https://invisible-island.net/mawk/


mawk(1)


NAME

       mawk - pattern scanning and text processing language

SYNOPSIS

       mawk  [-W  option]  [-F value] [-v var=value] [--] 'program text' [file
       ...]
       mawk [-W option] [-F value] [-v var=value] [-f program-file] [--] [file
       ...]

DESCRIPTION

       mawk  is an interpreter for the AWK Programming Language.  The AWK lan-
       guage is useful for manipulation of data files, text retrieval and pro-
       cessing,  and  for prototyping and experimenting with algorithms.  mawk
       is a new awk meaning it implements the AWK language as defined in  Aho,
       Kernighan  and Weinberger, The AWK Programming Language, Addison-Wesley
       Publishing, 1988 (hereafter referred to as the AWK  book.)   mawk  con-
       forms  to  the POSIX 1003.2 (draft 11.3) definition of the AWK language
       which contains a few features not described in the AWK book,  and  mawk
       provides a small number of extensions.

       An  AWK  program  is  a sequence of pattern {action} pairs and function
       definitions.  Short programs are entered on the  command  line  usually
       enclosed  in ' ' to avoid shell interpretation.  Longer programs can be
       read in from a file with the -f option.  Data  input is read  from  the
       list  of files on the command line or from standard input when the list
       is empty.  The input is broken into records as determined by the record
       separator  variable,  RS.  Initially, RS = "\n" and records are synony-
       mous with lines.  Each record is compared against each pattern  and  if
       it matches, the program text for {action} is executed.

OPTIONS

       -F value       sets the field separator, FS, to value.

       -f file        Program  text is read from file instead of from the com-
                      mand line.  Multiple -f options are allowed.

       -v var=value   assigns value to program variable var.

       --             indicates the unambiguous end of options.

       The above options will be available with any POSIX compatible implemen-
       tation  of  AWK.  Implementation specific options are prefaced with -W.
       mawk provides these:

       -W dump
              writes an assembler like listing of the internal  representation
              of  the  program  to  stdout and exits 0 (on successful compila-
              tion).

       -W exec file
              Program text is read from file and this is the last option.

              This is a useful alternative to -f on systems that  support  the
              #!   "magic  number"  convention  for executable scripts.  Those
              implicitly pass the pathname of the script itself as  the  final
              parameter,  and  expect  no  more  than one "-" option on the #!
              line.  Because mawk can combine multiple -W options separated by
              commas,  you can use this option when an additional -W option is
              needed.

       -W help
              prints a usage message to stderr and exits (same as "-W usage").

       -W interactive
              sets unbuffered writes to stdout and line  buffered  reads  from
              stdin.   Records from stdin are lines regardless of the value of
              RS.

       -W posix
              modifies mawk's behavior to be more POSIX-compliant:

              o   forces mawk not to consider '\n' to be space.

              The original "posix_space" is recognized, but deprecated.

       -W random=num
              calls srand with the given parameter (and  overrides  the  auto-
              seeding behavior).

       -W sprintf=num
              adjusts the size of mawk's internal sprintf buffer to num bytes.
              More than rare use of  this  option  indicates  mawk  should  be
              recompiled.

       -W traditional
              Omit  features  such as interval expressions which were not sup-
              ported by traditional awk.

       -W usage
              prints a usage message to stderr and exits (same as "-W help").

       -W version
              mawk writes its version and copyright  to  stdout  and  compiled
              limits to stderr and exits 0.

       mawk  accepts  abbreviations for any of these options, e.g., "-W v" and
       "-Wv" both tell mawk to show its version.

       mawk allows multiple -W  options  to  be  combined  by  separating  the
       options  with  commas,  e.g.,  -Wsprint=2000,posix.  This is useful for
       executable #!  "magic number" invocations in which only one argument is
       supported, e.g., -Winteractive,exec.

THE AWK LANGUAGE

1. Program structure

       An  AWK  program is a sequence of pattern {action} pairs and user func-
       tion definitions.

       A pattern can be:
            BEGIN
            END
            expression
            expression , expression

       One, but not both, of pattern {action} can be omitted.  If {action}  is
       omitted  it is implicitly { print }.  If pattern is omitted, then it is
       implicitly matched.  BEGIN and END patterns require an action.

       Statements are terminated by newlines, semi-colons or both.  Groups  of
       statements such as actions or loop bodies are blocked via { ... } as in
       C.  The last statement in a block doesn't  need  a  terminator.   Blank
       lines  have  no  meaning; an empty statement is terminated with a semi-
       colon.  Long statements can be continued with a backslash, \.  A state-
       ment  can  be broken without a backslash after a comma, left brace, &&,
       ||, do, else, the right parenthesis of an if, while or  for  statement,
       and  the  right parenthesis of a function definition.  A comment starts
       with # and extends to, but does not include the end of line.

       The following statements control program flow inside blocks.

            if ( expr ) statement

            if ( expr ) statement else statement

            while ( expr ) statement

            do statement while ( expr )

            for ( opt_expr ; opt_expr ; opt_expr ) statement

            for ( var in array ) statement

            continue

            break

2. Data types, conversion and comparison

       There are two basic data types, numeric and string.  Numeric  constants
       can  be  integer  like -2, decimal like 1.08, or in scientific notation
       like -1.1e4 or .28E-3.  All numbers are represented internally and  all
       computations  are  done  in floating point arithmetic.  So for example,
       the expression 0.2e2 == 20 is true and true is represented as 1.0.

       String constants are enclosed in double quotes.

                   "This is a string with a newline at the end.\n"

       Strings can be continued across a line by  escaping  (\)  the  newline.
       The following escape sequences are recognized.

            \\        \
            \"        "
            \a        alert, ascii 7
            \b        backspace, ascii 8
            \t        tab, ascii 9
            \n        newline, ascii 10
            \v        vertical tab, ascii 11
            \f        formfeed, ascii 12
            \r        carriage return, ascii 13
            \ddd      1, 2 or 3 octal digits for ascii ddd
            \xhh      1 or 2 hex digits for ascii  hh

       If  you  escape  any other character \c, you get \c, i.e., mawk ignores
       the escape.

       There are really three basic data types; the third is number and string
       which  has  both  a  numeric value and a string value at the same time.
       User defined variables come into existence when  first  referenced  and
       are  initialized  to  null, a number and string value which has numeric
       value 0 and string value "".  Non-trivial number and string typed  data
       come from input and are typically stored in fields.  (See section 4).

       The  type  of  an expression is determined by its context and automatic
       type conversion occurs if needed.  For example, to evaluate the  state-
       ments

            y = x + 2  ;  z = x  "hello"

       The  value  stored  in  variable  y will be typed numeric.  If x is not
       numeric, the value read from x is converted to  numeric  before  it  is
       added  to  2  and  stored in y.  The value stored in variable z will be
       typed string, and the value of x will be converted to string if  neces-
       sary  and  concatenated  with  "hello".  (Of course, the value and type
       stored in x is not changed by any conversions.)  A string expression is
       converted  to numeric using its longest numeric prefix as with atof(3).
       A numeric expression is converted to  string  by  replacing  expr  with
       sprintf(CONVFMT,  expr),  unless  expr  can  be represented on the host
       machine as an exact integer  then  it  is  converted  to  sprintf("%d",
       expr).   Sprintf() is an AWK built-in that duplicates the functionality
       of sprintf(3), and CONVFMT is a built-in  variable  used  for  internal
       conversion  from  number to string and initialized to "%.6g".  Explicit
       type conversions can be  forced,  expr  ""  is  string  and  expr+0  is
       numeric.

       To evaluate, expr1 rel-op expr2, if both operands are numeric or number
       and string then the comparison is numeric; if both operands are  string
       the  comparison is string; if one operand is string, the non-string op-
       erand is converted  and  the  comparison  is  string.   The  result  is
       numeric, 1 or 0.

       In boolean contexts such as, if ( expr ) statement, a string expression
       evaluates true if and only if it is not the empty  string  "";  numeric
       values if and only if not numerically zero.

3. Regular expressions

       In  the  AWK language, records, fields and strings are often tested for
       matching a regular expression.  Regular  expressions  are  enclosed  in
       slashes, and

            expr ~ /r/

       is  an  AWK  expression  that evaluates to 1 if expr "matches" r, which
       means a substring of expr is in the set of strings defined by r.   With
       no  match  the  expression  evaluates  to  0; replacing ~ with the "not
       match" operator, !~ , reverses the meaning.  As  pattern-action pairs,

            /r/ { action }   and   $0 ~ /r/ { action }

       are the same, and for each input record that matches r, action is  exe-
       cuted.   In  fact, /r/ is an AWK expression that is equivalent to ($0 ~
       /r/) anywhere except when on the right side  of  a  match  operator  or
       passed  as  an  argument  to a built-in function that expects a regular
       expression argument.

       AWK uses extended regular expressions as with the -E option of grep(1).
       The regular expression metacharacters, i.e., those with special meaning
       in regular expressions are

            \ ^ $ . [ ] | ( ) * + ? { }

       If the command line option -W traditional is used, these are omitted:

            { }

       are also regular expression metacharacters, and in this mode,
       require escaping to be a literal character.

       Regular expressions are built up from characters as follows:

            c            matches any non-metacharacter
                         c.

            \c           matches a character defined by the same
                         escape sequences used
                         in string constants or the literal
                         character c if \c is not an escape sequence.

            .            matches any character (including newline).

            ^            matches the front of a string.

            $            matches the back of a string.

            [c1c2c3...]  matches any character in the class
                         c1c2c3... .
                         An interval of characters is denoted
                         c1-c2 inside a class [...].

            [^c1c2c3...] matches any character not in the class
                         c1c2c3...

       Regular expressions are built up from other regular expressions
       as follows:

            r1r2         matches
                         r1
                         followed immediately by
                         r2
                         (concatenation).

            r1 | r2      matches
                         r1 or
                         r2
                         (alternation).

            r*           matches r repeated zero or more times.

            r+           matches r repeated one or more times.

            r?           matches r zero or once.
                         (repetition).

            (r)          matches r
                         (grouping).

            r{n}         matches r exactly n times.

            r{n,}        matches r repeated n or more times.

            r{n,m}       matches r repeated n to m (inclusive) times.

            r{,m}        matches r repeated 0 to m times (a non-standard option).

       The increasing precedence of operators is:

       alternation concatenation repetition grouping

       For example,

            /^[_a-zA-Z][_a-zA-Z0-9]*$/  and
            /^[-+]?([0-9]+\.?|\.[0-9])[0-9]*([eE][-+]?[0-9]+)?$/

       are matched by AWK identifiers and AWK numeric constants  respectively.
       Note  that  "."  has to be escaped to be recognized as a decimal point,
       and that metacharacters are not special inside character classes.

       Any expression can be used on the right hand side of the ~ or !~ opera-
       tors  or  passed  to  a built-in that expects a regular expression.  If
       needed, it is converted to string, and then interpreted  as  a  regular
       expression.  For example,

            BEGIN { identifier = "[_a-zA-Z][_a-zA-Z0-9]*" }

            $0 ~ "^" identifier

       prints all lines that start with an AWK identifier.

       mawk  recognizes  the  empty  regular expression, //, which matches the
       empty string and hence is matched by any string at the front, back  and
       between every character.  For example,

            echo  abc | mawk { gsub(//, "X") ; print }
            XaXbXcX

4. Records and fields

       Records are read in one at a time, and stored in the field variable $0.
       The record is split into fields which are stored in $1, $2,  ...,  $NF.
       The built-in variable NF is set to the number of fields, and NR and FNR
       are incremented by 1.  Fields above $NF are set to "".

       Assignment to $0 causes the fields and NF to be recomputed.  Assignment
       to  NF or to a field causes $0 to be reconstructed by concatenating the
       $i's separated by OFS.  Assignment to a field with index  greater  than
       NF, increases NF and causes $0 to be reconstructed.

       Data  input  stored  in  fields  is string, unless the entire field has
       numeric form and then the type is number and string.  For example,

            echo 24 24E |
            mawk '{ print($1>100, $1>"100", $2>100, $2>"100") }'
            0 1 1 1

       $0 and $2 are string and $1 is number and string.  The first comparison
       is numeric, the second is string, the third is string (100 is converted
       to "100"), and the last is string.

5. Expressions and operators

       The expression syntax is similar to C.  Primary expressions are numeric
       constants,  string  constants,  variables,  fields, arrays and function
       calls.  The identifier for a variable,  array  or  function  can  be  a
       sequence of letters, digits and underscores, that does not start with a
       digit.  Variables are not declared; they exist  when  first  referenced
       and are initialized to null.

       New  expressions  are composed with the following operators in order of
       increasing precedence.

            assignment          =  +=  -=  *=  /=  %=  ^=
            conditional         ?  :
            logical or          ||
            logical and         &&
            array membership    in
            matching       ~   !~
            relational          <  >   <=  >=  ==  !=
            concatenation       (no explicit operator)
            add ops             +  -
            mul ops             *  /  %
            unary               +  -
            logical not         !
            exponentiation      ^
            inc and dec         ++ -- (both post and pre)
            field               $

       Assignment, conditional and exponentiation associate right to left; the
       other  operators associate left to right.  Any expression can be paren-
       thesized.

6. Arrays

       Awk provides one-dimensional arrays.  Array elements are  expressed  as
       array[expr].   Expr  is  internally  converted  to string type, so, for
       example, A[1] and A["1"] are the same element and the actual  index  is
       "1".   Arrays  indexed  by strings are called associative arrays.  Ini-
       tially an array is empty;  elements  exist  when  first  accessed.   An
       expression, expr in array evaluates to 1 if array[expr] exists, else to
       0.

       There is a form of the for statement that loops over each index  of  an
       array.

            for ( var in array ) statement

       sets var to each index of array and executes statement.  The order that
       var transverses the indices of array is not defined.

       The statement, delete array[expr], causes  array[expr]  not  to  exist.
       mawk  supports  the delete array feature, which deletes all elements of
       array.

       Multidimensional arrays are synthesized with  concatenation  using  the
       built-in   variable   SUBSEP.    array[expr1,expr2]  is  equivalent  to
       array[expr1 SUBSEP expr2].  Testing for a multidimensional element uses
       a parenthesized index, such as

            if ( (i, j) in A )  print A[i, j]

7. Builtin-variables

       The  following  variables  are  built-in and initialized before program
       execution.

            ARGC   number of command line arguments.

            ARGV   array of command line arguments, 0..ARGC-1.

            CONVFMT
                   format for internal conversion of numbers to  string,  ini-
                   tially = "%.6g".

            ENVIRON
                   array  indexed  by  environment  variables.  An environment
                   string, var=value is stored as ENVIRON[var] = value.

            FILENAME
                   name of the current input file.

            FNR    current record number in FILENAME.

            FS     splits records into fields as a regular expression.

            NF     number of fields in the current record.

            NR     current record number in the total input stream.

            OFMT   format for printing numbers; initially = "%.6g".

            OFS    inserted between fields on output, initially = " ".

            ORS    terminates each record on output, initially = "\n".

            RLENGTH
                   length set by the  last  call  to  the  built-in  function,
                   match().

            RS     input record separator, initially = "\n".

            RSTART index set by the last call to match().

            SUBSEP used  to  build  multiple  array  subscripts,  initially  =
                   "\034".

8. Built-in functions

       String functions

            gsub(r,s,t)  gsub(r,s)
                   Global substitution, every match of regular expression r in
                   variable t is replaced by string s.  The number of replace-
                   ments is returned.  If t is omitted, $0 is used.  An  &  in
                   the  replacement  string  s is replaced by the matched sub-
                   string of t.  \& and \\ put  literal & and \, respectively,
                   in the replacement string.

            index(s,t)
                   If  t is a substring of s, then the position where t starts
                   is returned, else 0 is returned.  The first character of  s
                   is in position 1.

            length(s)
                   Returns the length of string or array s.

            match(s,r)
                   Returns  the  index  of  the first longest match of regular
                   expression r in string s.  Returns 0 if  no  match.   As  a
                   side effect, RSTART is set to the return value.  RLENGTH is
                   set to the length of the match or -1 if no match.   If  the
                   empty  string  is  matched,  RLENGTH  is set to 0, and 1 is
                   returned if the match is at the front, and  length(s)+1  is
                   returned if the match is at the back.

            split(s,A,r)  split(s,A)
                   String  s  is split into fields by regular expression r and
                   the fields are loaded into array A.  The number  of  fields
                   is  returned.   See section 11 below for more detail.  If r
                   is omitted, FS is used.

            sprintf(format,expr-list)
                   Returns a string constructed from  expr-list  according  to
                   format.  See the description of printf() below.

            sub(r,s,t)  sub(r,s)
                   Single substitution, same as gsub() except at most one sub-
                   stitution.

            substr(s,i,n)  substr(s,i)
                   Returns the substring of string s, starting at index i,  of
                   length  n.  If n is omitted, the suffix of s, starting at i
                   is returned.

            tolower(s)
                   Returns a copy of s with all  upper  case  characters  con-
                   verted to lower case.

            toupper(s)
                   Returns  a  copy  of  s with all lower case characters con-
                   verted to upper case.

       Time functions

       These are available on systems which support the corresponding C mktime
       and strftime functions:

            mktime(specification)
                   converts  a date specification to a timestamp with the same
                   units as systime.  The date specification is a string  con-
                   taining the components of the date as decimal integers:

                   YYYY
                      the year, e.g., 2012

                   MM the month of the year starting at 1

                   DD the day of the month starting at 1

                   HH hour (0-23)

                   MM minute (0-59)

                   SS seconds (0-59)

                   DST
                      tells  how  to  treat  timezone  versus daylight savings
                      time:

                        positive
                           DST is in effect

                        zero (default)
                           DST is not in effect

                        negative
                           mktime() should (use timezone information and  sys-
                           tem databases to) attempt  to determine whether DST
                           is in effect at the specified time.

            strftime([format [, timestamp [, utc ]]])
                   formats the given timestamp using the format (passed to the
                   C strftime function):

                   o   If the format parameter is missing, "%c" is used.

                   o   If  the  timestamp  parameter  is  missing, the current
                       value from systime is used.

                   o   If the utc parameter is present and nonzero, the result
                       is in UTC.  Otherwise local time is used.

            systime()
                   returns  the  current  time of day as the number of seconds
                   since the Epoch (1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC on POSIX systems).

       Arithmetic functions

            atan2(y,x)
                   Arctan of y/x between -pi and pi.

            cos(x) Cosine function, x in radians.

            exp(x) Exponential function.

            int(x) Returns x truncated towards zero.

            log(x) Natural logarithm.

            rand() Returns a random number between zero and one.

            sin(x) Sine function, x in radians.

            sqrt(x)
                   Returns square root of x.

            srand(expr)

            srand()
                   Seeds the random number generator, using the clock if  expr
                   is  omitted,  and  returns  the value of the previous seed.
                   Srand(expr)  is  useful   for   repeating   pseudo   random
                   sequences.

                   Note: mawk is normally configured to seed the random number
                   generator from the clock at startup, making it  unnecessary
                   to call srand().  This feature can be suppressed via condi-
                   tional compile, or overridden using the -Wrandom option.

9. Input and output

       There are two output statements, print and printf.

            print  writes $0  ORS to standard output.

            print expr1, expr2, ..., exprn
                   writes expr1 OFS expr2 OFS ... exprn ORS to  standard  out-
                   put.   Numeric  expressions  are  converted  to string with
                   OFMT.

            printf format, expr-list
                   duplicates the printf C library function writing  to  stan-
                   dard output.  The complete ANSI C format specifications are
                   recognized with conversions %c, %d, %e, %E, %f, %g, %G, %i,
                   %o,  %s, %u, %x, %X and %%, and conversion qualifiers h and
                   l.

       The argument list to print or printf  can  optionally  be  enclosed  in
       parentheses.   Print formats numbers using OFMT or "%d" for exact inte-
       gers.  "%c" with a numeric argument  prints  the  corresponding  8  bit
       character,  with a string argument it prints the first character of the
       string.  The output of print and printf can be redirected to a file  or
       command  by  appending  >  file, >> file or | command to the end of the
       print statement.  Redirection opens file or command only  once,  subse-
       quent  redirections  append to the already open stream.  By convention,
       mawk associates the filename

          o   "/dev/stderr" with stderr,

          o   "/dev/stdout" with stdout,

          o   "-" and "/dev/stdin" with stdin.

       The association with stderr is  especially  useful  because  it  allows
       print  and  printf to be redirected to stderr.  These names can also be
       passed to functions.

       The input function getline has the following variations.

            getline
                   reads into $0, updates the fields, NF, NR and FNR.

            getline < file
                   reads into $0 from file, updates the fields and NF.

            getline var
                   reads the next record into var, updates NR and FNR.

            getline var < file
                   reads the next record of file into var.

            command | getline
                   pipes a record from command into $0 and updates the  fields
                   and NF.

            command | getline var
                   pipes a record from command into var.

       Getline returns 0 on end-of-file, -1 on error, otherwise 1.

       Commands on the end of pipes are executed by /bin/sh.

       The  function close(expr) closes the file or pipe associated with expr.
       Close returns 0 if expr is an open file, the exit status if expr  is  a
       piped  command,  and  -1  otherwise.  Close is used to reread a file or
       command, make sure the other end of an output pipe is finished or  con-
       serve file resources.

       The  function  fflush(expr)  flushes the output file or pipe associated
       with expr.  Fflush returns 0 if expr is an open output stream else  -1.
       Fflush  without an argument flushes stdout.  Fflush with an empty argu-
       ment ("") flushes all open output.

       The function system(expr) uses the C runtime  system  call  to  execute
       expr  and  returns the corresponding wait status of the command as fol-
       lows:

       o   if the system call failed, setting the status to -1,  mawk  returns
           that value.

       o   if the command exited normally, mawk returns its exit-status.

       o   if  the command exited due to a signal such as SIGHUP, mawk returns
           the signal number plus 256.

       Changes made to the ENVIRON array are not passed to  commands  executed
       with system or pipes.

10. User defined functions

       The syntax for a user defined function is

            function name( args ) { statements }

       The function body can contain a return statement

            return opt_expr

       A  return  statement  is not required.  Function calls may be nested or
       recursive.  Functions are passed expressions by  value  and  arrays  by
       reference.   Extra  arguments serve as local variables and are initial-
       ized to null.  For example, csplit(s,A) puts each character of  s  into
       array A and returns the length of s.

            function csplit(s, A,    n, i)
            {
              n = length(s)
              for( i = 1 ; i <= n ; i++ ) A[i] = substr(s, i, 1)
              return n
            }

       Putting  extra  space  between  passed arguments and local variables is
       conventional.  Functions can be referenced before they are defined, but
       the function name and the '(' of the arguments must touch to avoid con-
       fusion with concatenation.

       A function parameter is normally a scalar value (number or string).  If
       there  is a forward reference to a function using an array as a parame-
       ter, the function's corresponding  parameter  will  be  treated  as  an
       array.

11. Splitting strings, records and files

       Awk  programs  use the same algorithm to split strings into arrays with
       split(), and records into fields on FS.  mawk uses essentially the same
       algorithm to split files into records on RS.

       Split(expr,A,sep) works as follows:

          (1)  If sep is omitted, it is replaced by FS.  Sep can be an expres-
               sion or regular expression.  If it is  an  expression  of  non-
               string type, it is converted to string.

          (2)  If sep = " " (a single space), then <SPACE> is trimmed from the
               front and back of expr, and sep becomes <SPACE>.  mawk  defines
               <SPACE> as the regular expression /[ \t\n]+/.  Otherwise sep is
               treated as a regular expression,  except  that  meta-characters
               are  ignored  for  a string of length 1, e.g., split(x, A, "*")
               and split(x, A, /\*/) are the same.

          (3)  If expr is not string, it is converted to string.  If  expr  is
               then the empty string "", split() returns 0 and A is set empty.
               Otherwise, all non-overlapping, non-null and longest matches of
               sep in expr, separate expr into fields which are loaded into A.
               The fields are placed in A[1],  A[2],  ...,  A[n]  and  split()
               returns  n, the number of fields which is the number of matches
               plus one.  Data placed in A that looks numeric is typed  number
               and string.

       Splitting  records  into  fields  works  the same except the pieces are
       loaded into $1, $2,..., $NF.  If $0 is empty, NF is set to 0 and all $i
       to "".

       mawk  splits  files  into  records  by the same algorithm, but with the
       slight difference that RS is really a terminator instead of  a  separa-
       tor.  (ORS is really a terminator too).

            E.g., if FS = ":+" and $0 = "a::b:" , then NF = 3 and $1 = "a", $2
            = "b" and $3 = "", but if "a::b:" is the contents of an input file
            and RS = ":+", then there are two records "a" and "b".

       RS = " " is not special.

       If  FS  =  "",  then mawk breaks the record into individual characters,
       and, similarly, split(s,A,"") places the  individual  characters  of  s
       into A.

12. Multi-line records

       Since  mawk  interprets  RS as a regular expression, multi-line records
       are easy.  Setting RS = "\n\n+", makes one or more blank lines separate
       records.  If FS = " " (the default), then single newlines, by the rules
       for <SPACE> above, become space and single newlines are  field  separa-
       tors.

            For example, if

            o   a file is "a b\nc\n\n",

            o   RS = "\n\n+" and

            o   FS = " ",

            then  there  is one record "a b\nc" with three fields "a", "b" and
            "c":

            o   Changing FS = "\n", gives two fields "a b" and "c";

            o   changing FS = "", gives one field identical to the record.

       If you want lines with spaces or tabs to be considered blank, set RS  =
       "\n([ \t]*\n)+".   For  compatibility  with other awks, setting RS = ""
       has the same effect as if blank lines are stripped from the  front  and
       back  of  files  and  then  records  are determined as if RS = "\n\n+".
       POSIX requires that "\n" always separates records when RS = ""  regard-
       less  of  the  value  of  FS.   mawk  does not support this convention,
       because defining "\n" as <SPACE> makes it unnecessary.

       Most of the time when you change RS for multi-line  records,  you  will
       also want to change ORS to "\n\n" so the record spacing is preserved on
       output.

13. Program execution

       This section describes the order of program execution.  First  ARGC  is
       set  to the total number of command line arguments passed to the execu-
       tion phase of the program.  ARGV[0] is set the name of the  AWK  inter-
       preter  and  ARGV[1] ...  ARGV[ARGC-1] holds the remaining command line
       arguments exclusive of options and program source.  For example with

            mawk  -f  prog  v=1  A  t=hello  B

       ARGC = 5 with ARGV[0] = "mawk", ARGV[1] = "v=1", ARGV[2] = "A", ARGV[3]
       = "t=hello" and ARGV[4] = "B".

       Next,  each  BEGIN block is executed in order.  If the program consists
       entirely of BEGIN blocks, then  execution  terminates,  else  an  input
       stream  is opened and execution continues.  If ARGC equals 1, the input
       stream is set to stdin, else  the command line  arguments  ARGV[1]  ...
       ARGV[ARGC-1] are examined for a file argument.

       The  command  line  arguments  divide  into three sets: file arguments,
       assignment arguments and empty strings "".  An assignment has the  form
       var=string.   When  an ARGV[i] is examined as a possible file argument,
       if it is empty it is skipped; if it  is  an  assignment  argument,  the
       assignment  to  var  takes place and i skips to the next argument; else
       ARGV[i] is opened for input.  If it fails to open, execution terminates
       with exit code 2.  If no command line argument is a file argument, then
       input comes from stdin.  Getline in a BEGIN action opens input.  "-" as
       a file argument denotes stdin.

       Once  an input stream is open, each input record is tested against each
       pattern, and if it matches, the  associated  action  is  executed.   An
       expression  pattern  matches if it is boolean true (see the end of sec-
       tion 2).  A BEGIN pattern matches before any input has been  read,  and
       an END pattern matches after all input has been read.  A range pattern,
       expr1,expr2 , matches every record between the match of expr1  and  the
       match expr2 inclusively.

       When end of file occurs on the input stream, the remaining command line
       arguments are examined for a file argument, and if there is one  it  is
       opened,  else the END pattern is considered matched and all END actions
       are executed.

       In the example, the assignment v=1 takes place after the BEGIN  actions
       are  executed,  and  the  data  placed in v is typed number and string.
       Input is then read from file A.  On end of file A,  t  is  set  to  the
       string  "hello",  and B is opened for input.  On end of file B, the END
       actions are executed.

       Program flow at the pattern {action} level can be changed with the

            next
            nextfile
            exit  opt_expr

       statements:

       o   A next statement causes the next input record to be read  and  pat-
           tern testing to restart with the first pattern {action} pair in the
           program.

       o   A nextfile statement tells mawk  to  stop  processing  the  current
           input  file.   It  then updates FILENAME to the next file listed on
           the command line, and resets FNR to 1.

       o   An exit statement causes immediate execution of the END actions  or
           program  termination  if there are none or if the exit occurs in an
           END action.  The opt_expr sets the exit value of the program unless
           overridden by a later exit or subsequent error.

EXAMPLES

       1. emulate cat.

            { print }

       2. emulate wc.

            { chars += length($0) + 1  # add one for the \n
              words += NF
            }

            END{ print NR, words, chars }

       3. count the number of unique "real words".

            BEGIN { FS = "[^A-Za-z]+" }

            { for(i = 1 ; i <= NF ; i++)  word[$i] = "" }

            END { delete word[""]
                  for ( i in word )  cnt++
                  print cnt
            }

       4. sum the second field of every record based on the first field.

            $1 ~ /credit|gain/ { sum += $2 }
            $1 ~ /debit|loss/  { sum -= $2 }

            END { print sum }

       5. sort a file, comparing as string

            { line[NR] = $0 "" }  # make sure of comparison type
                            # in case some lines look numeric

            END {  isort(line, NR)
              for(i = 1 ; i <= NR ; i++) print line[i]
            }

            #insertion sort of A[1..n]
            function isort( A, n,    i, j, hold)
            {
              for( i = 2 ; i <= n ; i++)
              {
                hold = A[j = i]
                while ( A[j-1] > hold )
                { j-- ; A[j+1] = A[j] }
                A[j] = hold
              }
              # sentinel A[0] = "" will be created if needed
            }

COMPATIBILITY ISSUES

MAWK 1.3.3 versus POSIX 1003.2 Draft 11.3

       The  POSIX  1003.2(draft 11.3) definition of the AWK language is AWK as
       described in the AWK book with a few extensions that appeared  in  Sys-
       temVR4 nawk.  The extensions are:

          o   New functions: toupper() and tolower().

          o   New variables: ENVIRON[] and CONVFMT.

          o   ANSI C conversion specifications for printf() and sprintf().

          o   New  command  options:   -v  var=value,  multiple -f options and
              implementation options as arguments to -W.

          o   For systems (MS-DOS or Windows) which provide  a  setmode  func-
              tion,  an  environment variable MAWKBINMODE and a built-in vari-
              able BINMODE.  The bits of the BINMODE value tell mawk   how  to
              modify the RS and ORS variables:

              0  set standard input to binary mode, and if BIT-2 is unset, set
                 RS to "\r\n" (CR/LF) rather than "\n" (LF).

              1  set standard output to binary mode, and if  BIT-2  is  unset,
                 set ORS to "\r\n" (CR/LF) rather than "\n" (LF).

              2  suppress  the  assignment  to  RS and ORS of CR/LF, making it
                 possible to run scripts and generate output  compatible  with
                 Unix line-endings.

       POSIX  AWK is oriented to operate on files a line at a time.  RS can be
       changed from "\n" to another single character, but it is hard  to  find
       any  use for this -- there are no examples in the AWK book.  By conven-
       tion, RS = "", makes one or more blank lines separate records, allowing
       multi-line  records.   When  RS  = "", "\n" is always a field separator
       regardless of the value in FS.

       mawk, on the other hand, allows RS to be a  regular  expression.   When
       "\n"  appears  in records, it is treated as space, and FS always deter-
       mines fields.

       Removing the line at a time paradigm can make some programs simpler and
       can  often  improve  performance.   For example, redoing example 3 from
       above,

            BEGIN { RS = "[^A-Za-z]+" }

            { word[ $0 ] = "" }

            END { delete  word[ "" ]
              for( i in word )  cnt++
              print cnt
            }

       counts the number of unique words by making each  word  a  record.   On
       moderate  size  files, mawk executes twice as fast, because of the sim-
       plified inner loop.

       The following program replaces each comment by a single space  in  a  C
       program file,

            BEGIN {
              RS = "/\*([^*]|\*+[^/*])*\*+/"
                 # comment is record separator
              ORS = " "
              getline  hold
              }

              { print hold ; hold = $0 }

              END { printf "%s" , hold }

       Buffering  one  record  is  needed to avoid terminating the last record
       with a space.

       With mawk, the following are all equivalent,

            x ~ /a\+b/    x ~ "a\+b"     x ~ "a\\+b"

       The strings get scanned twice, once  as  string  and  once  as  regular
       expression.   On the string scan, mawk ignores the escape on non-escape
       characters while the AWK book advocates \c be  recognized  as  c  which
       necessitates  the double escaping of meta-characters in strings.  POSIX
       explicitly declines to define the behavior which passively forces  pro-
       grams  that  must  run under a variety of awks to use the more portable
       but less readable, double escape.

       POSIX AWK does not recognize "/dev/std{in,out,err}".  Some systems pro-
       vide  an  actual  device for this, allowing AWKs which do not implement
       the feature directly to support it.

       POSIX AWK does not  recognize  \x  hex  escape  sequences  in  strings.
       Unlike  ANSI C, mawk limits the number of digits that follows \x to two
       as the current implementation only supports 8 bit characters.

       POSIX explicitly leaves the behavior of FS = "" undefined, and mentions
       splitting  the record into characters as a possible interpretation, but
       currently this use is not portable across implementations.

       Some features were not part of the  POSIX  standard  until  long  after
       their  introduction in mawk and other implementations.  These have been
       approved, though still (as of July 2020), are not part of  a  published
       standard:

       o   The  built-in  fflush first appeared in a 1993 AT&T awk released to
           netlib.  It was approved for the POSIX standard in 2012.

       o   Aggregate deletion with delete array was approved in 2018.

Random numbers

       POSIX does not prescribe a method for initializing  random  numbers  at
       startup.

       In practice, most implementations do nothing special, which makes srand
       and rand follow the C runtime library, making the initial seed value 1.
       Some  implementations  (Solaris XPG4 and Tru64) return 0 from the first
       call to srand, although the results from rand behave as if the  initial
       seed is 1.  Other implementations return 1.

       While  mawk  can  call srand at startup with no parameter (initializing
       random numbers from the clock), this feature may  be  suppressed  using
       conditional compilation.

Extensions added for compatibility for GAWK and BWK

       Nextfile  is  a  gawk  extension (also implemented by BWK awk).  It was
       approved for the POSIX standard in September 2012, and is  expected  to
       be part of the next revision of the standard.

       Mktime, strftime and systime are gawk extensions.

       The "/dev/stdin" feature was added to mawk after 1.3.4, for compatibil-
       ity  with  gawk  and  BWK  awk.   The  corresponding  "-"  (alias   for
       /dev/stdin) was present in mawk 1.3.3.

       Interval  expressions,  e.g., a range {m,n} in Extended Regular Expres-
       sions (EREs), were not supported in awk (or even the original "nawk"):

       o   Gawk provided this feature in 1991 (and later, in 1998, options for
           turning it off, for compatibility with "traditional awk").

       o   Interval  expressions, were introduced into awk regular expressions
           in IEEE 1003.1-2001 (also known as Unix 03), along with some inter-
           nationalization features.

       o   Apple  modified  its copy of the original awk in April 2006, making
           this version of awk support interval expressions.

           The updated source provides for compatibility with  older  "legacy"
           versions  using  an  environment  variable, making this "Unix 2003"
           feature (perhaps meant as Unix 03) the default.

       o   NetBSD developers copied this change in January 2018, omitting  the
           compatibility option, and then applied it to BWK awk.

       o   The  interval expression implementation in mawk is based on changes
           proposed by James Parkinson in April 2016.

       Mawk also recognizes a  few  gawk-specific  command  line  options  for
       script compatibility:

            --help, --posix, -r, --re-interval, --traditional, --version

Subtle Differences not in POSIX or the AWK Book

       Finally,  here  is  how mawk handles exceptional cases not discussed in
       the AWK book or the POSIX draft.  It is unsafe  to  assume  consistency
       across awks and safe to skip to the next section.

          o   substr(s,  i, n) returns the characters of s in the intersection
              of the closed interval [1, length(s)] and the half-open interval
              [i,  i+n).  When this intersection is empty, the empty string is
              returned; so substr("ABC", 1, 0) = "" and substr("ABC", -4, 6) =
              "A".

          o   Every  string,  including  the  empty  string, matches the empty
              string at the front so, s ~ // and s ~ "", are always  1  as  is
              match(s, //) and match(s, "").  The last two set RLENGTH to 0.

          o   index(s,  t)  is always the same as match(s, t1) where t1 is the
              same as t with metacharacters escaped.  Hence  consistency  with
              match  requires  that  index(s,  "") always returns 1.  Also the
              condition, index(s,t) != 0 if and only t is a  substring  of  s,
              requires index("","") = 1.

          o   If  getline  encounters end of file, getline var, leaves var un-
              changed.  Similarly, on entry to the END actions, $0, the fields
              and NF have their value unaltered from the last record.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       Mawk recognizes these variables:

          MAWKBINMODE
             (see COMPATIBILITY ISSUES)

          MAWK_LONG_OPTIONS
             If  this  is  set,  mawk uses its value to decide what to do with
             GNU-style long options:

               allow  Mawk allows the option to be checked against the (small)
                      set of long options it recognizes.

               error  Mawk prints an error message and exits.  This is the de-
                      fault.

               ignore Mawk ignores the option.

               warn   Print an warning message and otherwise  ignore  the  op-
                      tion.

             If the variable is unset, mawk prints an error message and exits.

          WHINY_USERS
             This  is  a gawk 3.1.0 feature, removed in the 4.0.0 release.  It
             tells mawk to sort array indices before it starts to iterate over
             the elements of an array.

SEE ALSO

       grep(1)

       Aho,  Kernighan  and Weinberger, The AWK Programming Language, Addison-
       Wesley Publishing, 1988, (the AWK book), defines the language,  opening
       with  a  tutorial and advancing to many interesting programs that delve
       into issues of software design and analysis relevant to programming  in
       any language.

       The  GAWK Manual, The Free Software Foundation, 1991, is a tutorial and
       language reference that does not attempt the depth of the AWK book  and
       assumes  the reader may be a novice programmer.  The section on AWK ar-
       rays is excellent.  It also discusses POSIX requirements for AWK.

       mawk-arrays(7) discusses mawk's implementation of arrays.

       mawk-code(7) gives more information on the -W dump option.

BUGS

       mawk implements printf() and sprintf() using the C  library  functions,
       printf  and  sprintf, so full ANSI compatibility requires an ANSI C li-
       brary.  In practice this means the h conversion qualifier  may  not  be
       available.

       Also mawk inherits any bugs or limitations of the library functions.

       Implementors of the AWK language have shown a consistent lack of imagi-
       nation when naming their programs.

AUTHOR

       Mike Brennan (brennan@whidbey.com).
       Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net>.

Version 1.3.4                     2020-08-23                           MAWK(1)