AWK (awk) is a domain-specific language designed for text processing and typically used as a data extraction and reporting tool. Like sed and grep, it is a filter, and is a standard feature of most Unix-like operating systems.

The AWK language is a data-driven scripting language consisting of a set of actions to be taken against streams of textual data – either run directly on files or used as part of a pipeline – for purposes of extracting or transforming text, such as producing formatted reports. The language extensively uses the string datatype, associative arrays (that is, arrays indexed by key strings), and regular expressions. While AWK has a limited intended application domain and was especially designed to support one-liner programs, the language is Turing-complete, and even the early Bell Labs users of AWK often wrote well-structured large AWK programs.

AWK was created at Bell Labs in the 1970s, and its name is derived from the surnames of its authors: Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger, and Brian Kernighan. The acronym is pronounced the same as the bird auk, which is on the cover of The AWK Programming Language. When written in all lowercase letters, as awk, it refers to the Unix or Plan 9 program that runs scripts written in the AWK programming language.

1. <tool, language> (Named from the authors' initials) An interpreted language included with many versions of Unix for massaging text data, developed by Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger, and Brian Kernighan in 1978. It is characterised by C-like syntax, declaration-free variables, associative arrays, and field-oriented text processing. There is a GNU version called gawk and other varients including bawk, mawk, nawk, tawk. Perl was inspired in part by awk but is much more powerful. Unix manual page: awk(1). {netlib WWW (http://plan9.att.com/netlib/research/index.html)}. {netlib FTP (ftp://netlib.att.com/netlib/research/)}. ["The AWK Programming Language" A. Aho, B. Kernighan, P. Weinberger, A-W 1988]. 2. <jargon> An expression which is awkward to manipulate through normal regexp facilities, for example, one containing a newline. [Jargon File] (1995-10-06)

al Aho, peter Weinberger, brian Kernighan (Reference: Unix)

gawk

New AWK. AT&T. Pattern scanning and processing language. An enhanced version of AWK, with dynamic regular expressions, additional built-ins and operators, and user-defined functions.

Tiny AWK

AWK is an interpreted programming language designed for text processing and typically used as a data extraction and reporting tool.

The leading publisher of information on the Internet, Unix, the X Window System and other open systems. They also provide the Global Network Navigator service. Home page(http://ora.com/). (1995-01-10)