The AWK Programming Language [Paperback]

Alfred V. Aho (Author), Brian W. Kernighan (Author), Peter J. Weinberger (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 020107981X | ISBN-13: 978-0201079814 | Publication Date: January 11, 1988 | Edition: 1

Originally developed by Alfred Aho, Brian Kernighan, and Peter Weinberger in 1977, AWK is a pattern-matching language for writing short programs to perform common data-manipulation tasks. In 1985, a new version of the language was developed, incorporating additional features such as multiple input files, dynamic regular expressions, and user-defined functions. This new version is available for both Unix and MS-DOS. This is the first book on AWK. It begins with a tutorial that shows how easy AWK is to use. The tutorial is followed by a comprehensive manual for the new version of AWK. Subsequent chapters illustrate the language by a range of useful applications, such as: *Retrieving, transforming, reducing, and validating data *Managing small, personal databases *Text processing *Little languages *Experimenting with algorithms The examples illustrates the book's three themes: showing how to use AWK well, demonstrating AWK's versatility, and explaining how common computing operations are done. In addition, the book contains two appendixes: summary of the language, and answers to selected exercises. 020107981XB04062001

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Originally developed by Alfred Aho, Brian Kernighan, and Peter Weinberger in 1977, AWK is a pattern-matching language for writing short programs to perform common data-manipulation tasks. In 1985, a new version of the language was developed, incorporating additional features such as multiple input files, dynamic regular expressions, and user-defined functions. This new version is available for both Unix and MS-DOS.

This is the first book on AWK. It begins with a tutorial that shows how easy AWK is to use. The tutorial is followed by a comprehensive manual for the new version of AWK. Subsequent chapters illustrate the language by a range of useful applications, such as:

• Retrieving, transforming, reducing, and validating data
• Managing small, personal databases
• Text processing
• Little languages
• Experimenting with algorithms

The examples illustrates the book's three themes: showing how to use AWK well, demonstrating AWK's versatility, and explaining how common computing operations are done. In addition, the book contains two appendixes: summary of the language, and answers to selected exercises.

020107981XB04062001

About the Author

Brian W. Kernighan works in the Computing Science Research Center at Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies. He is Consulting Editor for Addison-Wesley's Professional Computing Series and the author, with Dennis Ritchie, of The C Programming Language.

020107981XAB04062001

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Product Details

• Paperback: 210 pages
• Publisher: Addison Wesley; 1 edition (January 11, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 020107981X
• ISBN-13: 978-0201079814
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #143,988 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Reference text on AWK, February 12, 2002

By 

G. Powell (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The AWK Programming Language (Paperback)

This is THE bible for awk users. If you refuse to use perl, which incorporated most of awk, or have to maintain old awk scripts then this is the text. I like the O'Reilly text for learning the basics, but after that you need this guide. For some tasks awk is the premier solution, for others, use awk as part of the solution along with perl and a shell script. Still a cool language. And this book is very helpful for both beginning intermediate programmers of awk and advanced users.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent reference, March 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The AWK Programming Language (Paperback)

The AWK Programming Language was written very well. The first couple of chapters describe the language and the rest are full of real-world examples. The exercises at the end of each section are very helpful and expand on the examples given. Any one who works with flat data files should be familiar with awk, and this is the book to get the job done.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superb text on what Awk can do...and how to do it!, January 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The AWK Programming Language (Paperback)

While the Nutshell book is more of a reference guide, Aho's shows how to really use the language with practical examples.

From basic examples to flatfile reports and using Awk to try out language issues in compiler design.

For those who know Awk there are some great ideas in here. For those who are just starting out it's an excellent way to ease yourself into writing Awk scripts.

A script writers must have.