AWK man page on Plan9

Man page or keyword search:  
man Server   549 pages
apropos Keyword Search (all sections)
Output format
Plan9 logo
[printable version]

AWK(1)									AWK(1)

NAME
       awk - pattern-directed scanning and processing language

SYNOPSIS
       awk  [  -F fs ] [ -d ] [ -mf n ] [ -mr n ] [ -safe ] [ -v var=value ] [
       -f progfile | prog ] [ file ...	]

DESCRIPTION
       Awk scans each input file for lines that match any of a set of patterns
       specified  literally  in	 prog  or in one or more files specified as -f
       progfile.  With each pattern there can be  an  associated  action  that
       will be performed when a line of a file matches the pattern.  Each line
       is matched against the pattern portion of every	pattern-action	state‐
       ment; the associated action is performed for each matched pattern.  The
       file name means the standard input.  Any file of the form var=value  is
       treated	as an assignment, not a file name, and is executed at the time
       it would have been opened if it were a file name.  The option  -v  fol‐
       lowed  by  var=value  is an assignment to be done before the program is
       executed; any number of -v  options  may	 be  present.	-F  fs	option
       defines the input field separator to be the regular expression fs.

       An  input  line is normally made up of fields separated by white space,
       or by regular expression FS.  The fields are denoted $1, $2, ..., while
       $0  refers  to the entire line.	If FS is null, the input line is split
       into one field per character.

       To compensate for inadequate implementation of storage management,  the
       -mr option can be used to set the maximum size of the input record, and
       the -mf option to set the maximum number of fields.

       The -safe option causes awk to run in ``safe mode,'' in which it is not
       allowed	to run shell commands or open files and the environment is not
       made available in the ENVIRON variable.

       A pattern-action statement has the form

	      pattern { action }

       A missing { action } means print the line;  a  missing  pattern	always
       matches.	  Pattern-action statements are separated by newlines or semi‐
       colons.

       An action is a sequence of statements.  A statement can be one  of  the
       following:

       if( expression ) statement [ else statement ]
       while( expression ) statement
       for( expression ; expression ; expression ) statement
       for( var in array ) statement
       do statement while( expression )
       break
       continue
       { [ statement ... ] }
       expression	       # commonly var = expression
       print [ expression-list ] [ > expression ]
       printf format [ , expression-list ] [ > expression ]
       return [ expression ]
       next		       # skip remaining patterns on this input line
       nextfile		       # skip rest of this file, open next, start at top
       delete array[ expression ]# delete an array element
       delete array	       # delete all elements of array
       exit [ expression ]     # exit immediately; status is expression

       Statements  are terminated by semicolons, newlines or right braces.  An
       empty expression-list stands for $0.  String constants are quoted  " ",
       with the usual C escapes recognized within.  Expressions take on string
       or numeric values as appropriate, and are built using the operators + -
       * / % ^ (exponentiation), and concatenation (indicated by white space).
       The operators ! ++ -- += -= *= /= %= ^= > >= < <= ==  !=	 ?:  are  also
       available  in  expressions.   Variables	may be scalars, array elements
       (denoted x[i]) or  fields.   Variables  are  initialized	 to  the  null
       string.	 Array	subscripts may be any string, not necessarily numeric;
       this allows for a form of associative memory.  Multiple subscripts such
       as  [i,j,k] are permitted; the constituents are concatenated, separated
       by the value of SUBSEP.

       The print statement prints its arguments on the standard output (or  on
       a  file if >file or >>file is present or on a pipe if |cmd is present),
       separated by the current output field separator, and terminated by  the
       output  record  separator.  file and cmd may be literal names or paren‐
       thesized expressions; identical string values in	 different  statements
       denote the same open file.  The printf statement formats its expression
       list according to the format (see fprintf(2)).  The  built-in  function
       close(expr)  closes  the	 file  or  pipe	 expr.	 The built-in function
       fflush(expr) flushes any buffered output for the file or pipe expr.  If
       expr is omitted or is a null string, all open files are flushed.

       The  mathematical  functions  exp,  log,	 sqrt, sin, cos, and atan2 are
       built in.  Other built-in functions:

       length If its argument is a string, the string's	 length	 is  returned.
	      If  its  argument	 is  an array, the number of subscripts in the
	      array is	returned.   If	no  argument,  the  length  of	$0  is
	      returned.

       rand   random number on (0,1)

       srand  sets seed for rand and returns the previous seed.

       int    truncates to an integer value

       utf    converts	its  numerical	argument, a character number, to a UTF
	      string

       substr(s, m, n)
	      the n-character substring of s that begins at position m counted
	      from 1.  If n is omitted, it is taken to be the length of s from
	      m.

       index(s, t)
	      the position in s where the string t occurs, or  0  if  it  does
	      not.

       match(s, r)
	      the position in s where the regular expression r occurs, or 0 if
	      it does not.  The variables RSTART and RLENGTH are  set  to  the
	      position and length of the matched string.

       split(s, a, fs)
	      splits  the  string s into array elements a[1], a[2], ..., a[n],
	      and returns n.  The separation is done with the regular  expres‐
	      sion  fs	or with the field separator FS if fs is not given.  An
	      empty string as field separator splits the string into one array
	      element per character.

       sub(r, t, s)
	      substitutes t for the first occurrence of the regular expression
	      r in the string s.  If s is not given, $0 is used.  A  character
	      in  t  will  be replaced by the sub-string of s matched by r; it
	      may be escaped with to substitute a literal

       gsub   same as sub except that all occurrences of the  regular  expres‐
	      sion  are	 replaced;  sub and gsub return the number of replace‐
	      ments.

       sprintf(fmt, expr, ...)
	      the string resulting from formatting expr ...  according to  the
	      printf format fmt

       system(cmd)
	      executes cmd and returns its exit status

       tolower(str)
	      returns  a copy of str with all upper-case characters translated
	      to their corresponding lower-case equivalents.

       toupper(str)
	      returns a copy of str with all lower-case characters  translated
	      to their corresponding upper-case equivalents.

       The ``function'' getline sets $0 to the next input record from the cur‐
       rent input file; getline <file sets $0 to the next  record  from	 file.
       getline	x  sets	 variable x instead.  Finally, cmd | getline pipes the
       output of cmd into getline; each call of getline returns the next  line
       of  output  from cmd.  In all cases, getline returns 1 for a successful
       input, 0 for end of file, and -1 for an error.

       Patterns are arbitrary Boolean combinations (with ! || &&)  of  regular
       expressions  and relational expressions.	 Regular expressions are as in
       regexp(6).  Isolated regular expressions in  a  pattern	apply  to  the
       entire  line.  Regular expressions may also occur in relational expres‐
       sions, using the operators ~  and  !~.	/re/  is  a  constant  regular
       expression;  any string (constant or variable) may be used as a regular
       expression, except in the position of an isolated regular expression in
       a pattern.

       A  pattern  may	consist	 of two patterns separated by a comma; in this
       case, the action is performed for all lines from an occurrence  of  the
       first pattern though an occurrence of the second.

       A relational expression is one of the following:

	      expression matchop regular-expression
	      expression relop expression
	      expression in array-name
	      (expr,expr,...) in array-name

       where  a	 relop	is  any	 of  the  six relational operators in C, and a
       matchop is either ~ (matches) or !~ (does not match).  A conditional is
       an  arithmetic expression, a relational expression, or a Boolean combi‐
       nation of these.

       The special patterns BEGIN and END  may	be  used  to  capture  control
       before  the first input line is read and after the last.	 BEGIN and END
       do not combine with other patterns.

       Variable names with special meanings:

       CONVFMT
	      conversion format used when converting numbers (default %.6g)

       FS     regular expression used to separate  fields;  also  settable  by
	      option -Ffs.

       NF     number of fields in the current record

       NR     ordinal number of the current record

       FNR    ordinal number of the current record in the current file

       FILENAME
	      the name of the current input file

       RS     input record separator (default newline)

       OFS    output field separator (default blank)

       ORS    output record separator (default newline)

       OFMT   output format for numbers (default %.6g)

       SUBSEP separates multiple subscripts (default 034)

       ARGC   argument count, assignable

       ARGV   argument	array,	assignable; non-null members are taken as file
	      names

       ENVIRON
	      array of environment variables; subscripts are names.

       Functions may be defined (at the position of  a	pattern-action	state‐
       ment) thus:

	      function foo(a, b, c) { ...; return x }

       Parameters  are	passed	by  value  if scalar and by reference if array
       name; functions may be called recursively.  Parameters are local to the
       function;  all other variables are global.  Thus local variables may be
       created by providing excess parameters in the function definition.

EXAMPLES
       length($0) > 72
	      Print lines longer than 72 characters.

       { print $2, $1 }
	      Print first two fields in opposite order.

       BEGIN { FS = ",[ \t]*|[ \t]+" }
	     { print $2, $1 }
	      Same, with input fields separated by  comma  and/or  blanks  and
	      tabs.

	    { s += $1 }
       END  { print "sum is", s, " average is", s/NR }
	      Add up first column, print sum and average.

       /start/, /stop/
	      Print all lines between start/stop pairs.

       BEGIN	 {    # Simulate echo(1)
	    for (i = 1; i < ARGC; i++) printf "%s ", ARGV[i]
	    printf "\n"
	    exit }

SOURCE
       /sys/src/cmd/awk

SEE ALSO
       sed(1), regexp(6),
       A.  V. Aho, B. W. Kernighan, P. J. Weinberger, The AWK Programming Lan‐
       guage, Addison-Wesley, 1988.  ISBN 0-201-07981-X

BUGS
       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 concatenate "" to it.
       The scope rules for variables in functions are a botch; the  syntax  is
       worse.
       UTF is not always dealt with correctly, though awk does make an attempt
       to do so.  The split function with an empty string  as  final  argument
       now copes with UTF in the string being split.

									AWK(1)
[top]
                             _         _         _ 
                            | |       | |       | |     
                            | |       | |       | |     
                         __ | | __ __ | | __ __ | | __  
                         \ \| |/ / \ \| |/ / \ \| |/ /  
                          \ \ / /   \ \ / /   \ \ / /   
                           \   /     \   /     \   /    
                            \_/       \_/       \_/ 
More information is available in HTML format for server Plan9

List of man pages available for Plan9

Copyright (c) for man pages and the logo by the respective OS vendor.

For those who want to learn more, the polarhome community provides shell access and support.

[legal] [privacy] [GNU] [policy] [cookies] [netiquette] [sponsors] [FAQ]
Tweet
Polarhome, production since 1999.
Member of Polarhome portal.
Based on Fawad Halim's script.
....................................................................
Vote for polarhome
Free Shell Accounts :: the biggest list on the net