twh@mb2c.UUCP (03/23/87)
I have just started using awk. Neat little tool. I would like to learn more about it. I've read the 2.5 pages in the manual, and the 8 page paper written by A. W. K. some time ago (second edition). Questions: 1) Are there any books, newer or more complete information on the awk language ? 2) Does awk allow you to execute a shell command, take the output and store it in an awk variable ? If so, how ? Thanks so much, Tim (313) 355-7236 ihnp4!sfld!tim mb2c!twh
mohamed@hscfvax.UUCP (03/27/87)
There are no books on awk, and it is not described very fully in most books on UNIX. There are about 20 pages on it in Kernighan and Pike's book Programming in the UNIX Environment. This is the best description I have read.
romain@pyrnj.UUCP (03/29/87)
I'm probably asking for trouble, but as long as we're on the subject of
awk, does anyone know how to use the undocumented save (-S) and restore
(-Rfile) functions? I suspect they may have never worked in the first
place. Still, if they did, they might be nice to use in some large awk
programs.
--
Romain Kang {allegra,cmcl2,mirror,pyramid,rutgers}!pyrnj!romain
Pyramid Technology Corp. / 10 Woodbridge Center. Dr / Woodbridge, NJ 07095
"Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks!" -Adlai Stevensongww@beatnix.UUCP (03/30/87)
There is a paper ``A Walk Through AWK'' by Leon Levy published in SIGPLAN
NOTICES (SNot for the old timers) Vol 18 Number 12 Dec 1983 that I've found
quite helpfull. It's about 30 pages long (but printed 2 up landscape) and
has many examples.
Gary..
{ucbvax!sun,lll-lcc!styx,altos86,bridge2}!elxsi!gwwkeithe@tekgvs.UUCP (03/31/87)
I have a photocopy of a paper entitled "An Introduction to AWK: A UNIX Tool for Report Generation" by Thomas Kroll, Information Systems Staff Senior Member, Software Engineering Education, Western Electric Company that appeared in the 1982 Spring DECUS U.S. Symposium, Atlanta Georgia, Tuesday, May 11, 1982 that I use as a help. keith
stevens@hsi.UUCP (Richard Stevens) (09/25/87)
> NOTE: it documents the new version of "awk", which comes with S5R3.1,
Does anyone know what the new features are in this "latest" version
of awk ?? For example, are functions included ??
It gets frustrating to keep encountering all of awk's new features
in the CACM's "Programming Pearls" column, but not be able to get
hold of the program !!
Also, Guy Harris noted about a week ago that the version of awk
supplied with S5R2 was "faster" than the 4.3 BSD version, so I went
ahead and compiled the S5 version on our BSD VAX. The S5 version
turned out to be almost 3 times faster for a simple program
(print $1) and 30% faster for a long (200 line) awk script.
This is even with 4.3's awk defining AWKFLOAT as a float, while
the S5 awk defines it as a double.
Richard Stevens
Health Systems International, New Haven, CT
{ uunet | ihnp4 } ! hsi ! stevensguy%gorodish@Sun.COM (Guy Harris) (09/26/87)
> Does anyone know what the new features are in this "latest" version > of awk ?? For example, are functions included ?? > It gets frustrating to keep encountering all of awk's new features > in the CACM's "Programming Pearls" column, but not be able to get > hold of the program !! If you have the requisite 1) money and 2) source license, you need suffer no more; the new "awk" is, indeed, the one used by Bentley and does have functions, along with some new built-in functions and variables. It also supports 8-bit characters. It is *not*, however, 100% compatible with the old "awk". The S5R3.1 release notes list these incompatibilites. The new "awk" is "nawk" in S5R3.1; "awk" is still the old one. According to the release notes, in the next major S5 release the new "awk" will become "awk" and the old one will be renamed "oawk". > Also, Guy Harris noted about a week ago that the version of awk > supplied with S5R2 was "faster" than the 4.3 BSD version, so I went > ahead and compiled the S5 version on our BSD VAX. You may want to apply some of the bug fixes made in the 4.3BSD version to the S5R2 version. I'm reposting a list of bug fixes to the S5R2 version to "comp.bugs.sys5"; they include those fixes, as well as some null-pointer-dereference fixes. I think the new "awk" has all those fixes. > The S5 version turned out to be almost 3 times faster for a simple program > (print $1) and 30% faster for a long (200 line) awk script. Unfortunately, the new "awk" loses some of that speed advantage, at least in the tests I ran. Guy Harris {ihnp4, decvax, seismo, decwrl, ...}!sun!guy guy@sun.com
nrg@nsscb.UUCP (Narotham Reddy) (07/12/89)
DOES ANY ONE KNOW ABOUT ANY OTHER AWK BOOKS (other than "A" "W" "K" authors) / ARTICLES ABOUT THE (N)AWK.
jgodsil@guinness.ncsa.uiuc.edu (Joseph Godsil) (10/28/89)
Does anyone know where I can get the source via FTP
that is described in the book:
"The AWK Programming Language" -
by:
Alfred V. Aho
Brian W. Kernighan
Peter J. Weinberger
The book indicates that the software is available through
AT&T's Unix System Toolchest software.
Any pointers would be appreciated!
Thanks in advance.
--
Joseph M. Godsil (jgodsil@ncsa.uiuc.edu)