The AWK Programming Language

This classic is the original full description of the awk programming language, by its creators. Though the authors are listed alphabetically, it reads to me like it was written mostly (entirely?) by Brian Kernighan, well-known for writing a lot of books and papers explaining Unix-related matters clearly and succinctly. Awk is one of the first languages designed to manipulate text files and still does it well, and can be found installed on Unix and Linux systems. Versions for Windows also exist, so fairly portable programs can be written for both Windows and Linux.The book starts with a tutorial chapter, then chapter 2 describes the language fairly completely. The remaining chapters show its power in various applications, and also serve as tutorials on some programming topics such as sorting and parsing.Keep in mind that this is the original version of the language. Most Linux systems now use gawk (GNU awk) which includes many features not in the version described here. The gawk programming manual is available freely as a PDF online and is also well-written. The POSIX specification of awk (also available online) was based on the version described in this book.There are errata for this book available online you can find pretty easily with a web search; it’s a pretty short list, only about a half a page. I found an error not in the list: on page 46, the example for grouping shows ($i)++ described as “add 1 to value of the i-th field”. This is wrong, and would be bad example even if it worked. I emailed Mr. Kernighan and he acknowledged the error, suggesting there may be a second edition some day.I got a used copy for about $23 and it’s in pretty good condition, clean but with a couple very slight bends in the spine, and the pages are slightly yellowed with age (an October 1988 printing). I am curious about what a new printing looks like, but not willing to spend $89.75 to find out. The one I have is Addison-Wesley. I don’t know how they deal with reprints of old computer books. I have seen what Prentice-Hall has done with some classic computer books; they look to be cheaply printed from photocopies, with blurry text and high prices. I hope A-W does better.

Just what one needs to know AWK

It's a classic, another great book from Brian Kernighan et al. I became very productive thanks to the book, It's a great resource if you work with lot's of CSVs and alikes.

classical, readable, quality is great, don t looks like a second hand book

Ce livre est essentiel pour qui veut comprendre la philosophie de AWK et de ses descendants (mawk, gawk).Pour ma part, la seule lecture attentive du premier chapitre m'a ouvert les yeux sur cet outil très puissant que je n'utilisais que de manière très sommaire auparavant.