function, which is an array to hold the values of the separators (see String-Manipulation Functions ).
Arrays of arrays (see Arrays of Arrays ).
The BEGINFILE and ENDFILE special patterns (see The BEGINFILE and ENDFILE Special Patterns ).
Indirect function calls (see Indirect Function Calls ).
switch / case are enabled by default (see The switch Statement ).
The -b and --characters-as-bytes options which prevent gawk from treating input as a multibyte string.
The redundant --compat , --copyleft , and --usage long options were removed.
The --gen-po option was finally renamed to the correct --gen-pot .
The --sandbox option which disables certain features.
All long options acquired corresponding short options, for use in ‘ #! ’ scripts.
Directories named on the command line now produce a warning, not a fatal error, unless --posix or --traditional are used (see Directories on the Command Line ).
The gawk internals were rewritten, bringing the dgawk debugger and possibly improved performance (see Debugging awk Programs ).
Per the GNU Coding Standards, dynamic extensions must now define a global symbol indicating that they are GPL-compatible (see Extension Licensing ).
In POSIX mode, string comparisons use strcoll() / wcscoll() (see String Comparison Based on Locale Collating Order ).
The option for raw sockets was removed, since it was never implemented (see Using gawk for Network Programming ).
Ranges of the form ‘ [d-h] ’ are treated as if they were in the C locale, no matter what kind of regexp is being used, and even if --posix (see Regexp Ranges and Locales: A Long Sad Story ).

Version 4.1 of gawk introduced the following features:

Three new arrays: SYMTAB , FUNCTAB , and PROCINFO["identifiers"] (see Built-in Variables That Convey Information ).
The three executables gawk , pgawk , and dgawk , were merged into one, named just gawk . As a result the command-line options changed.
The -D option invokes the debugger.
The -i and --include options load awk library files.
The -l and --load options load compiled dynamic extensions.
The -M and --bignum options enable MPFR.
The -o option only does pretty-printing.
The -p option is used for profiling.
The -R option was removed.
Support for high precision arithmetic with MPFR (see Arithmetic and Arbitrary-Precision Arithmetic with gawk ).
The and() , or() and xor() functions changed to allow any number of arguments, with a minimum of two (see Bit-Manipulation Functions ).
The dynamic extension interface was completely redone (see Writing Extensions for gawk ).
Redirected getline became allowed inside BEGINFILE and ENDFILE (see The BEGINFILE and ENDFILE Special Patterns ).
Support for nonfatal I/O (see Enabling Nonfatal Output ).
The where command was added to the debugger (see Working with the Stack ).
Support for Ultrix was removed.

Version 4.2 of gawk introduced the following changes:

Changes to ENVIRON are reflected into gawk ’s environment and that of programs that it runs. See Built-in Variables That Convey Information .
FIELDWIDTHS was enhanced to allow skipping characters before assigning a value to a field (see Defining Fields by Content ).
The PROCINFO["argv"] array. See Built-in Variables That Convey Information .
The maximum number of hexadecimal digits in ‘ \x ’ escapes is now two. See Escape Sequences .
Strongly typed regexp constants of the form ‘ @/…/ ’ (see Strongly Typed Regexp Constants ).
The bitwise functions changed, making negative arguments into a fatal error (see Bit-Manipulation Functions ).
The mktime() function now accepts an optional second argument (see Time Functions ).
The typeof() function (see Getting Type Information ).
Optimizations are enabled by default. Use -s / --no-optimize to disable optimizations.
For many years, POSIX specified that default field splitting only allowed spaces and tabs to separate fields, and this was how gawk behaved with --posix . As of 2013, the standard restored historical behavior, and now default field splitting with --posix also allows newlines to separate fields.
Nonfatal output with print and printf . See Enabling Nonfatal Output .
Retryable I/O via PROCINFO[ input-file , "RETRY"] ; (see Retrying Reads After Certain Input Errors ).
The --pretty-print option no longer runs the awk program too.
Comments in the source program are preserved and placed into the output file.
Explicit parentheses for expressions in the input are preserved in the generated output.
The get_file() function to access open redirections.
The nonfatal() function for generating nonfatal error messages.
Support for GMP and MPFR values.
Input parsers can now override the default field parsing mechanism by specifying explicit locations.
Shell startup files are supplied with the distribution and installed by ‘ make install ’ (see Shell Startup Files ).
The igawk program and its manual page are no longer installed when gawk is built. See An Easy Way to Use Library Functions .
Support for MirBSD was removed.
Support for GNU/Linux on Alpha was removed.

Version 5.0 added the following features:

The PROCINFO["platform"] array element, which allows you to write code that takes the operating system / platform into account.

Version 5.1 was created to release gawk with a correct major version number for the API. This was overlooked for version 5.0, unfortunately. It added the following features:

The index for this manual was completely reworked.
Support was added for MSYS2.
asort() and asorti() were changed to allow FUNCTAB and SYMTAB as the first argument if a second destination array is supplied (see String-Manipulation Functions ).
The -I / --trace options were added to print a trace of the byte codes as they execute (see Command-Line Options ).
$0 and the fields are now cleared before starting a BEGINFILE rule (see The BEGINFILE and ENDFILE Special Patterns ).
Several example programs in the manual were updated to their modern POSIX equivalents.
The “no effect” lint warnings from --lint were fixed up and now behave more sanely (see Command-Line Options ).
Handling of Infinity and NaN values were improved. See Other Stuff to Know , and also see Standards Versus Existing Practice .

Version 5.2 added the following features:

The mkbool() built-in function (see Generating Boolean Values ).
Interval expressions in regular expressions are enabled by default (see Some Notes On Interval Expressions ).
Support for the FNV1-A hash algorithm for its hash function (see Other Environment Variables ).
The gawkbug script for reporting bugs (see Submitting Bug Reports ).
Terence Kelly’s persistent memory allocator (PMA) was added, allowing the use of persistent data on certain systems (see Preserving Data Between Runs ).
PROCINFO["pma"] exists if the PMA allocator is compiled in (see Built-in Variables That Convey Information ).

Version 5.3 added the following features:

Comma separated value (CSV) field splitting and the --csv command-line option (see Working With Comma Separated Value Files ).
PROCINFO["CSV"] exists if gawk was invoked with --csv (see Built-in Variables That Convey Information ).
The do_csv API information variable (see Informational Variables ).
The ability to make gawk buffer output to pipes (see Speeding Up Pipe Output ).
The ‘ \u ’ escape sequence (see Escape Sequences ).
The need for GNU libsigsegv was removed from gawk . The value-add was never very much and it caused problems in some environments.

Next: Regexp Ranges and Locales: A Long Sad Story , Previous: History of gawk Features , Up: The Evolution of the awk Language [ Contents ][ Index ]

A.7 Common Extensions Summary ¶

The following table summarizes the common extensions supported by gawk , Brian Kernighan’s awk , and mawk , the three most widely used freely available versions of awk (see Other Freely Available awk Implementations ).

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A.8 Regexp Ranges and Locales: A Long Sad Story ¶

This section describes the confusing history of ranges within regular expressions and their interactions with locales, and how this affected different versions of gawk .

The original Unix tools that worked with regular expressions defined character ranges (such as ‘ [a-z] ’) to match any character between the first character in the range and the last character in the range, inclusive. Ordering was based on the numeric value of each character in the machine’s native character set. Thus, on ASCII-based systems, ‘ [a-z] ’ matched all the lowercase letters, and only the lowercase letters, as the numeric values for the letters from ‘ a ’ through ‘ z ’ were contiguous. (On an EBCDIC system, the range ‘ [a-z] ’ includes additional nonalphabetic characters as well.)

Almost all introductory Unix literature explained range expressions as working in this fashion, and in particular, would teach that the “correct” way to match lowercase letters was with ‘ [a-z] ’, and that ‘ [A-Z] ’ was the “correct” way to match uppercase letters. And indeed, this was true. 116

The 1992 POSIX standard introduced the idea of locales (see Where You Are Makes a Difference ). Because many locales include other letters besides the plain 26 letters of the English alphabet, the POSIX standard added character classes (see Using Bracket Expressions ) as a way to match different kinds of characters besides the traditional ones in the ASCII character set.

However, the standard changed the interpretation of range expressions. In the "C" and "POSIX" locales, a range expression like ‘ [a-dx-z] ’ is still equivalent to ‘ [abcdxyz] ’, as in ASCII. But outside those locales, the ordering was defined to be based on collation order .

What does that mean? In many locales, ‘ A ’ and ‘ a ’ are both less than ‘ B ’. In other words, these locales sort characters in dictionary order, and ‘ [a-dx-z] ’ is typically not equivalent to ‘ [abcdxyz] ’; instead, it might be equivalent to ‘ [ABCXYabcdxyz] ’, for example.

This point needs to be emphasized: much literature teaches that you should use ‘ [a-z] ’ to match a lowercase character. But on systems with non-ASCII locales, this also matches all of the uppercase characters except ‘ A ’ or ‘ Z ’! This was a continuous cause of confusion, even well into the twenty-first century.

To demonstrate these issues, the following example uses the sub() function, which does text replacement (see String-Manipulation Functions ). Here, the intent is to remove trailing uppercase characters:

This output is unexpected, as the ‘ bc ’ 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).

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 .

Early versions of gawk used regexp matching code that was not locale-aware, so ranges had their traditional interpretation.

When gawk switched to using locale-aware regexp matchers, the problems began; especially as both GNU/Linux and commercial Unix vendors started implementing non-ASCII locales, and making them the default . Perhaps the most frequently asked question became something like, “Why does ‘ [A-Z] ’ match lowercase letters?!?”

This situation existed for close to 10 years, if not more, and the gawk maintainer grew weary of trying to explain that gawk was being nicely standards-compliant, and that the issue was in the user’s locale. During the development of version 4.0, he modified gawk to always treat ranges in the original, pre-POSIX fashion, unless --posix was used (see Command-Line Options ). 117

Fortunately, shortly before the final release of gawk 4.0, the maintainer learned that the 2008 standard had changed the definition of ranges, such that outside the "C" and "POSIX" locales, the meaning of range expressions was undefined . 118

By using this lovely technical term, the standard gives license to implementers to implement ranges in whatever way they choose. The gawk maintainer chose to apply the pre-POSIX meaning both with the default regexp matching and when --traditional or --posix are used. In all cases gawk remains POSIX-compliant.

Next: Summary , Previous: Regexp Ranges and Locales: A Long Sad Story , Up: The Evolution of the awk Language [ Contents ][ Index ]

A.9 Major Contributors to gawk ¶

Always give credit where credit is due.

This section names the major contributors to gawk and/or this Web page, in approximate chronological order:

Dr. Alfred V. Aho, Dr. Peter J. Weinberger, and Dr. Brian W. Kernighan, all of Bell Laboratories, designed and implemented Unix awk , from which gawk gets the majority of its feature set.
Paul Rubin did the initial design and implementation in 1986, and wrote the first draft (around 40 pages) of this Web page.
Jay Fenlason finished the initial implementation.
Diane Close revised the first draft of this Web page, bringing it to around 90 pages.
Richard Stallman helped finish the implementation and the initial draft of this Web page. He is also the founder of the FSF and the GNU Project.
John Woods contributed parts of the code (mostly fixes) in the initial version of gawk .
In 1988, David Trueman took over primary maintenance of gawk , making it compatible with “new” awk , and greatly improving its performance.
Conrad Kwok, Scott Garfinkle, and Kent Williams did the initial ports to MS-DOS with various versions of MSC.
Pat Rankin provided the VMS port and its documentation.
Hal Peterson provided help in porting gawk to Cray systems. (This is no longer supported.)
Kai Uwe Rommel provided the initial port to OS/2 and its documentation.
Michal Jaegermann provided the port to Atari systems and its documentation. (This port is no longer supported.) He continues to provide portability checking, 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. (With Fred’s sad passing, this is no longer supported.)
Scott Deifik formerly maintained the MS-DOS port using DJGPP.
Eli Zaretskii currently maintains the MS-Windows port using MinGW.
Juan Grigera provided a port to Windows32 systems. (This is no longer supported.)
For many years, Dr. Darrel Hankerson acted as coordinator for the various ports to different PC platforms and created binary distributions for various PC operating systems. He was 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 functions. (This was obsoleted at gawk 4.1.)
Jürgen Kahrs contributed the initial version of the TCP/IP networking code and documentation, and motivated the inclusion of the ‘ |& ’ operator.
Stephen Davies provided the initial port to Tandem systems and its documentation. (However, this is no longer supported.) He was also instrumental in the initial work to integrate the byte-code internals into the gawk code base. Additionally, he did most of the work enabling the pretty-printer to preserve and output comments.
Matthew Woehlke provided improvements for Tandem’s POSIX-compliant systems.
Martin Brown provided the port to BeOS and its documentation. (This is no longer supported.)
Arno Peters did the initial work to convert gawk to use GNU Automake and GNU gettext .
Alan J. Broder provided the initial version of the asort() function as well as the code for the optional third argument to the match() function.
Andreas Buening updated the gawk port for OS/2.
Isamu Hasegawa, of IBM in Japan, contributed support for multibyte characters.
Michael Benzinger contributed the initial code for switch statements.
Patrick T.J. McPhee contributed the code for dynamic loading in Windows32 environments. (This is no longer supported.)
Anders Wallin helped keep the VMS port going for several years.
Assaf Gordon contributed the initial code to implement the --sandbox option.
The modifications to convert gawk into a byte-code interpreter, including the debugger
The addition of true arrays of arrays
The additional modifications for support of arbitrary-precision arithmetic
The initial text of Arithmetic and Arbitrary-Precision Arithmetic with gawk
The work to merge the three versions of gawk into one, for the 4.1 release
Improved array internals for arrays indexed by integers
The improved array sorting features were also driven by John, together with Pat Rankin
Panos Papadopoulos contributed the original text for Including Other Files into Your Program .
Efraim Yawitz contributed the original text for Debugging awk Programs .
The development of the extension API first released with gawk 4.1 was driven primarily by Arnold Robbins and Andrew Schorr, with notable contributions from the rest of the development team.
John Malmberg contributed significant improvements to the OpenVMS port and the related documentation.
Antonio Giovanni Colombo rewrote a number of examples in the early chapters that were severely dated, for which I am incredibly grateful. He also provided and maintains the Italian translation.
Marco Curreli, together with Antonio Colombo, translated this Web page into Italian. It is included in the gawk distribution.
Juan Manuel Guerrero took over maintenance of the DJGPP port.
“Jannick” provided support for MSYS2.
Arnold Robbins has been working on gawk since 1988, at first helping David Trueman, and as the primary maintainer since around 1994.

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A.10 Summary ¶

The awk language has evolved over time. The first release was with V7 Unix, circa 1978. In 1987, for System V Release 3.1, major additions, including user-defined functions, were made to the language. Additional changes were made for System V Release 4, in 1989. Since then, further minor changes have happened under the auspices of the POSIX standard.
Brian Kernighan’s awk provides a small number of extensions that are implemented in common with other versions of awk .
gawk provides a large number of extensions over POSIX awk . They can be disabled with either the --traditional or --posix options.
The interaction of POSIX locales and regexp matching in gawk has been confusing over the years. Today, gawk implements Rational Range Interpretation, where ranges of the form ‘ [a-z] ’ match only the characters numerically between ‘ a ’ through ‘ z ’ in the machine’s native character set. Usually this is ASCII, but it can be EBCDIC on IBM S/390 systems.
Many people have contributed to gawk development over the years. We hope that the list provided in this chapter is complete and gives the appropriate credit where credit is due.

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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 Reporting Problems and Bugs for the email addresses of the people who maintain the respective ports.

The gawk Distribution
Compiling and Installing gawk on Unix-Like Systems
Installation on Other Operating Systems
Reporting Problems and Bugs
Other Freely Available awk Implementations

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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.

Getting the gawk Distribution
Extracting the Distribution
Contents of the gawk Distribution

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B.1.1 Getting the gawk Distribution ¶

There are two ways to get GNU software:

Copy it from someone else who already has it.
Retrieve gawk from the Internet host ftp.gnu.org , in the directory /gnu/gawk . Both anonymous ftp and http access are supported. If you have the wget program, you can use a command like the following: wget https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gawk/gawk-5.3.0.tar.gz

The GNU software archive is mirrored around the world. The up-to-date list of mirror sites is available from the main FSF website . Try to use one of the mirrors; they will be less busy, and you can usually find one closer to your site.

You may also retrieve the gawk source code from the official Git repository; for more information see Accessing The gawk Git Repository .

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B.1.2 Extracting the Distribution ¶

gawk is distributed as several tar files compressed with different compression programs: gzip , bzip2 , and xz . For simplicity, the rest of these instructions assume you are using the one compressed with the GNU Gzip program ( gzip ).

Once you have the distribution (e.g., gawk-5.3.0.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:

On a system with GNU tar , you can let tar do the decompression for you:

Extracting the archive creates a directory named gawk-5.3.0 in the current directory.

The distribution file name is of the form gawk- V . R . P .tar.gz . The V represents the major version of gawk , the R represents the current release of version V , and the P represents a patch level , meaning that minor bugs have been fixed in the release. The current patch level is 0, 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 60 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 or GNU/Linux system, you need to make other arrangements for getting and extracting the gawk distribution. You should consult a local expert.

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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 Compiling and Installing gawk on Unix-Like Systems ), as well as several subdirectories related to different non-Unix operating systems:

These files contain the actual gawk source code.

C header and source files for routines that gawk uses, but that are not part of its core functionality. For example, argument parsing, regular expression matching, and random number generating routines are all kept here.

A file containing information about GNU gettext and translations.

A file with some information about the authorship of gawk . It exists only to satisfy the pedants at the Free Software Foundation.

Descriptive files: README for gawk under Unix and the rest for the various hardware and software combinations.

A file providing an overview of the configuration and installation process.

A detailed list of source code changes as bugs are fixed or improvements made. There are similar files in all of the subdirectories.

Older lists of source code changes. There are similar files in all of the subdirectories.

A list of changes to gawk since the last release or patch. There may be similar files in other subdirectories.

Older lists of changes to gawk . There may be similar files in other subdirectories.

The GNU General Public License.

A description of behaviors in the POSIX standard for awk that are left undefined, or where gawk may not comply fully, as well as a list of things that the POSIX standard should describe but does not.

Pointers to the original draft of a short article describing why gawk is a good language for artificial intelligence (AI) programming.

A brief description of gawk ’s “byte code” internals.

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 .

The troff source for a manual page describing gawk . This is distributed for the convenience of Unix users.

The Texinfo source file for this Web page. It should be processed by doc/sidebar.awk before processing with texi2dvi or texi2pdf to produce