.\" $NetBSD: awk.1,v 1.5 2017/05/23 14:11:08 abhinav Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (C) Lucent Technologies 1997 .\" All Rights Reserved .\" .\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and .\" its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby .\" granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all .\" copies and that both that the copyright notice and this .\" permission notice and warranty disclaimer appear in supporting .\" documentation, and that the name Lucent Technologies or any of .\" its entities not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining .\" to distribution of the software without specific, written prior .\" permission. .\" .\" LUCENT DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, .\" INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. .\" IN NO EVENT SHALL LUCENT OR ANY OF ITS ENTITIES BE LIABLE FOR ANY .\" SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES .\" WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER .\" IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, .\" ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF .\" THIS SOFTWARE. .\" .Dd May 18, 2017 .Dt AWK 1 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm awk .Nd pattern-directed scanning and processing language .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm .Op Fl F Ar fs .Op Fl v Ar var=value .Op Fl safe .Op Fl d Ns Op Ar N .Op Ar prog | Fl f Ar filename .Ar .Nm .Fl version .Sh DESCRIPTION .Nm is the Bell Labs' implementation of the AWK programming language as described in the .Em The AWK Programming Language by A. V. Aho, B. W. Kernighan, and P. J. Weinberger. .Pp .Nm scans each input .Ar file for lines that match any of a set of patterns specified literally in .Ar prog or in one or more files specified as .Fl f Ar filename . With each pattern there can be an associated action that will be performed when a line of a .Ar file matches the pattern. Each line is matched against the pattern portion of every pattern-action statement; the associated action is performed for each matched pattern. The file name .Ar - means the standard input. Any .Ar file of the form .Ar 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. .Pp The options are as follows: .Bl -tag -width indent .It Fl d Ns Op Ar N Set debug level to specified number .Ar N . If the number is omitted, debug level is set to 1. .It Fl f Ar filename Read the AWK program source from specified file .Ar filename , instead of the first command line argument. Multiple .Fl f options may be specified. .It Fl F Ar fs Set the input field separator .Va FS to the regular expression .Ar fs . .It Fl mr Ar NNN , Fl mf Ar NNN Obsolete, no longer needed options. Set limit on maximum record or fields number. .It Fl safe Potentially unsafe functions such as .Fn system make the program abort (with a warning message). .It Fl v Ar var Ns = Ns Ar value Assign the value .Ar value to the variable .Va var before .Ar prog is executed. Any number of .Fl v options may be present. .It Fl version Print .Nm version on standard output and exit. .El .Pp An input line is normally made up of fields separated by white space, or by regular expression .Va FS . The fields are denoted .Va $1 , .Va $2 , \&..., while .Va $0 refers to the entire line. If .Va FS is null, the input line is split into one field per character. .Pp A pattern-action statement has the form .Lp .Dl pattern \&{ action \&} .Lp A missing \&{ action \&} means print the line; a missing pattern always matches. Pattern-action statements are separated by newlines or semicolons. .Pp An action is a sequence of statements. Statements are terminated by semicolons, newlines or right braces. An empty .Ar expression-list stands for .Va $0 . String constants are quoted .Em \&"\ \&" , with the usual C escapes recognized within. Expressions take on string or numeric values as appropriate, and are built using the .Sx Operators (see next subsection). Variables may be scalars, array elements (denoted .Va 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 .Va [i,j,k] are permitted; the constituents are concatenated, separated by the value of .Va SUBSEP . .Ss Operators .Nm operators, in order of decreasing precedence, are: .Pp .Bl -tag -width ident -compact .It Ic (...) Grouping .It Ic $ Field reference .It Ic ++ -- Increment and decrement, can be used either as postfix or prefix. .It Ic ^ Exponentiation (the .Ic ** form is also supported, and .Ic **= for the assignment operator). .It + - \&! Unary plus, unary minus and logical negation. .It * / % Multiplication, division and modulus. .It + - Addition and subtraction. .It Ar space String concatenation. .It Ic \*[Lt] \*[Gt] .It Ic \*[Le] \*[Ge] .It Ic != == Regular relational operators .It Ic ~ !~ Regular expression match and not match .It Ic in Array membership .It Ic "\*[Am]\*[Am]" Logical AND .It Ic "||" Logical OR .It Ic ?: C conditional expression. This is used as .Ar expr1 Ic \&? Ar expr2 Ic \&: Ar expr3 No . If .Ar expr1 is true, the result value is .Ar expr2 , otherwise it is .Ar expr3 . Only one of .Ar expr2 and .Ar expr3 is evaluated. .It Ic = += -= .It Ic *= /= %= ^= Assignment and Operator-Assignment .El .Ss Control Statements The control statements are as follows: .Pp .Bl -hang -offset indent -width indent -compact .It Ic if \&( Ar expression Ic \&) Ar statement Bq Ic else Ar statement .It Ic while \&( Ar expression Ic \&) Ar statement .It Ic for \&( Ar expression Ic \&; Ar expression Ic \&; \ Ar expression Ic \&) Ar statement .It Ic for \&( Va var Ic in Ar array Ic \&) Ar statement .It Ic do Ar statement Ic while \&( Ar expression Ic \&) .It Ic break .It Ic continue .It Ic delete Va array Bq Ar expression .It Ic delete Va array .It Ic exit Bq Ar expression .Ar expression .It Ic return Bq Ar expression .It Ic \&{ Ar [ statement ... ] Ic \&} .El .Ss I/O Statements The input/output statements are as follows: .Pp .Bl -tag -width indent .It Fn close expr Closes the file or pipe .Ar expr . Returns zero on success; otherwise nonzero. .It Fn fflush expr Flushes any buffered output for the file or pipe .Ar expr . Returns zero on success; otherwise nonzero. .It Ic getline Bq Va var Set .Va var (or .Va $0 if .Va var is not specified) to the next input record from the current input file. .Ic getline returns 1 for a successful input, 0 for end of file, and \-1 for an error. .It Ic getline Bo Va var Bc Ic \*[Lt] Ar file Set .Va var (or .Va $0 if .Va var is not specified) to the next input record from the specified file .Ar file . .It Ar expr Ic \&| getline Pipes the output of .Ar expr into .Ic getline ; each call of .Ic getline returns the next line of output from .Ar expr . .It Ic next Skip remaining patterns on this input line. .It Ic nextfile Skip rest of this file, open next, start at top. .It Ic print Bo Ar expr-list Bc Bq Ic \*[Gt] Ar file The .Ic print statement prints its arguments on the standard output (or to a file if .Ic \*[Gt] file or to a pipe if .Ic | Ar expr is present), separated by the current output field separator .Va OFS , and terminated by the output record separator .Va ORS . Both .Ar file and .Ar expr may be literal names or parenthesized expressions; identical string values in different statements denote the same open file. .It Ic printf Ar format Bo Ic \&, Ar expr-list Bc Bq Ic \*[Gt] Ar file Format and print its expression list according to .Ar format . See .Xr printf 3 for list of supported formats and their meaning. .El .Ss Mathematical and Numeric Functions AWK has the following mathematical and numerical functions built-in: .Pp .Bl -tag -width indent .It Fn atan2 x y Returns the arctangent of .Ar x Ic / Ar y in radians. See also .Xr atan2 3 . .It Fn cos expr Computes the cosine of .Ar expr , measured in radians. See also .Xr cos 3 . .It Fn exp expr Computes the exponential value of the given argument .Ar expr . See also .Xr exp 3 . .It Fn int expr Truncates .Ar expr to integer. .It Fn log expr Computes the value of the natural logarithm of argument .Ar expr . See also .Xr log 3 . .It Fn rand Returns random number between 0 and 1. .It Fn sin expr Computes the sine of .Ar expr , measured in radians. See also .Xr sin 3 . .It Fn sqrt expr Computes the non-negative square root of .Ar expr . See also .Xr sqrt 3 . .It Fn srand [expr] Sets seed for random number generator ( .Fn rand ) and returns the previous seed. .El .Ss String Functions AWK has the following string functions built-in: .Pp .Bl -tag -width indent .It Fn gensub r s h [t] Search the target string .Ar t for matches of the regular expression .Ar r . If .Ar h is a string beginning with .Ic g or .Ic G , then replace all matches of .Ar r with .Ar s . Otherwise, .Ar h is a number indicating which match of .Ar r to replace. If no .Ar t is supplied, .Va $0 is used instead. .\"Within the replacement text .\".Ar s , .\"the sequence .\".Ar \en , .\"where .\".Ar n .\"is a digit from 1 to 9, may be used to indicate just the text that .\"matched the .\".Ar n Ap th .\"parenthesized subexpression. .\"The sequence .\".Ic \e0 .\"represents the entire text, as does the character .\".Ic & . Unlike .Fn sub and .Fn gsub , the modified string is returned as the result of the function, and the original target is .Em not changed. Note that the .Ar \en sequences within replacement string .Ar s supported by GNU .Nm are .Em not supported at this moment. .It Fn gsub r s "[t]" Same as .Fn sub except that all occurrences of the regular expression are replaced; .Fn sub and .Fn gsub return the number of replacements. .It Fn index s t the position in .Ar s where the string .Ar t occurs, or 0 if it does not. .It Fn length "[string]" the length of its argument taken as a string, or of .Va $0 if no argument. .It Fn match s r the position in .Ar s where the regular expression .Ar r occurs, or 0 if it does not. The variables .Va RSTART and .Va RLENGTH are set to the position and length of the matched string. .It Fn split s a "[fs]" splits the string .Ar s into array elements .Va a[1] , .Va a[2] , \&..., .Va a[n] , and returns .Va n . The separation is done with the regular expression .Ar fs or with the field separator .Va FS if .Ar fs is not given. An empty string as field separator splits the string into one array element per character. .It Fn sprintf fmt expr "..." Returns the string resulting from formatting .Ar expr according to the .Xr printf 3 format .Ar fmt . .It Fn sub r s "[t]" substitutes .Ar s for the first occurrence of the regular expression .Ar r in the target string .Ar t . If .Ar t is not given, .Va $0 is used. .It Fn substr s m [n] Returns the at most .Ar n Ns No -character substring of .Ar s starting at position .Ar m , counted from 1. If .Ar n is omitted, the rest of .Ar s is returned. .It Fn tolower str returns a copy of .Ar str with all upper-case characters translated to their corresponding lower-case equivalents. .It Fn toupper str returns a copy of .Ar str with all lower-case characters translated to their corresponding upper-case equivalents. .El .Ss Time Functions This .Nm provides the following two functions for obtaining time stamps and formatting them: .Bl -tag -width indent .It Fn systime Returns the value of time in seconds since the start of .Tn Unix Epoch (Midnight, January 1, 1970, Coordinated Universal Time). See also .Xr time 3 . .It Fn strftime "[format [, timestamp]]" Formats the time .Ar timestamp according to the string .Ar format . .Ar timestamp should be in same form as value returned by .Fn systime . If .Ar timestamp is missing, current time is used. If .Ar format is missing, a default format equivalent to the output of .Xr date 1 would be used. See the specification of ANSI C .Xr strftime 3 for the format conversions which are supported. .El .Ss Other built-in functions .Bl -tag -width indent .It Fn system cmd executes .Ar cmd and returns its exit status .El .Ss Patterns Patterns are arbitrary Boolean combinations (with .Ic "! || \*[Am]\*[Am]" ) of regular expressions and relational expressions. Regular expressions are as in .Xr egrep 1 . Isolated regular expressions in a pattern apply to the entire line. Regular expressions may also occur in relational expressions, using the operators .Ic ~ and .Ic !~ . .Ic / 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. .Pp 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. .Pp A relational expression is one of the following: .Bl -tag -offset indent -width indent -compact .It Ar expression matchop regular-expression .It Ar expression relop expression .It Ar expression Ic in Ar array-name .It ( Ar expr , expr,\&... Ic ") in" Ar array-name .El .Pp where a .Ar relop is any of the six relational operators in C, and a .Ar matchop is either .Ic ~ (matches) or .Ic !~ (does not match). A conditional is an arithmetic expression, a relational expression, or a Boolean combination of these. .Pp The special patterns .Ic BEGIN and .Ic END may be used to capture control before the first input line is read and after the last. .Ic BEGIN and .Ic END do not combine with other patterns. .Ss Built-in Variables Variable names with special meanings: .Bl -hang -width FILENAMES .It Va ARGC argument count, assignable .It Va ARGV argument array, assignable; non-null members are taken as filenames .It Va CONVFMT conversion format used when converting numbers (default .Qq %.6g ) .It Va ENVIRON array of environment variables; subscripts are names. .It Va FILENAME the name of the current input file .It Va FNR ordinal number of the current record in the current file .It Va FS regular expression used to separate fields; also settable by option .Fl F Ar fs . .It Va NF number of fields in the current record .It Va NR ordinal number of the current record .It Va OFMT output format for numbers (default .Qq "%.6g" ) .It Va OFS output field separator (default blank) .It Va ORS output record separator (default newline) .It Va RS input record separator (default newline) .It Va RSTART Position of the first character matched by .Fn match ; 0 if not match. .It Va RLENGTH Length of the string matched by .Fn match ; -1 if no match. .It Va SUBSEP separates multiple subscripts (default 034) .El .Ss Functions Functions may be defined (at the position of a pattern-action statement) thus: .Bd -literal -offset indent function foo(a, b, c) { ...; return x } .Ed .Pp 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. .Sh EXAMPLES Print lines longer than 72 characters: .Pp .Dl length($0) > 72 .Pp Print first two fields in opposite order: .Pp .Dl { print $2, $1 } .Pp Same, with input fields separated by comma and/or blanks and tabs: .Bd -literal -offset indent BEGIN { FS = ",[ \et]*|[ \et]+" } { print $2, $1 } .Ed .Pp Add up first column, print sum and average: .Bd -literal -offset indent { s += $1 } END { print "sum is", s, " average is", s/NR } .Ed .Pp Print all lines between start/stop pairs: .Pp .Dl /start/, /stop/ .Pp Simulate echo(1): .Bd -literal -offset indent BEGIN { # Simulate echo(1) for (i = 1; i < ARGC; i++) printf "%s ", ARGV[i] printf "\en" exit } .Ed .Pp Print an error message to standard error: .Bd -literal -offset indent { print "error!" > "/dev/stderr" } .Ed .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr egrep 1 , .Xr lex 1 , .Xr sed 1 , .Xr atan2 3 , .Xr cos 3 , .Xr exp 3 , .Xr log 3 , .Xr sin 3 , .Xr sqrt 3 , .Xr strftime 3 , .Xr time 3 .Pp A. V. Aho, B. W. Kernighan, P. J. Weinberger, .Em The AWK Programming Language , Addison-Wesley, 1988. ISBN 0-201-07981-X .Pp .Em AWK Language Programming , Edition 1.0, published by the Free Software Foundation, 1995 .Sh HISTORY .Nm nawk has been the default system .Nm since .Nx 2.0 , replacing the previously used GNU .Nm . .Sh 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. .Pp The scope rules for variables in functions are a botch; the syntax is worse.