Installation and Documentation

The command name awk is derived from its developers — Alfred V. Aho, Peter J. Weinberger, and Brian W. Kernighan. Over the years, it has been adapted and modified by various other developers. See gawk manual: History for more details.

This chapter will show how to install or upgrade awk followed by details related to documentation.

Installation

If you are on a Unix-like system, you will most likely have some version of awk already installed. This book is primarily about GNU awk. As there are syntax and feature differences between various implementations, make sure to use GNU awk to follow along the examples presented in this book.

GNU awk is part of the text creation and manipulation commands and usually comes by default on GNU/Linux distributions. To install a particular version, visit gnu: gawk software. See also release notes for an overview of changes between versions.

$ wget https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gawk/gawk-5.2.2.tar.xz
$ tar -Jxf gawk-5.2.2.tar.xz
$ cd gawk-5.2.2/
# see https://askubuntu.com/q/237576 if you get compiler not found error
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install

$ awk --version | head -n1
GNU Awk 5.2.2, API 3.2, PMA Avon 8-g1

If you are not using a Linux distribution, you may be able to access GNU awk using an option below:

• Git for Windows — provides a Bash emulation used to run Git from the command line
• Windows Subsystem for Linux — compatibility layer for running Linux binary executables natively on Windows
• brew — Package Manager for macOS (or Linux)

See also gawk manual: Installation for advanced options and instructions to install awk on other platforms.

Documentation

It is always good to know where to find documentation. From the command line, you can use man awk for a short manual and info awk for the full documentation. I prefer using the online gnu awk manual, which feels much easier to use and navigate.

Here's a snippet from man awk:

$ man awk
GAWK(1)                        Utility Commands                        GAWK(1)  
  
NAME
       gawk - pattern scanning and processing language

SYNOPSIS
       gawk [ POSIX or GNU style options ] -f program-file [ -- ] file ...
       gawk [ POSIX or GNU style options ] [ -- ] program-text file ...

DESCRIPTION
       Gawk  is  the  GNU Project's implementation of the AWK programming lan‐
       guage.  It conforms to the definition of  the  language  in  the  POSIX
       1003.1  Standard.   This version in turn is based on the description in
       The AWK Programming Language, by Aho, Kernighan, and Weinberger.   Gawk
       provides  the additional features found in the current version of Brian
       Kernighan's awk and numerous GNU-specific extensions.

Options overview

For a quick overview of all the available options, use awk --help from the command line.

$ awk --help
Usage: awk [POSIX or GNU style options] -f progfile [--] file ...
Usage: awk [POSIX or GNU style options] [--] 'program' file ...
POSIX options:                  GNU long options: (standard)
    -f progfile                 --file=progfile
    -F fs                       --field-separator=fs
    -v var=val                  --assign=var=val
Short options:                  GNU long options: (extensions)
    -b                          --characters-as-bytes
    -c                          --traditional
    -C                          --copyright
    -d[file]                    --dump-variables[=file]
    -D[file]                    --debug[=file]
    -e 'program-text'           --source='program-text'
    -E file                     --exec=file
    -g                          --gen-pot
    -h                          --help
    -i includefile              --include=includefile
    -I                          --trace
    -l library                  --load=library
    -L[fatal|invalid|no-ext]    --lint[=fatal|invalid|no-ext]
    -M                          --bignum
    -N                          --use-lc-numeric
    -n                          --non-decimal-data
    -o[file]                    --pretty-print[=file]
    -O                          --optimize
    -p[file]                    --profile[=file]
    -P                          --posix
    -r                          --re-interval
    -s                          --no-optimize
    -S                          --sandbox
    -t                          --lint-old
    -V                          --version