AWK

AWK is an extremely versatile programming language for working on files and is named after its three original authors:

• Alfred V. Aho
• Brian W. Kernighan
• Peter J. Weinberger

They write: Awk is a convenient and expressive programming language that can be applied to a wide variety of computing and data-manipulation tasks.

Most implementations of awk are interpreters which read your awk source program and parse it and act on it directly. Example implementations:

1. nawk, AT&T's `new awk' -- probably nobody uses the `old awk' anymore-- . Interpreter, might NOT be well-maintained
2. gawk, GNU project, interpreter.
3. mawk, Michael Brennan, interpreter.
4. tawk, Thompson Automation, interpreter, compiler, MS-Windows DLL
5. mksawk, Mortice Kern Systems (MKS), interpreter, compiler,

See also

• Grymoire, Tutorial and introduction made by Bruce Barnet.
• GNU.org, The GNU Awk User’s Guide.
• pement.org, AWK one liners by Eric Pement
• IBM, AWK Part 1.
• [tawk

   from Thompson Automation
   interpreter
   compiler
   MS-Windows DLL