awk

 




NAME

awk - pattern scanning and processing language

SYNOPSIS

/usr/bin/awk [ -f progfile ] [ -F c ] [ ' prog ' ] [ parameters ] [ filename ... ] /usr/xpg4/bin/awk [ -F ERE ] [ -v assignment ... ] 'pro- gram' -f progfile ... [ argument ... ]

DESCRIPTION

The /usr/xpg4/bin/awk utility is described on the nawk(1) manual page. The /usr/bin/awk utility scans each input filename for lines that match any of a set of patterns specified in prog. The prog string must be enclosed in single quotes ( ') to pro- tect it from the shell. For each pattern in prog there may be an associated action performed when a line of a filename matches the pattern. The set of pattern-action statements may appear literally as prog or in a file specified with the -f progfile option. Input files are read in order; if there are no files, the standard input is read. The file name '-' means the standard input.

OPTIONS

The following options are supported: -f progfile awk uses the set of patterns it reads from progfile. -Fc Uses the character c as the field separator (FS) char- acter. See the discussion of FS below. USAGE Input Lines Each input line is matched against the pattern portion of every pattern-action statement; the associated action is performed for each matched pattern. Any filename of the form var=value is treated as an assignment, not a filename, and is executed at the time it would have been opened if it were a filename. Variables assigned in this manner are not avail- able inside a BEGIN rule, and are assigned after previously specified files have been read. An input line is normally made up of fields separated by white spaces. (This default can be changed by using the FS built-in variable or the -Fc option.) The default is to ignore leading blanks and to separate fields by blanks and/or tab characters. However, if FS is assigned a value that does not include any of the white spaces, then leading blanks are not ignored. The fields are denoted $1, $2, ...; $0 refers to the entire line. Pattern-action Statements A pattern-action statement has the form: pattern { action } Either pattern or action may be omitted. If there is no action, the matching line is printed. If there is no pat- tern, the action is performed on every input line. Pattern- action statements are separated by newlines or semicolons. Patterns are arbitrary Boolean combinations ( !, ||, &&, and parentheses) of relational expressions and regular expres- sions. A relational expression is one of the following: expression relop expression expression matchop regular_expression where a relop is any of the six relational operators in C, and a matchop is either ~ (contains) or !~ (does not con- tain). An expression is an arithmetic expression, a rela- tional expression, the special expression var in array or a Boolean combination of these. Regular expressions are as in egrep(1). In patterns they must be surrounded by slashes. Isolated regular expressions in a pattern apply to the entire line. Regular expressions may also occur in relational expressions. A pattern may con- sist of two patterns separated by a comma; in this case, the action is performed for all lines between the occurrence of the first pattern to the occurrence of the second pattern. The special patterns BEGIN and END may be used to capture control before the first input line has been read and after the last input line has been read respectively. These key- words do not combine with any other patterns. Built-in Variables Built-in variables include: FILENAME name of the current input file FS input field separator regular expression (default blank and tab) NF number of fields in the current record NR ordinal number of the current record OFMT output format for numbers (default %.6g) OFS output field separator (default blank) ORS output record separator (default new-line) RS input record separator (default new-line) An action is a sequence of statements. A statement may be one of the following: if ( expression ) statement [ else statement ] while ( expression ) statement do statement while ( expression ) for ( expression ; expression ; expression ) statement for ( var in array ) statement break continue { [ statement ] ... } expression # commonly variable = expression print [ expression-list ] [ >expression ] printf format [ ,expression-list ] [ >expression ] next # skip remaining patterns on this input line exit [expr] # skip the rest of the input; exit status is expr Statements are terminated by semicolons, newlines, or right braces. An empty expression-list stands for the whole input line. Expressions take on string or numeric values as appropriate, and are built using the operators +, -, *, /, %, ^ and concatenation (indicated by a blank). The opera- tors ++, --, +=, -=, *=, /=, %=, ^=, >, >=, <, <=, ==, !=, and ?: are also available in expressions. Variables may be scalars, array elements (denoted x[i]), or fields. Variables are initialized to the null string or zero. Array subscripts may be any string, not necessarily numeric; this allows for a form of associative memory. String constants are quoted (""), with the usual C escapes recognized within. The print statement prints its arguments on the standard output, or on a file if >expression is present, or on a pipe if '|cmd' is present. The output resulted from the print statement is terminated by the output record separator with each argument separated by the current output field separa- tor. The printf statement formats its expression list according to the format (see printf(3C)).

Built-in Functions

The arithmetic functions are as follows: cos(x) Return cosine of x, where x is in radians. sin(x) Return sine of x, where x is in radians. exp(x) Return the exponential function of x. log(x) Return the natural logarithm of x. sqrt(x) Return the square root of x. int(x) Truncate its argument to an integer. It will be trun- cated toward 0 when x > 0. The string functions are as follows: index(s, t) Return the position in string s where string t first occurs, or 0 if it does not occur at all. int(s) truncates s to an integer value. If s is not speci- fied, $0 is used. length(s) Return the length of its argument taken as a string, or of the whole line if there is no argument. match(s, re) Return the position in string s where the regular expression re occurs, or 0 if it does not occur at all. split(s, a, fs) Split the string s into array elements a[1], a[2], ... a[n], and returns n. The separation is done with the regular expression fs or with the field separator FS if fs is not given. sprintf(fmt, expr, expr,...) Format the expressions according to the printf(3C) format given by fmt and returns the resulting string. substr(s, m, n) returns the n-character substring of s that begins at position m. The input/output function is as follows: getline Set $0 to the next input record from the current input file. getline returns 1 for successful input, 0 for end of file, and -1 for an error. Large File Behavior See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of awk when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2 **31 bytes). EXAMPLES Example 1: Print lines longer than 72 characters: length > 72 Example 2: Print first two fields in opposite order: { print $2, $1 } Example 3: Same, with input fields separated by comma and/or blanks and tabs: BEGIN { FS = ",[ \t]*|[ \t]+" } { print $2, $1 } Example 4: Add up first column, print sum and average: { s += $1 } END { print "sum is", s, " average is", s/NR } Example 5: Printing fields in reverse order { for (i = NF; i > 0; --i) print $i } Example 6: Print all lines between start/stop pairs: /start/, /stop/ Example 7: Print all lines whose first field is different from the previous one: $1 != prev { print; prev = $1 } Example 8: Print a file, filling in page numbers starting at 5: /Page/ { $2 = n++; } { print } Example 9: Print a file and number its pages starting at 5: Assuming this program is in a file named prog, the following command line prints the file input numbering its pages starting at 5: awk f prog n=5 input ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of awk: LC_CTYPE and LC_MESSAGES. LC_NUMERIC Determine the radix character used when interpreting numeric input, performing conversions between numeric and string values and formatting numeric output. Regardless of locale, the period character (the decimal-point character of the POSIX locale) is the decimal-point character recognized in processing awk programs (including assignments in command-line argu- ments).

ATTRIBUTES

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri- butes: /usr/bin/awk" ____________________________________________________________ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | |_____________________________|_____________________________| | Availability | SUNWesu | |_____________________________|_____________________________| | CSI | Enabled | |_____________________________|_____________________________| /usr/xpg4/bin/awk" ____________________________________________________________ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | |_____________________________|_____________________________| | Availability | SUNWxcu4 | |_____________________________|_____________________________| | CSI | Enabled | |_____________________________|_____________________________|

SEE ALSO

egrep(1), grep(1), nawk(1), sed(1), printf(3C), attri- butes(5), environ(5), largefile(5), XPG4(5)

NOTES

Input white space is not preserved on output if fields are involved. There are no explicit conversions between numbers and strings. To force an expression to be treated as a number add 0 to it; to force it to be treated as a string concaten- ate the null string ("") to it. SunOS 5.8 Last change: 10 Feb 1999 7