Learning AWK Programming

Text processing and pattern matching simplified

About This Book

• Master the fastest and most elegant big data munging language
• Implement text processing and pattern matching using the advanced features of AWK and GAWK
• Implement debugging and inter-process communication using GAWK

Who This Book Is For

This book is for developers or analysts who are inclined to learn how to do text processing and data extraction in a Unix-like environment. Basic understanding of Linux operating system and shell scripting will help you to get the most out of the book.

What You Will Learn

• Create and use different expressions and control flow statements in AWK
• Use Regular Expressions with AWK for effective text-processing
• Use built-in and user-defined variables to write AWK programs
• Use redirections in AWK programs and create structured reports
• Handle non-decimal input, 2-way inter-process communication with Gawk
• Create small scripts to reformat data to match patterns and process texts

In Detail

AWK is one of the most primitive and powerful utilities which exists in all Unix and Unix-like distributions. It is used as a command-line utility when performing a basic text-processing operation, and as programming language when dealing with complex text-processing and mining tasks. With this book, you will have the required expertise to practice advanced AWK programming in real-life examples.
The book starts off with an introduction to AWK essentials. You will then be introduced to regular expressions, AWK variables and constants, arrays and AWK functions and more. The book then delves deeper into more complex tasks, such as printing formatted output in AWK, control flow statements, GNU's implementation of AWK covering the advanced features of GNU AWK, such as network communication, debugging, and inter-process communication in the GAWK programming language which is not easily possible with AWK.
By the end of this book, the reader will have worked on the practical implementation of text processing and pattern matching using AWK to perform routine tasks.

Style and approach

An easy-to-follow, step by step guide which will help you get to grips with real-world applications of AWK programming.