GAWK(1)                        Utility Commands                        GAWK(1)



NAME
       gawk - pattern scanning and processing language

SYNOPSIS
       gawk [ POSIX or GNU style options ] -f program-file [ -- ] file ...
       gawk [ POSIX or GNU style options ] [ -- ] program-text file ...

DESCRIPTION
       Gawk  is  the  GNU Project's implementation of the AWK programming lan-
       guage.  It conforms to the definition of  the  language  in  the  POSIX
       1003.1  Standard.   This version in turn is based on the description in
       The AWK Programming Language, by Aho, Kernighan, and Weinberger.   Gawk
       provides  the additional features found in the current version of Brian
       Kernighan's awk and a number of GNU-specific extensions.

       The command line consists of options to gawk itself,  the  AWK  program
       text  (if  not supplied via the -f or --file options), and values to be
       made available in the ARGC and ARGV pre-defined AWK variables.

       When gawk is invoked with the --profile  option,  it  starts  gathering
       profiling statistics from the execution of the program.  Gawk runs more
       slowly in this mode, and automatically produces an execution profile in
       the file awkprof.out when done.  See the --profile option, below.

       Gawk  also has an integrated debugger. An interactive debugging session
       can be started by supplying the --debug option to the command line.  In
       this mode of execution, gawk loads the AWK source code and then prompts
       for debugging commands.  Gawk can only debug AWK  program  source  pro-
       vided  with  the -f option.  The debugger is documented in GAWK: Effec-
       tive AWK Programming.

OPTION FORMAT
       Gawk options may be either traditional POSIX-style one letter  options,
       or  GNU-style  long  options.   POSIX  options start with a single "-",
       while long options start with "--".  Long options are provided for both
       GNU-specific features and for POSIX-mandated features.

       Gawk-specific  options  are  typically used in long-option form.  Argu-
       ments to long options are either joined with the option by an  =  sign,
       with no intervening spaces, or they may be provided in the next command
       line argument.  Long options may be abbreviated, as long as the  abbre-
       viation remains unique.

       Additionally,  every  long  option has a corresponding short option, so
       that the option's functionality may be used from within #!   executable
       scripts.

OPTIONS
       Gawk accepts the following options.  Standard options are listed first,
       followed by options for gawk extensions, listed alphabetically by short
       option.

       -f program-file
       --file program-file
              Read  the AWK program source from the file program-file, instead
              of from the  first  command  line  argument.   Multiple  -f  (or
              --file) options may be used.

       -F fs
       --field-separator fs
              Use fs for the input field separator (the value of the FS prede-
              fined variable).

       -v var=val
       --assign var=val
              Assign the value val to the variable var,  before  execution  of
              the  program  begins.  Such variable values are available to the
              BEGIN rule of an AWK program.

       -b
       --characters-as-bytes
              Treat all input data as single-byte characters. In other  words,
              don't  pay any attention to the locale information when attempt-
              ing to process strings as  multibyte  characters.   The  --posix
              option overrides this one.

       -c
       --traditional
              Run  in compatibility mode.  In compatibility mode, gawk behaves
              identically to Brian Kernighan's awk; none of  the  GNU-specific
              extensions  are recognized.  See GNU EXTENSIONS, below, for more
              information.

       -C
       --copyright
              Print the short version of the GNU copyright information message
              on the standard output and exit successfully.

       -d[file]
       --dump-variables[=file]
              Print  a  sorted list of global variables, their types and final
              values to file.  If no file is provided, gawk uses a file  named
              awkvars.out in the current directory.
              Having  a list of all the global variables is a good way to look
              for typographical errors in your programs.  You would  also  use
              this option if you have a large program with a lot of functions,
              and you want to be sure that your functions don't  inadvertently
              use  global  variables  that  you meant to be local.  (This is a
              particularly easy mistake to make  with  simple  variable  names
              like i, j, and so on.)

       -D[file]
       --debug[=file]
              Enable  debugging  of  AWK  programs.   By default, the debugger
              reads commands interactively from the  terminal.   The  optional
              file  argument  specifies a file with a list of commands for the
              debugger to execute non-interactively.

       -e program-text
       --source program-text
              Use program-text as AWK program source code.  This option allows
              the  easy  intermixing of library functions (used via the -f and
              --file options) with source code entered on  the  command  line.
              It  is  intended primarily for medium to large AWK programs used
              in shell scripts.

       -E file
       --exec file
              Similar to -f, however, this is option  is  the  last  one  pro-
              cessed.   This should be used with #!  scripts, particularly for
              CGI applications, to avoid passing in options or source code (!)
              on  the  command line from a URL.  This option disables command-
              line variable assignments.

       -g
       --gen-pot
              Scan and parse the AWK program, and generate a GNU .pot  (Porta-
              ble Object Template) format file on standard output with entries
              for all localizable strings in the program.  The program  itself
              is  not  executed.   See  the  GNU gettext distribution for more
              information on .pot files.

       -h
       --help Print a relatively short summary of the available options on the
              standard  output.   (Per the GNU Coding Standards, these options
              cause an immediate, successful exit.)

       -i include-file
       --include include-file
              Load an awk source library.  This searches for the library using
              the  AWKPATH environment variable.  If the initial search fails,
              another attempt will be made after appending  the  .awk  suffix.
              The  file  will be loaded only once (i.e., duplicates are elimi-
              nated), and the  code  does  not  constitute  the  main  program
              source.

       -l lib
       --load lib
              Load  a shared library lib.  This searches for the library using
              the AWKLIBPATH environment  variable.   If  the  initial  search
              fails,  another attempt will be made after appending the default
              shared library suffix for the platform.  The library initializa-
              tion routine is expected to be named dl_load().

       -L [value]
       --lint[=value]
              Provide warnings about constructs that are dubious or non-porta-
              ble to other AWK implementations.  With an optional argument  of
              fatal,  lint warnings become fatal errors.  This may be drastic,
              but its use will certainly encourage the development of  cleaner
              AWK  programs.  With an optional argument of invalid, only warn-
              ings about things that are actually invalid are issued. (This is
              not fully implemented yet.)

       -M
       --bignum
              Force arbitrary precision arithmetic on numbers. This option has
              no effect if gawk is not compiled to use the  GNU  MPFR  and  MP
              libraries.

       -n
       --non-decimal-data
              Recognize  octal and hexadecimal values in input data.  Use this
              option with great caution!

       -N
       --use-lc-numeric
              This forces gawk to use the  locale's  decimal  point  character
              when  parsing  input data.  Although the POSIX standard requires
              this behavior, and gawk does so when --posix is in  effect,  the
              default  is  to  follow traditional behavior and use a period as
              the decimal point, even in locales where the period is  not  the
              decimal  point  character.   This  option  overrides the default
              behavior, without the full draconian strictness of  the  --posix
              option.

       -o[file]
       --pretty-print[=file]
              Output  a  pretty printed version of the program to file.  If no
              file is provided, gawk uses a file named awkprof.out in the cur-
              rent directory.

       -O
       --optimize
              Enable  optimizations  upon  the  internal representation of the
              program.  Currently, this includes simple constant-folding,  and
              tail  call  elimination  for recursive functions. The gawk main-
              tainer hopes to add additional optimizations over time.

       -p[prof-file]
       --profile[=prof-file]
              Start a profiling session, and send the profiling data to  prof-
              file.   The default is awkprof.out.  The profile contains execu-
              tion counts of each statement in the program in the left  margin
              and function call counts for each user-defined function.

       -P
       --posix
              This  turns on compatibility mode, with the following additional
              restrictions:

              o \x escape sequences are not recognized.

              o Only space and tab act as field separators when FS is set to a
                single space, newline does not.

              o You cannot continue lines after ?  and :.

              o The synonym func for the keyword function is not recognized.

              o The operators ** and **= cannot be used in place of ^ and ^=.

       -r
       --re-interval
              Enable  the  use  of  interval expressions in regular expression
              matching (see Regular Expressions, below).  Interval expressions
              were not traditionally available in the AWK language.  The POSIX
              standard added them, to make awk and egrep consistent with  each
              other.  They are enabled by default, but this option remains for
              use with --traditional.

       -S
       --sandbox
              Runs gawk in sandbox  mode,  disabling  the  system()  function,
              input  redirection  with  getline, output redirection with print
              and printf, and loading dynamic extensions.   Command  execution
              (through pipelines) is also disabled.  This effectively blocks a
              script from accessing local  resources  (except  for  the  files
              specified on the command line).

       -t
       --lint-old
              Provide  warnings  about constructs that are not portable to the
              original version of UNIX awk.

       -V
       --version
              Print version information for this particular copy  of  gawk  on
              the  standard  output.  This is useful mainly for knowing if the
              current copy of gawk on your system is up to date  with  respect
              to  whatever the Free Software Foundation is distributing.  This
              is also useful when reporting bugs.  (Per the GNU  Coding  Stan-
              dards, these options cause an immediate, successful exit.)

       --     Signal the end of options. This is useful to allow further argu-
              ments to the AWK program itself to start with a "-".  This  pro-
              vides  consistency  with the argument parsing convention used by
              most other POSIX programs.

       In compatibility mode, any other options are flagged  as  invalid,  but
       are  otherwise  ignored.   In normal operation, as long as program text
       has been supplied, unknown options are passed on to the AWK program  in
       the ARGV array for processing.  This is particularly useful for running
       AWK programs via the "#!" executable interpreter mechanism.

       For POSIX compatibility, the -W option may be  used,  followed  by  the
       name of a long option.

AWK PROGRAM EXECUTION
       An  AWK program consists of a sequence of pattern-action statements and
       optional function definitions.

              @include "filename"
              @load "filename"
              pattern   { action statements }
              function name(parameter list) { statements }

       Gawk first reads the program source from the program-file(s) if  speci-
       fied, from arguments to --source, or from the first non-option argument
       on the command line.  The -f and --source options may be used  multiple
       times  on  the command line.  Gawk reads the program text as if all the
       program-files and command  line  source  texts  had  been  concatenated
       together.   This  is  useful  for  building libraries of AWK functions,
       without having to include them in each new AWK program that uses  them.
       It also provides the ability to mix library functions with command line
       programs.

       In addition, lines beginning with @include may be used to include other
       source  files  into your program, making library use even easier.  This
       is equivalent to using the -i option.

       Lines beginning with @load may be used to load  shared  libraries  into
       your program.  This is equivalent to using the -l option.

       The  environment  variable  AWKPATH specifies a search path to use when
       finding source files named with the -f and -i options.  If  this  vari-
       able  does  not  exist,  the  default path is ".:/usr/local/share/awk".
       (The actual directory may vary, depending upon how gawk was  built  and
       installed.)  If a file name given to the -f option contains a "/" char-
       acter, no path search is performed.

       The environment variable AWKLIBPATH specifies a search path to use when
       finding  source  files named with the -l option.  If this variable does
       not exist, the default path is  ".:/usr/local/lib/gawk".   (The  actual
       directory may vary, depending upon how gawk was built and installed.)

       Gawk executes AWK programs in the following order.  First, all variable
       assignments specified via the -v option are performed.  Next, gawk com-
       piles  the program into an internal form.  Then, gawk executes the code
       in the BEGIN rule(s) (if any), and then  proceeds  to  read  each  file
       named  in  the  ARGV  array  (up to ARGV[ARGC]).  If there are no files
       named on the command line, gawk reads the standard input.

       If a filename on the command line has the form var=val it is treated as
       a  variable  assignment.   The  variable var will be assigned the value
       val.  (This happens after any BEGIN rule(s) have  been  run.)   Command
       line  variable assignment is most useful for dynamically assigning val-
       ues to the variables AWK uses to  control  how  input  is  broken  into
       fields  and records.  It is also useful for controlling state if multi-
       ple passes are needed over a single data file.

       If the value of a particular element of ARGV is empty (""), gawk  skips
       over it.

       For  each  input  file,  if  a BEGINFILE rule exists, gawk executes the
       associated code before processing the contents of the file.  Similarly,
       gawk  executes  the  code  associated with ENDFILE after processing the
       file.

       For each record in the input, gawk tests to see if it matches any  pat-
       tern  in  the  AWK  program.  For each pattern that the record matches,
       gawk executes the associated action.  The patterns are  tested  in  the
       order they occur in the program.

       Finally,  after  all  the input is exhausted, gawk executes the code in
       the END rule(s) (if any).

   Command Line Directories
       According to POSIX, files named on the awk command line  must  be  text
       files.   The  behavior is ``undefined'' if they are not.  Most versions
       of awk treat a directory on the command line as a fatal error.

       Starting with version 4.0 of gawk, a directory on the command line pro-
       duces a warning, but is otherwise skipped.  If either of the --posix or
       --traditional options is given, then gawk reverts to treating  directo-
       ries on the command line as a fatal error.

VARIABLES, RECORDS AND FIELDS
       AWK variables are dynamic; they come into existence when they are first
       used.  Their values are either floating-point numbers  or  strings,  or
       both,  depending  upon how they are used.  AWK also has one dimensional
       arrays; arrays with multiple dimensions may be  simulated.   Gawk  pro-
       vides  true  arrays  of arrays; see Arrays, below.  Several pre-defined
       variables are set as a program runs; these are described as needed  and
       summarized below.

   Records
       Normally, records are separated by newline characters.  You can control
       how records are separated by assigning values to the built-in  variable
       RS.   If  RS is any single character, that character separates records.
       Otherwise, RS is a regular expression.  Text in the input that  matches
       this  regular expression separates the record.  However, in compatibil-
       ity mode, only the first character of its string value is used for sep-
       arating  records.   If  RS  is set to the null string, then records are
       separated by blank lines.  When RS is set to the null string, the  new-
       line  character  always acts as a field separator, in addition to what-
       ever value FS may have.

   Fields
       As each input record is read, gawk splits the record into fields, using
       the value of the FS variable as the field separator.  If FS is a single
       character, fields are separated by that character.  If FS is  the  null
       string,  then each individual character becomes a separate field.  Oth-
       erwise, FS is expected to be a full regular expression.  In the special
       case  that FS is a single space, fields are separated by runs of spaces
       and/or tabs and/or newlines.  (But see the section POSIX COMPATIBILITY,
       below).   NOTE:  The  value  of IGNORECASE (see below) also affects how
       fields are split when FS is a regular expression, and how  records  are
       separated when RS is a regular expression.

       If  the  FIELDWIDTHS  variable is set to a space separated list of num-
       bers, each field is expected to have fixed width, and  gawk  splits  up
       the  record  using  the  specified widths.  The value of FS is ignored.
       Assigning a new value to FS or FPAT overrides the use of FIELDWIDTHS.

       Similarly, if the FPAT variable is set to a string representing a regu-
       lar expression, each field is made up of text that matches that regular
       expression. In this case, the regular expression describes  the  fields
       themselves, instead of the text that separates the fields.  Assigning a
       new value to FS or FIELDWIDTHS overrides the use of FPAT.

       Each field in the input record may be referenced by its  position:  $1,
       $2,  and so on.  $0 is the whole record.  Fields need not be referenced
       by constants:

              n = 5
              print $n

       prints the fifth field in the input record.

       The variable NF is set to the total  number  of  fields  in  the  input
       record.

       References  to non-existent fields (i.e., fields after $NF) produce the
       null-string.  However, assigning to a non-existent field (e.g., $(NF+2)
       = 5) increases the value of NF, creates any intervening fields with the
       null string as their values, and causes the value of $0  to  be  recom-
       puted, with the fields being separated by the value of OFS.  References
       to negative numbered fields  cause  a  fatal  error.   Decrementing  NF
       causes  the  values  of  fields  past the new value to be lost, and the
       value of $0 to be recomputed, with the fields being  separated  by  the
       value of OFS.

       Assigning  a  value  to an existing field causes the whole record to be
       rebuilt when $0 is referenced.  Similarly,  assigning  a  value  to  $0
       causes the record to be resplit, creating new values for the fields.

   Built-in Variables
       Gawk's built-in variables are:

       ARGC        The  number  of  command  line  arguments (does not include
                   options to gawk, or the program source).

       ARGIND      The index in ARGV of the current file being processed.

       ARGV        Array of command line arguments.  The array is indexed from
                   0  to  ARGC - 1.  Dynamically changing the contents of ARGV
                   can control the files used for data.

       BINMODE     On non-POSIX systems, specifies use of  "binary"  mode  for
                   all  file  I/O.  Numeric values of 1, 2, or 3, specify that
                   input files, output  files,  or  all  files,  respectively,
                   should  use binary I/O.  String values of "r", or "w" spec-
                   ify that input files, or output files, respectively, should
                   use binary I/O.  String values of "rw" or "wr" specify that
                   all files should use binary I/O.  Any other string value is
                   treated as "rw", but generates a warning message.

       CONVFMT     The conversion format for numbers, "%.6g", by default.

       ENVIRON     An  array containing the values of the current environment.
                   The array is indexed by  the  environment  variables,  each
                   element  being  the  value  of  that  variable (e.g., ENVI-
                   RON["HOME"] might be "/home/arnold").  Changing this  array
                   does not affect the environment seen by programs which gawk
                   spawns via redirection or the system() function.

       ERRNO       If a system error occurs either  doing  a  redirection  for
                   getline,  during  a  read for getline, or during a close(),
                   then ERRNO will contain a string describing the error.  The
                   value is subject to translation in non-English locales.

       FIELDWIDTHS A  whitespace  separated  list  of field widths.  When set,
                   gawk parses the input into fields of fixed  width,  instead
                   of  using the value of the FS variable as the field separa-
                   tor.  See Fields, above.

       FILENAME    The name of the current input file.  If no files are speci-
                   fied  on  the  command  line, the value of FILENAME is "-".
                   However,  FILENAME  is  undefined  inside  the  BEGIN  rule
                   (unless set by getline).

       FNR         The input record number in the current input file.

       FPAT        A  regular expression describing the contents of the fields
                   in a record.  When set, gawk parses the input into  fields,
                   where  the  fields match the regular expression, instead of
                   using the value of the FS variable as the field  separator.
                   See Fields, above.

       FS          The input field separator, a space by default.  See Fields,
                   above.

       FUNCTAB     An array whose indices and  corresponding  values  are  the
                   names of all the user-defined or extension functions in the
                   program.  NOTE: You may not use the delete  statement  with
                   the FUNCTAB array.

       IGNORECASE  Controls the case-sensitivity of all regular expression and
                   string operations.  If IGNORECASE  has  a  non-zero  value,
                   then  string  comparisons  and  pattern  matching in rules,
                   field splitting with FS and FPAT,  record  separating  with
                   RS, regular expression matching with ~ and !~, and the gen-
                   sub(), gsub(), index(), match(), patsplit(),  split(),  and
                   sub() built-in functions all ignore case when doing regular
                   expression operations.  NOTE:  Array  subscripting  is  not
                   affected.   However, the asort() and asorti() functions are
                   affected.
                   Thus, if IGNORECASE is not equal to zero, /aB/ matches  all
                   of the strings "ab", "aB", "Ab", and "AB".  As with all AWK
                   variables, the initial value of IGNORECASE is zero, so  all
                   regular expression and string operations are normally case-
                   sensitive.

       LINT        Provides dynamic control of the --lint option  from  within
                   an AWK program.  When true, gawk prints lint warnings. When
                   false,  it  does  not.   When  assigned  the  string  value
                   "fatal",  lint  warnings  become fatal errors, exactly like
                   --lint=fatal.  Any other true value just prints warnings.

       NF          The number of fields in the current input record.

       NR          The total number of input records seen so far.

       OFMT        The output format for numbers, "%.6g", by default.

       OFS         The output field separator, a space by default.

       ORS         The output record separator, by default a newline.

       PREC        The working precision of arbitrary precision floating-point
                   numbers, 53 by default.

       PROCINFO    The  elements  of  this array provide access to information
                   about the running AWK program.  On some systems, there  may
                   be  elements  in  the  array, "group1" through "groupn" for
                   some n, which is the number of  supplementary  groups  that
                   the  process  has.   Use  the in operator to test for these
                   elements.  The following  elements  are  guaranteed  to  be
                   available:

                   PROCINFO["egid"]    The  value  of  the  getegid(2)  system
                                       call.

                   PROCINFO["strftime"]
                                       The  default  time  format  string  for
                                       strftime().

                   PROCINFO["euid"]    The  value  of  the  geteuid(2)  system
                                       call.

                   PROCINFO["FS"]      "FS" if field splitting with FS  is  in
                                       effect,  "FPAT" if field splitting with
                                       FPAT is in effect, or "FIELDWIDTHS"  if
                                       field  splitting with FIELDWIDTHS is in
                                       effect.

                   PROCINFO["identifiers"]
                                       A subarray, indexed by the names of all
                                       identifiers used in the text of the AWK
                                       program.  The values indicate what gawk
                                       knows  about  the  identifiers after it
                                       has finished parsing the program;  they
                                       are not updated while the program runs.
                                       For each identifier, the value  of  the
                                       element is one of the following:

                                       "array"
                                              The identifier is an array.

                                       "extension"
                                              The  identifier  is an extension
                                              function loaded via @load.

                                       "scalar"
                                              The identifier is a scalar.

                                       "untyped"
                                              The identifier is untyped (could
                                              be  used  as  a scalar or array,
                                              gawk doesn't know yet).

                                       "user" The identifier is a user-defined
                                              function.

                   PROCINFO["gid"]     The value of the getgid(2) system call.

                   PROCINFO["pgrpid"]  The  process  group  ID  of the current
                                       process.

                   PROCINFO["pid"]     The process ID of the current process.

                   PROCINFO["ppid"]    The parent process ID  of  the  current
                                       process.

                   PROCINFO["uid"]     The value of the getuid(2) system call.

                   PROCINFO["sorted_in"]
                                       If  this  element  exists  in PROCINFO,
                                       then its value controls  the  order  in
                                       which  array  elements are traversed in
                                       for  loops.    Supported   values   are
                                       "@ind_str_asc",         "@ind_num_asc",
                                       "@val_type_asc",        "@val_str_asc",
                                       "@val_num_asc",        "@ind_str_desc",
                                       "@ind_num_desc",      "@val_type_desc",
                                       "@val_str_desc",  "@val_num_desc",  and
                                       "@unsorted".  The value can also be the
                                       name of any comparison function defined
                                       as follows:

                                            function cmp_func(i1, v1, i2, v2)

                                       where i1 and i2 are the indices, and v1
                                       and  v2 are the corresponding values of
                                       the two elements  being  compared.   It
                                       should return a number less than, equal
                                       to, or greater than 0, depending on how
                                       the  elements  of  the  array are to be
                                       ordered.

                   PROCINFO["input", "READ_TIMEOUT"]
                                       The timeout in milliseconds for reading
                                       data from input, where input is a redi-
                                       rection string or a filename.  A  value
                                       of  zero  or  less  than  zero means no
                                       timeout.

                   PROCINFO["mpfr_version"]
                                       The version of  the  GNU  MPFR  library
                                       used  for  arbitrary  precision  number
                                       support in gawk.   This  entry  is  not
                                       present if MPFR support is not compiled
                                       into gawk.

                   PROCINFO["gmp_version"]
                                       The version of the GNU MP library  used
                                       for  arbitrary precision number support
                                       in gawk.  This entry is not present  if
                                       MPFR support is not compiled into gawk.

                   PROCINFO["prec_max"]
                                       The  maximum precision supported by the
                                       GNU MPFR library for  arbitrary  preci-
                                       sion   floating-point   numbers.   This
                                       entry is not present if MPFR support is
                                       not compiled into gawk.

                   PROCINFO["prec_min"]
                                       The  minimum  precision  allowed by the
                                       GNU MPFR library for  arbitrary  preci-
                                       sion   floating-point   numbers.   This
                                       entry is not present if MPFR support is
                                       not compiled into gawk.

                   PROCINFO["api_major"]
                                       The major version of the extension API.
                                       This entry is not  present  if  loading
                                       dynamic extensions is not available.

                   PROCINFO["api_minor"]
                                       The minor version of the extension API.
                                       This entry is not  present  if  loading
                                       dynamic extensions is not available.

                   PROCINFO["version"] the version of gawk.

       ROUNDMODE   The rounding mode to use for arbitrary precision arithmetic
                   on numbers, by default "N" (IEEE-754 roundTiesToEven mode).
                   The accepted values are "N" or "n" for roundTiesToEven, "U"
                   or "u" for roundTowardPositive, "D" or "d" for roundToward-
                   Negative,  "Z" or "z" for roundTowardZero, and if your ver-
                   sion of GNU MPFR  library  supports  it,  "A"  or  "a"  for
                   roundTiesToAway.

       RS          The input record separator, by default a newline.

       RT          The record terminator.  Gawk sets RT to the input text that
                   matched the character or regular  expression  specified  by
                   RS.

       RSTART      The  index  of the first character matched by match(); 0 if
                   no match.  (This implies that character  indices  start  at
                   one.)

       RLENGTH     The  length  of  the  string  matched  by match(); -1 if no
                   match.

       SUBSEP      The character used to separate multiple subscripts in array
                   elements, by default "\034".

       SYMTAB      An  array  whose  indices  are  the  names of all currently
                   defined global variables and arrays in  the  program.   The
                   array  may be used for indirect access to read or write the
                   value of a variable:

                        foo = 5
                        SYMTAB["foo"] = 4
                        print foo    # prints 4

                   The isarray() function may be used to test if an element in
                   SYMTAB  is  an array.  You may not use the delete statement
                   with the SYMTAB array.

       TEXTDOMAIN  The text domain of the AWK program; used to find the local-
                   ized translations for the program's strings.

   Arrays
       Arrays  are  subscripted  with an expression between square brackets ([
       and ]).  If the expression is an expression list (expr, expr ...)  then
       the  array subscript is a string consisting of the concatenation of the
       (string) value of each expression, separated by the value of the SUBSEP
       variable.   This  facility  is  used  to  simulate multiply dimensioned
       arrays.  For example:

              i = "A"; j = "B"; k = "C"
              x[i, j, k] = "hello, world\n"

       assigns the string "hello, world\n" to the element of the array x which
       is indexed by the string "A\034B\034C".  All arrays in AWK are associa-
       tive, i.e., indexed by string values.

       The special operator in may be used to test if an array  has  an  index
       consisting of a particular value:

              if (val in array)
                   print array[val]

       If the array has multiple subscripts, use (i, j) in array.

       The in construct may also be used in a for loop to iterate over all the
       elements of an array.  However, the (i,  j)  in  array  construct  only
       works in tests, not in for loops.

       An  element  may  be  deleted from an array using the delete statement.
       The delete statement may also be used to delete the entire contents  of
       an array, just by specifying the array name without a subscript.

       gawk  supports  true  multidimensional arrays. It does not require that
       such arrays be ``rectangular'' as in C or C++.  For example:

              a[1] = 5
              a[2][1] = 6
              a[2][2] = 7

       NOTE: You may need to tell gawk that an array element is really a  sub-
       array  in  order  to use it where gawk expects an array (such as in the
       second argument to split()).  You can do this by creating an element in
       the subarray and then deleting it with the delete statement.

   Variable Typing And Conversion
       Variables  and  fields  may be (floating point) numbers, or strings, or
       both.  How the value of a variable is interpreted depends upon its con-
       text.  If used in a numeric expression, it will be treated as a number;
       if used as a string it will be treated as a string.

       To force a variable to be treated as a number, add 0 to it; to force it
       to be treated as a string, concatenate it with the null string.

       Uninitialized  variables  have the numeric value 0 and the string value
       "" (the null, or empty, string).

       When a string must be converted to a number, the conversion  is  accom-
       plished  using  strtod(3).   A number is converted to a string by using
       the value of CONVFMT as  a  format  string  for  sprintf(3),  with  the
       numeric  value  of  the variable as the argument.  However, even though
       all numbers in AWK are floating-point, integral values are always  con-
       verted as integers.  Thus, given

              CONVFMT = "%2.2f"
              a = 12
              b = a ""

       the variable b has a string value of "12" and not "12.00".

       NOTE:  When  operating in POSIX mode (such as with the --posix option),
       beware that locale settings may interfere with the way decimal  numbers
       are  treated:  the  decimal separator of the numbers you are feeding to
       gawk must conform to what your locale would expect, be it a  comma  (,)
       or a period (.).

       Gawk  performs  comparisons  as  follows: If two variables are numeric,
       they are compared numerically.  If one value is numeric and  the  other
       has  a  string  value  that is a "numeric string," then comparisons are
       also done numerically.  Otherwise, the numeric value is converted to  a
       string and a string comparison is performed.  Two strings are compared,
       of course, as strings.

       Note that string constants, such as "57", are not numeric strings, they
       are  string  constants.   The  idea of "numeric string" only applies to
       fields, getline input, FILENAME, ARGV elements,  ENVIRON  elements  and
       the  elements  of  an  array  created by split() or patsplit() that are
       numeric strings.  The basic idea is that  user  input,  and  only  user
       input, that looks numeric, should be treated that way.

   Octal and Hexadecimal Constants
       You may use C-style octal and hexadecimal constants in your AWK program
       source code.  For example, the octal value 011 is equal to  decimal  9,
       and the hexadecimal value 0x11 is equal to decimal 17.

   String Constants
       String  constants  in  AWK are sequences of characters enclosed between
       double quotes (like "value").  Within strings, certain escape sequences
       are recognized, as in C.  These are:

       \\   A literal backslash.

       \a   The "alert" character; usually the ASCII BEL character.

       \b   Backspace.

       \f   Form-feed.

       \n   Newline.

       \r   Carriage return.

       \t   Horizontal tab.

       \v   Vertical tab.

       \xhex digits
            The character represented by the string of hexadecimal digits fol-
            lowing the \x.  As in ISO C, all following hexadecimal digits  are
            considered part of the escape sequence.  (This feature should tell
            us something about language design by committee.)  E.g., "\x1B" is
            the ASCII ESC (escape) character.

       \ddd The  character  represented  by the 1-, 2-, or 3-digit sequence of
            octal digits.  E.g., "\033" is the ASCII ESC (escape) character.

       \c   The literal character c.

       The escape sequences may also be used inside constant  regular  expres-
       sions (e.g., /[ \t\f\n\r\v]/ matches whitespace characters).

       In compatibility mode, the characters represented by octal and hexadec-
       imal escape sequences  are  treated  literally  when  used  in  regular
       expression constants.  Thus, /a\52b/ is equivalent to /a\*b/.

PATTERNS AND ACTIONS
       AWK is a line-oriented language.  The pattern comes first, and then the
       action.  Action statements are enclosed in { and }.  Either the pattern
       may be missing, or the action may be missing, but, of course, not both.
       If the pattern is missing, the action  is  executed  for  every  single
       record of input.  A missing action is equivalent to

              { print }

       which prints the entire record.

       Comments  begin with the # character, and continue until the end of the
       line.  Blank lines may be used to  separate  statements.   Normally,  a
       statement  ends with a newline, however, this is not the case for lines
       ending in a comma, {, ?, :, &&, or ||.  Lines ending in do or else also
       have  their  statements  automatically continued on the following line.
       In other cases, a line can be continued by ending it  with  a  "\",  in
       which case the newline is ignored.

       Multiple  statements  may  be put on one line by separating them with a
       ";".  This applies to both the statements within the action part  of  a
       pattern-action  pair (the usual case), and to the pattern-action state-
       ments themselves.

   Patterns
       AWK patterns may be one of the following:

              BEGIN
              END
              BEGINFILE
              ENDFILE
              /regular expression/
              relational expression
              pattern && pattern
              pattern || pattern
              pattern ? pattern : pattern
              (pattern)
              ! pattern
              pattern1, pattern2

       BEGIN and END are two special kinds of patterns which  are  not  tested
       against  the  input.  The action parts of all BEGIN patterns are merged
       as if all the statements had been written in a single BEGIN rule.  They
       are  executed  before any of the input is read.  Similarly, all the END
       rules are merged, and executed when all the input is exhausted (or when
       an  exit statement is executed).  BEGIN and END patterns cannot be com-
       bined with other patterns in pattern expressions.  BEGIN and  END  pat-
       terns cannot have missing action parts.

       BEGINFILE  and ENDFILE are additional special patterns whose bodies are
       executed before reading the first record of  each  command  line  input
       file and after reading the last record of each file.  Inside the BEGIN-
       FILE rule, the value of ERRNO will be the empty string if the file  was
       opened  successfully.   Otherwise,  there is some problem with the file
       and the code should use nextfile to skip it. If that is not done,  gawk
       produces its usual fatal error for files that cannot be opened.

       For /regular expression/ patterns, the associated statement is executed
       for each input record that matches  the  regular  expression.   Regular
       expressions  are  the  same  as  those  in egrep(1), and are summarized
       below.

       A relational expression may use any of the operators defined  below  in
       the  section  on  actions.  These generally test whether certain fields
       match certain regular expressions.

       The &&, ||, and !  operators are logical AND, logical OR,  and  logical
       NOT,  respectively, as in C.  They do short-circuit evaluation, also as
       in C, and are used for combining more  primitive  pattern  expressions.
       As  in  most  languages, parentheses may be used to change the order of
       evaluation.

       The ?: operator is like the same operator in C.  If the  first  pattern
       is true then the pattern used for testing is the second pattern, other-
       wise it is the third.  Only one of the second  and  third  patterns  is
       evaluated.

       The pattern1, pattern2 form of an expression is called a range pattern.
       It matches all input records starting with a record that  matches  pat-
       tern1,  and continuing until a record that matches pattern2, inclusive.
       It does not combine with any other sort of pattern expression.

   Regular Expressions
       Regular expressions are the extended kind found  in  egrep.   They  are
       composed of characters as follows:

       c          Matches the non-metacharacter c.

       \c         Matches the literal character c.

       .          Matches any character including newline.

       ^          Matches the beginning of a string.

       $          Matches the end of a string.

       [abc...]   A character list: matches any of the characters abc....  You
                  may include a range of characters by separating them with  a
                  dash.

       [^abc...]  A  negated  character  list:  matches  any  character except
                  abc....

       r1|r2      Alternation: matches either r1 or r2.

       r1r2       Concatenation: matches r1, and then r2.

       r+         Matches one or more r's.

       r*         Matches zero or more r's.

       r?         Matches zero or one r's.

       (r)        Grouping: matches r.

       r{n}
       r{n,}
       r{n,m}     One or two numbers inside braces denote an interval  expres-
                  sion.   If  there is one number in the braces, the preceding
                  regular expression r is repeated n times.  If there are  two
                  numbers  separated  by  a comma, r is repeated n to m times.
                  If there is one number  followed  by  a  comma,  then  r  is
                  repeated at least n times.

       \y         Matches  the empty string at either the beginning or the end
                  of a word.

       \B         Matches the empty string within a word.

       \<         Matches the empty string at the beginning of a word.

       \>         Matches the empty string at the end of a word.

       \s         Matches any whitespace character.

       \S         Matches any nonwhitespace character.

       \w         Matches any word-constituent character  (letter,  digit,  or
                  underscore).

       \W         Matches any character that is not word-constituent.

       \`         Matches  the  empty  string  at  the  beginning  of a buffer
                  (string).

       \'         Matches the empty string at the end of a buffer.

       The escape sequences that are valid in  string  constants  (see  String
       Constants) are also valid in regular expressions.

       Character  classes  are  a feature introduced in the POSIX standard.  A
       character class is a special notation for describing lists  of  charac-
       ters  that  have  a specific attribute, but where the actual characters
       themselves can vary from country to country and/or from  character  set
       to  character  set.   For  example, the notion of what is an alphabetic
       character differs in the USA and in France.

       A character class is only valid in  a  regular  expression  inside  the
       brackets  of a character list.  Character classes consist of [:, a key-
       word denoting the class, and :].  The character classes defined by  the
       POSIX standard are:

       [:alnum:]  Alphanumeric characters.

       [:alpha:]  Alphabetic characters.

       [:blank:]  Space or tab characters.

       [:cntrl:]  Control characters.

       [:digit:]  Numeric characters.

       [:graph:]  Characters that are both printable and visible.  (A space is
                  printable, but not visible, while an a is both.)

       [:lower:]  Lowercase alphabetic characters.

       [:print:]  Printable characters (characters that are not control  char-
                  acters.)

       [:punct:]  Punctuation characters (characters that are not letter, dig-
                  its, control characters, or space characters).

       [:space:]  Space characters (such as space, tab, and formfeed, to  name
                  a few).

       [:upper:]  Uppercase alphabetic characters.

       [:xdigit:] Characters that are hexadecimal digits.

       For  example,  before the POSIX standard, to match alphanumeric charac-
       ters, you would have had to write /[A-Za-z0-9]/.  If your character set
       had  other  alphabetic characters in it, this would not match them, and
       if your character set collated differently from ASCII, this  might  not
       even match the ASCII alphanumeric characters.  With the POSIX character
       classes, you can write /[[:alnum:]]/, and this matches  the  alphabetic
       and numeric characters in your character set, no matter what it is.

       Two  additional special sequences can appear in character lists.  These
       apply to non-ASCII  character  sets,  which  can  have  single  symbols
       (called  collating  elements)  that  are represented with more than one
       character, as well as several characters that are equivalent  for  col-
       lating,  or  sorting,  purposes.   (E.g.,  in French, a plain "e" and a
       grave-accented "`" are equivalent.)

       Collating Symbols
              A  collating  symbol  is  a  multi-character  collating  element
              enclosed  in [.  and .].  For example, if ch is a collating ele-
              ment, then [[.ch.]]  is a regular expression that  matches  this
              collating  element,  while  [ch]  is  a  regular expression that
              matches either c or h.

       Equivalence Classes
              An equivalence class is a locale-specific name  for  a  list  of
              characters  that are equivalent.  The name is enclosed in [= and
              =].  For example, the name e might be used to represent  all  of
              "e,"  "',"  and "`."  In this case, [[=e=]] is a regular expres-
              sion that matches any of e, ', or `.

       These features are very valuable in non-English speaking locales.   The
       library  functions  that gawk uses for regular expression matching cur-
       rently only recognize POSIX character classes; they  do  not  recognize
       collating symbols or equivalence classes.

       The  \y,  \B, \<, \>, \s, \S, \w, \W, \`, and \' operators are specific
       to gawk; they are extensions based on facilities  in  the  GNU  regular
       expression libraries.

       The various command line options control how gawk interprets characters
       in regular expressions.

       No options
              In the default case, gawk provides all the facilities  of  POSIX
              regular  expressions  and  the  GNU regular expression operators
              described above.

       --posix
              Only POSIX regular expressions are supported, the GNU  operators
              are not special.  (E.g., \w matches a literal w).

       --traditional
              Traditional  UNIX  awk regular expressions are matched.  The GNU
              operators are not special,  and  interval  expressions  are  not
              available.  Characters described by octal and hexadecimal escape
              sequences are treated literally, even if they represent  regular
              expression metacharacters.

       --re-interval
              Allow  interval  expressions  in  regular  expressions,  even if
              --traditional has been provided.

   Actions
       Action statements are enclosed in braces, { and }.   Action  statements
       consist  of  the  usual assignment, conditional, and looping statements
       found in  most  languages.   The  operators,  control  statements,  and
       input/output statements available are patterned after those in C.

   Operators
       The operators in AWK, in order of decreasing precedence, are:

       (...)       Grouping

       $           Field reference.

       ++ --       Increment and decrement, both prefix and postfix.

       ^           Exponentiation  (**  may  also  be  used,  and  **= for the
                   assignment operator).

       + - !       Unary plus, unary minus, and logical negation.

       * / %       Multiplication, division, and modulus.

       + -         Addition and subtraction.

       space       String concatenation.

       |   |&      Piped I/O for getline, print, and printf.

       < > <= >= != ==
                   The regular relational operators.

       ~ !~        Regular expression match, negated match.  NOTE: Do not  use
                   a constant regular expression (/foo/) on the left-hand side
                   of a ~ or !~.  Only use one on the  right-hand  side.   The
                   expression  /foo/  ~  exp  has  the  same meaning as (($0 ~
                   /foo/) ~ exp).  This is usually not what you want.

       in          Array membership.

       &&          Logical AND.

       ||          Logical OR.

       ?:          The C conditional expression.  This has the  form  expr1  ?
                   expr2  : expr3.  If expr1 is true, the value of the expres-
                   sion is expr2, otherwise it is expr3.  Only  one  of  expr2
                   and expr3 is evaluated.

       = += -= *= /= %= ^=
                   Assignment.   Both  absolute  assignment  (var = value) and
                   operator-assignment (the other forms) are supported.

   Control Statements
       The control statements are as follows:

              if (condition) statement [ else statement ]
              while (condition) statement
              do statement while (condition)
              for (expr1; expr2; expr3) statement
              for (var in array) statement
              break
              continue
              delete array[index]
              delete array
              exit [ expression ]
              { statements }
              switch (expression) {
              case value|regex : statement
              ...
              [ default: statement ]
              }

   I/O Statements
       The input/output statements are as follows:

       close(file [, how])   Close file, pipe or co-process.  The optional how
                             should  only  be  used  when closing one end of a
                             two-way pipe to  a  co-process.   It  must  be  a
                             string value, either "to" or "from".

       getline               Set  $0  from next input record; set NF, NR, FNR,
                             RT.

       getline <file         Set $0 from next record of file; set NF, RT.

       getline var           Set var from next input record; set NR, FNR, RT.

       getline var <file     Set var from next record of file, RT.

       command | getline [var]
                             Run command piping the output either into  $0  or
                             var, as above, and RT.

       command |& getline [var]
                             Run  command  as  a  co-process piping the output
                             either into $0 or var, as above, and RT.  Co-pro-
                             cesses  are  a gawk extension.  (command can also
                             be a socket.  See  the  subsection  Special  File
                             Names, below.)

       next                  Stop  processing  the  current input record.  The
                             next input record is read and  processing  starts
                             over  with  the first pattern in the AWK program.
                             Upon reaching the end of  the  input  data,  gawk
                             executes any END rule(s).

       nextfile              Stop processing the current input file.  The next
                             input record read comes from the next input file.
                             FILENAME  and ARGIND are updated, FNR is reset to
                             1, and processing starts over with the first pat-
                             tern  in  the AWK program.  Upon reaching the end
                             of the input data, gawk executes any END rule(s).

       print                 Print the current record.  The output  record  is
                             terminated with the value of ORS.

       print expr-list       Print  expressions.  Each expression is separated
                             by the value of OFS.  The output record is termi-
                             nated with the value of ORS.

       print expr-list >file Print  expressions  on  file.  Each expression is
                             separated by the value of OFS.  The output record
                             is terminated with the value of ORS.

       printf fmt, expr-list Format  and  print.   See  The  printf Statement,
                             below.

       printf fmt, expr-list >file
                             Format and print on file.

       system(cmd-line)      Execute the command cmd-line, and return the exit
                             status.   (This may not be available on non-POSIX
                             systems.)

       fflush([file])        Flush any buffers associated with the open output
                             file  or  pipe file.  If file is missing or if it
                             is the null string, then flush  all  open  output
                             files and pipes.

       Additional output redirections are allowed for print and printf.

       print ... >> file
              Appends output to the file.

       print ... | command
              Writes on a pipe.

       print ... |& command
              Sends  data to a co-process or socket.  (See also the subsection
              Special File Names, below.)

       The getline command returns 1 on success, 0 on end of file, and  -1  on
       an error.  Upon an error, ERRNO is set to a string describing the prob-
       lem.

       NOTE: Failure in opening a two-way socket results in a non-fatal  error
       being returned to the calling function. If using a pipe, co-process, or
       socket to getline, or from print or printf within a loop, you must  use
       close() to create new instances of the command or socket.  AWK does not
       automatically close pipes, sockets, or co-processes  when  they  return
       EOF.

   The printf Statement
       The  AWK  versions  of the printf statement and sprintf() function (see
       below) accept the following conversion specification formats:

       %c      A single character.  If the argument used for %c is numeric, it
               is treated as a character and printed.  Otherwise, the argument
               is assumed to be a string, and the only first character of that
               string is printed.

       %d, %i  A decimal number (the integer part).

       %e, %E  A floating point number of the form [-]d.dddddde[+-]dd.  The %E
               format uses E instead of e.

       %f, %F  A floating point number of the form [-]ddd.dddddd.  If the sys-
               tem  library supports it, %F is available as well. This is like
               %f, but uses capital letters for special  "not  a  number"  and
               "infinity" values. If %F is not available, gawk uses %f.

       %g, %G  Use %e or %f conversion, whichever is shorter, with nonsignifi-
               cant zeros suppressed.  The %G format uses %E instead of %e.

       %o      An unsigned octal number (also an integer).

       %u      An unsigned decimal number (again, an integer).

       %s      A character string.

       %x, %X  An unsigned hexadecimal number (an  integer).   The  %X  format
               uses ABCDEF instead of abcdef.

       %%      A single % character; no argument is converted.

       Optional,  additional  parameters may lie between the % and the control
       letter:

       count$ Use the count'th argument at this point in the formatting.  This
              is  called  a positional specifier and is intended primarily for
              use in translated versions of format strings, not in the  origi-
              nal text of an AWK program.  It is a gawk extension.

       -      The expression should be left-justified within its field.

       space  For  numeric  conversions,  prefix positive values with a space,
              and negative values with a minus sign.

       +      The plus sign, used before the width modifier (see below),  says
              to  always  supply  a  sign for numeric conversions, even if the
              data to be formatted is positive.  The  +  overrides  the  space
              modifier.

       #      Use  an  "alternate  form" for certain control letters.  For %o,
              supply a leading zero.  For %x, and %X, supply a leading  0x  or
              0X  for  a  nonzero  result.   For %e, %E, %f and %F, the result
              always contains a decimal point.  For %g, and %G, trailing zeros
              are not removed from the result.

       0      A  leading 0 (zero) acts as a flag, that indicates output should
              be padded with zeroes instead of spaces.  This applies  only  to
              the  numeric  output formats.  This flag only has an effect when
              the field width is wider than the value to be printed.

       '      A single quote character instructs gawk to insert  the  locale's
              thousands-separator  character into decimal numbers, and to also
              use the locale's decimal point  character  with  floating  point
              formats.   This requires correct locale support in the C library
              and in the definition of the current locale.

       width  The field should be padded to this width.  The field is normally
              padded with spaces.  With the 0 flag, it is padded with zeroes.

       .prec  A number that specifies the precision to use when printing.  For
              the %e, %E, %f and %F, formats, this  specifies  the  number  of
              digits  you want printed to the right of the decimal point.  For
              the %g, and %G formats, it specifies the maximum number of  sig-
              nificant digits.  For the %d, %i, %o, %u, %x, and %X formats, it
              specifies the minimum number of digits to  print.   For  %s,  it
              specifies  the maximum number of characters from the string that
              should be printed.

       The dynamic width and prec capabilities of the ISO C printf()  routines
       are supported.  A * in place of either the width or prec specifications
       causes their values to be taken from the argument  list  to  printf  or
       sprintf().   To use a positional specifier with a dynamic width or pre-
       cision, supply the count$ after the * in the format string.  For  exam-
       ple, "%3$*2$.*1$s".

   Special File Names
       When  doing I/O redirection from either print or printf into a file, or
       via getline from a file,  gawk  recognizes  certain  special  filenames
       internally.   These  filenames  allow  access  to open file descriptors
       inherited from gawk's parent process (usually the shell).   These  file
       names  may  also  be  used on the command line to name data files.  The
       filenames are:

       -           The standard input.

       /dev/stdin  The standard input.

       /dev/stdout The standard output.

       /dev/stderr The standard error output.

       /dev/fd/n   The file associated with the open file descriptor n.

       These are particularly useful for error messages.  For example:

              print "You blew it!" > "/dev/stderr"

       whereas you would otherwise have to use

              print "You blew it!" | "cat 1>&2"

       The following special filenames may be  used  with  the  |&  co-process
       operator for creating TCP/IP network connections:

       /inet/tcp/lport/rhost/rport
       /inet4/tcp/lport/rhost/rport
       /inet6/tcp/lport/rhost/rport
              Files for a TCP/IP connection on local port lport to remote host
              rhost on remote port rport.  Use a port of 0 to have the  system
              pick a port.  Use /inet4 to force an IPv4 connection, and /inet6
              to force an  IPv6  connection.   Plain  /inet  uses  the  system
              default (most likely IPv4).

       /inet/udp/lport/rhost/rport
       /inet4/udp/lport/rhost/rport
       /inet6/udp/lport/rhost/rport
              Similar, but use UDP/IP instead of TCP/IP.

   Numeric Functions
       AWK has the following built-in arithmetic functions:

       atan2(y, x)   Return the arctangent of y/x in radians.

       cos(expr)     Return the cosine of expr, which is in radians.

       exp(expr)     The exponential function.

       int(expr)     Truncate to integer.

       log(expr)     The natural logarithm function.

       rand()        Return a random number N, between 0 and 1, such that 0 <=
                     N < 1.

       sin(expr)     Return the sine of expr, which is in radians.

       sqrt(expr)    Return the square root of expr.

       srand([expr]) Use expr as the new seed for the random number generator.
                     If  no expr is provided, use the time of day.  Return the
                     previous seed for the random number generator.

   String Functions
       Gawk has the following built-in string functions:

       asort(s [, d [, how] ]) Return the number of  elements  in  the  source
                               array  s.   Sort the contents of s using gawk's
                               normal rules for comparing values, and  replace
                               the indices of the sorted values s with sequen-
                               tial integers starting with 1. If the  optional
                               destination  array d is specified, first dupli-
                               cate s into d, and then  sort  d,  leaving  the
                               indices  of  the  source array s unchanged. The
                               optional string how controls the direction  and
                               the  comparison mode.  Valid values for how are
                               any    of     the     strings     valid     for
                               PROCINFO["sorted_in"].  It can also be the name
                               of  a  user-defined  comparison   function   as
                               described in PROCINFO["sorted_in"].

       asorti(s [, d [, how] ])
                               Return  the  number  of  elements in the source
                               array s.  The behavior is the same as  that  of
                               asort(), except that the array indices are used
                               for sorting, not the array values.  When  done,
                               the  array is indexed numerically, and the val-
                               ues are those of  the  original  indices.   The
                               original values are lost; thus provide a second
                               array if you wish  to  preserve  the  original.
                               The  purpose  of the optional string how is the
                               same as described in asort() above.

       gensub(r, s, h [, t])   Search the target string t for matches  of  the
                               regular  expression r.  If h is a string begin-
                               ning with g or G, then replace all matches of r
                               with  s.   Otherwise,  h is a number indicating
                               which match of r to replace.  If t is not  sup-
                               plied,  use $0 instead.  Within the replacement
                               text s, the sequence \n, where  n  is  a  digit
                               from  1  to 9, may be used to indicate just the
                               text that matched the n'th parenthesized subex-
                               pression.    The  sequence  \0  represents  the
                               entire matched text, as does the  character  &.
                               Unlike sub() and gsub(), the modified string is
                               returned as the result of the function, and the
                               original target string is not changed.

       gsub(r, s [, t])        For each substring matching the regular expres-
                               sion r in the string t, substitute  the  string
                               s,  and return the number of substitutions.  If
                               t is  not  supplied,  use  $0.   An  &  in  the
                               replacement text is replaced with the text that
                               was actually matched.  Use \& to get a  literal
                               &.   (This  must  be  typed as "\\&"; see GAWK:
                               Effective AWK Programming for a fuller  discus-
                               sion  of  the  rules for &'s and backslashes in
                               the replacement text of sub(), gsub(), and gen-
                               sub().)

       index(s, t)             Return  the index of the string t in the string
                               s, or 0 if t is  not  present.   (This  implies
                               that  character indices start at one.)  It is a
                               fatal error to use a regexp constant for t.

       length([s])             Return the length  of  the  string  s,  or  the
                               length  of  $0 if s is not supplied.  As a non-
                               standard extension,  with  an  array  argument,
                               length()  returns the number of elements in the
                               array.

       match(s, r [, a])       Return the position  in  s  where  the  regular
                               expression  r occurs, or 0 if r is not present,
                               and set the values of RSTART and RLENGTH.  Note
                               that  the argument order is the same as for the
                               ~ operator: str ~ re.  If array a is  provided,
                               a  is cleared and then elements 1 through n are
                               filled with the portions of s  that  match  the
                               corresponding parenthesized subexpression in r.
                               The 0'th element of a contains the portion of s
                               matched  by  the  entire  regular expression r.
                               Subscripts a[n, "start"],  and  a[n,  "length"]
                               provide  the  starting  index in the string and
                               length  respectively,  of  each  matching  sub-
                               string.

       patsplit(s, a [, r [, seps] ])
                               Split  the  string  s  into the array a and the
                               separators array seps on the regular expression
                               r,  and  return  the number of fields.  Element
                               values are the portions of s  that  matched  r.
                               The  value  of  seps[i]  is  the separator that
                               appeared in front of a[i+1].  If r is  omitted,
                               FPAT  is  used  instead.  The arrays a and seps
                               are cleared first.  Splitting  behaves  identi-
                               cally  to  field splitting with FPAT, described
                               above.

       split(s, a [, r [, seps] ])
                               Split the string s into the  array  a  and  the
                               separators array seps on the regular expression
                               r, and return the number of fields.   If  r  is
                               omitted,  FS is used instead.  The arrays a and
                               seps are cleared first.  seps[i] is  the  field
                               separator matched by r between a[i] and a[i+1].
                               If r is a single space, then leading whitespace
                               in  s goes into the extra array element seps[0]
                               and trailing whitespace  goes  into  the  extra
                               array  element  seps[n],  where n is the return
                               value  of  split(s,  a,  r,  seps).   Splitting
                               behaves   identically   to   field   splitting,
                               described above.

       sprintf(fmt, expr-list) Print expr-list according to  fmt,  and  return
                               the resulting string.

       strtonum(str)           Examine  str, and return its numeric value.  If
                               str begins with a leading 0,  treat  it  as  an
                               octal  number.  If str begins with a leading 0x
                               or 0X, treat it as a hexadecimal number.   Oth-
                               erwise, assume it is a decimal number.

       sub(r, s [, t])         Just  like  gsub(),  but replace only the first
                               matching substring.

       substr(s, i [, n])      Return the at most n-character substring  of  s
                               starting  at  i.  If n is omitted, use the rest
                               of s.

       tolower(str)            Return a copy of the string str, with  all  the
                               uppercase characters in str translated to their
                               corresponding  lowercase  counterparts.    Non-
                               alphabetic characters are left unchanged.

       toupper(str)            Return  a  copy of the string str, with all the
                               lowercase characters in str translated to their
                               corresponding   uppercase  counterparts.   Non-
                               alphabetic characters are left unchanged.

       Gawk is multibyte aware.  This means that index(),  length(),  substr()
       and match() all work in terms of characters, not bytes.

   Time Functions
       Since  one  of the primary uses of AWK programs is processing log files
       that contain time stamp information, gawk provides the following  func-
       tions for obtaining time stamps and formatting them.

       mktime(datespec)
                 Turn  datespec into a time stamp of the same form as returned
                 by systime(), and return  the  result.   The  datespec  is  a
                 string  of  the form YYYY MM DD HH MM SS[ DST].  The contents
                 of the string are six or seven numbers  representing  respec-
                 tively  the  full year including century, the month from 1 to
                 12, the day of the month from 1 to 31, the hour  of  the  day
                 from  0  to 23, the minute from 0 to 59, the second from 0 to
                 60, and an optional daylight  saving  flag.   The  values  of
                 these  numbers  need  not be within the ranges specified; for
                 example, an hour of -1 means 1  hour  before  midnight.   The
                 origin-zero  Gregorian  calendar is assumed, with year 0 pre-
                 ceding year 1 and year -1 preceding  year  0.   The  time  is
                 assumed  to be in the local timezone.  If the daylight saving
                 flag is positive, the time is assumed to be  daylight  saving
                 time;  if  zero, the time is assumed to be standard time; and
                 if negative (the default),  mktime()  attempts  to  determine
                 whether  daylight  saving time is in effect for the specified
                 time.  If datespec does not contain enough elements or if the
                 resulting time is out of range, mktime() returns -1.

       strftime([format [, timestamp[, utc-flag]]])
                 Format  timestamp  according  to the specification in format.
                 If utc-flag is present  and  is  non-zero  or  non-null,  the
                 result is in UTC, otherwise the result is in local time.  The
                 timestamp should be of the same  form  as  returned  by  sys-
                 time().   If timestamp is missing, the current time of day is
                 used.  If format is missing, a default format  equivalent  to
                 the  output of date(1) is used.  The default format is avail-
                 able in PROCINFO["strftime"].  See the specification for  the
                 strftime()  function in ISO C for the format conversions that
                 are guaranteed to be available.

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

   Bit Manipulations Functions
       Gawk  supplies  the following bit manipulation functions.  They work by
       converting double-precision floating point values  to  uintmax_t  inte-
       gers,  doing  the  operation,  and  then  converting the result back to
       floating point.  The functions are:

       and(v1, v2 [, ...]) Return the bitwise AND of the  values  provided  in
                           the argument list.  There must be at least two.

       compl(val)          Return the bitwise complement of val.

       lshift(val, count)  Return  the  value  of  val,  shifted left by count
                           bits.

       or(v1, v2 [, ...])  Return the bitwise OR of the values provided in the
                           argument list.  There must be at least two.

       rshift(val, count)  Return  the  value  of  val, shifted right by count
                           bits.

       xor(v1, v2 [, ...]) Return the bitwise XOR of the  values  provided  in
                           the argument list.  There must be at least two.

   Type Function
       The following function is for use with multidimensional arrays.

       isarray(x)
              Return true if x is an array, false otherwise.

   Internationalization Functions
       The  following  functions  may be used from within your AWK program for
       translating strings at run-time.  For full details, see GAWK: Effective
       AWK Programming.

       bindtextdomain(directory [, domain])
              Specify  the  directory  where gawk looks for the .gmo files, in
              case they will not or cannot be placed in the ``standard'' loca-
              tions  (e.g.,  during  testing).  It returns the directory where
              domain is ``bound.''
              The default domain is the value of TEXTDOMAIN.  If directory  is
              the  null string (""), then bindtextdomain() returns the current
              binding for the given domain.

       dcgettext(string [, domain [, category]])
              Return the translation of  string  in  text  domain  domain  for
              locale  category  category.  The default value for domain is the
              current value of TEXTDOMAIN.  The default value for category  is
              "LC_MESSAGES".
              If you supply a value for category, it must be a string equal to
              one of the known locale categories described in GAWK:  Effective
              AWK  Programming.   You  must  also  supply  a text domain.  Use
              TEXTDOMAIN if you want to use the current domain.

       dcngettext(string1, string2, number [, domain [, category]])
              Return the plural form used for number  of  the  translation  of
              string1  and  string2  in text domain domain for locale category
              category.  The default value for domain is the current value  of
              TEXTDOMAIN.  The default value for category is "LC_MESSAGES".
              If you supply a value for category, it must be a string equal to
              one of the known locale categories described in GAWK:  Effective
              AWK  Programming.   You  must  also  supply  a text domain.  Use
              TEXTDOMAIN if you want to use the current domain.

USER-DEFINED FUNCTIONS
       Functions in AWK are defined as follows:

              function name(parameter list) { statements }

       Functions are executed when they are called from within expressions  in
       either patterns or actions.  Actual parameters supplied in the function
       call are used to instantiate the  formal  parameters  declared  in  the
       function.   Arrays  are passed by reference, other variables are passed
       by value.

       Since functions were not originally part of the AWK language, the  pro-
       vision for local variables is rather clumsy: They are declared as extra
       parameters in the parameter list.  The convention is to separate  local
       variables  from  real parameters by extra spaces in the parameter list.
       For example:

              function  f(p, q,     a, b)   # a and b are local
              {
                   ...
              }

              /abc/     { ... ; f(1, 2) ; ... }

       The left parenthesis in a function call is required to immediately fol-
       low the function name, without any intervening whitespace.  This avoids
       a syntactic ambiguity with the concatenation operator.   This  restric-
       tion does not apply to the built-in functions listed above.

       Functions  may  call each other and may be recursive.  Function parame-
       ters used as local variables are initialized to the null string and the
       number zero upon function invocation.

       Use return expr to return a value from a function.  The return value is
       undefined if no value is provided, or if the function returns by "fall-
       ing off" the end.

       As  a  gawk  extension, functions may be called indirectly. To do this,
       assign the name of the function to be called, as a string, to  a  vari-
       able.  Then use the variable as if it were the name of a function, pre-
       fixed with an @ sign, like so:
              function  myfunc()
              {
                   print "myfunc called"
                   ...
              }

              {    ...
                   the_func = "myfunc"
                   @the_func()    # call through the_func to myfunc
                   ...
              }

       If --lint has been provided, gawk warns about calls to undefined  func-
       tions  at  parse  time,  instead  of at run time.  Calling an undefined
       function at run time is a fatal error.

       The word func may be used in place of function, although this is depre-
       cated.

DYNAMICALLY LOADING NEW FUNCTIONS
       You  can  dynamically  add  new  built-in functions to the running gawk
       interpreter with the @load statement.  The full details are beyond  the
       scope of this manual page; see GAWK: Effective AWK Programming.

SIGNALS
       The  gawk  profiler  accepts  two signals.  SIGUSR1 causes it to dump a
       profile and function call stack to the profile file,  which  is  either
       awkprof.out,  or whatever file was named with the --profile option.  It
       then continues to run.  SIGHUP causes gawk  to  dump  the  profile  and
       function call stack and then exit.

INTERNATIONALIZATION
       String constants are sequences of characters enclosed in double quotes.
       In non-English speaking environments, it is possible to mark strings in
       the AWK program as requiring translation to the local natural language.
       Such strings are marked in the AWK program with  a  leading  underscore
       ("_").  For example,

              gawk 'BEGIN { print "hello, world" }'

       always prints hello, world.  But,

              gawk 'BEGIN { print _"hello, world" }'

       might print bonjour, monde in France.

       There are several steps involved in producing and running a localizable
       AWK program.

       1.  Add a BEGIN action to assign a value to the TEXTDOMAIN variable  to
           set the text domain to a name associated with your program:

                BEGIN { TEXTDOMAIN = "myprog" }

           This  allows  gawk  to find the .gmo file associated with your pro-
           gram.  Without this step, gawk uses the messages text domain, which
           likely does not contain translations for your program.

       2.  Mark  all  strings  that  should  be translated with leading under-
           scores.

       3.  If necessary, use the dcgettext() and/or bindtextdomain() functions
           in your program, as appropriate.

       4.  Run  gawk  --gen-pot  -f myprog.awk > myprog.pot to generate a .pot
           file for your program.

       5.  Provide appropriate translations, and build and install the  corre-
           sponding .gmo files.

       The internationalization features are described in full detail in GAWK:
       Effective AWK Programming.

POSIX COMPATIBILITY
       A primary goal for gawk is compatibility with the  POSIX  standard,  as
       well as with the latest version of Brian Kernighan's awk.  To this end,
       gawk incorporates the following user visible  features  which  are  not
       described  in  the AWK book, but are part of the Brian Kernighan's ver-
       sion of awk, and are in the POSIX standard.

       The book indicates that command line variable assignment  happens  when
       awk  would  otherwise  open  the argument as a file, which is after the
       BEGIN rule is executed.  However, in earlier implementations, when such
       an assignment appeared before any file names, the assignment would hap-
       pen before the BEGIN rule was run.  Applications came to depend on this
       "feature."   When  awk  was  changed to match its documentation, the -v
       option for assigning variables before program execution  was  added  to
       accommodate  applications  that  depended upon the old behavior.  (This
       feature was agreed upon by both  the  Bell  Laboratories  and  the  GNU
       developers.)

       When  processing arguments, gawk uses the special option "--" to signal
       the end of arguments.  In compatibility mode, it warns about but other-
       wise  ignores  undefined  options.  In normal operation, such arguments
       are passed on to the AWK program for it to process.

       The AWK book does not define the return value of  srand().   The  POSIX
       standard has it return the seed it was using, to allow keeping track of
       random number sequences.  Therefore srand() in gawk  also  returns  its
       current seed.

       Other  new features are: The use of multiple -f options (from MKS awk);
       the ENVIRON array; the \a, and \v escape sequences (done originally  in
       gawk  and  fed  back into the Bell Laboratories version); the tolower()
       and toupper() built-in functions (from the Bell Laboratories  version);
       and  the  ISO  C conversion specifications in printf (done first in the
       Bell Laboratories version).

HISTORICAL FEATURES
       There is one feature of historical AWK implementations that  gawk  sup-
       ports:  It  is possible to call the length() built-in function not only
       with no argument, but even without parentheses!  Thus,

              a = length     # Holy Algol 60, Batman!

       is the same as either of

              a = length()
              a = length($0)

       Using this feature is poor practice, and gawk issues  a  warning  about
       its use if --lint is specified on the command line.

GNU EXTENSIONS
       Gawk  has  a  too-large  number  of  extensions to POSIX awk.  They are
       described in this section.  All the extensions described  here  can  be
       disabled by invoking gawk with the --traditional or --posix options.

       The following features of gawk are not available in POSIX awk.

       o No  path  search  is  performed  for  files  named via the -f option.
         Therefore the AWKPATH environment variable is not special.

       o There is no facility for doing file inclusion (gawk's @include mecha-
         nism).

       o There  is no facility for dynamically adding new functions written in
         C (gawk's @load mechanism).

       o The \x escape sequence.  (Disabled with --posix.)

       o The ability to  continue  lines  after  ?   and  :.   (Disabled  with
         --posix.)

       o Octal and hexadecimal constants in AWK programs.

       o The ARGIND, BINMODE, ERRNO, LINT, RT and TEXTDOMAIN variables are not
         special.

       o The IGNORECASE variable and its side-effects are not available.

       o The FIELDWIDTHS variable and fixed-width field splitting.

       o The FPAT variable and field splitting based on field values.

       o The PROCINFO array is not available.

       o The use of RS as a regular expression.

       o The special file names available for I/O redirection are  not  recog-
         nized.

       o The |& operator for creating co-processes.

       o The BEGINFILE and ENDFILE special patterns are not available.

       o The  ability to split out individual characters using the null string
         as the value of FS, and as the third argument to split().

       o An optional fourth argument  to  split()  to  receive  the  separator
         texts.

       o The optional second argument to the close() function.

       o The optional third argument to the match() function.

       o The ability to use positional specifiers with printf and sprintf().

       o The ability to pass an array to length().

       o The and(), asort(), asorti(), bindtextdomain(), compl(), dcgettext(),
         dcngettext(),  gensub(),  lshift(),   mktime(),   or(),   patsplit(),
         rshift(), strftime(), strtonum(), systime() and xor() functions.

       o Localizable strings.

       The  AWK book does not define the return value of the close() function.
       Gawk's close() returns the value from  fclose(3),  or  pclose(3),  when
       closing an output file or pipe, respectively.  It returns the process's
       exit status when closing an input pipe.  The return value is -1 if  the
       named file, pipe or co-process was not opened with a redirection.

       When  gawk is invoked with the --traditional option, if the fs argument
       to the -F option is "t", then FS is set to  the  tab  character.   Note
       that  typing  gawk  -F\t ...  simply causes the shell to quote the "t,"
       and does not pass "\t" to the -F option.  Since this is a  rather  ugly
       special  case, it is not the default behavior.  This behavior also does
       not occur if --posix has been specified.  To really get a tab character
       as  the  field  separator, it is best to use single quotes: gawk -F'\t'
       ....

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       The AWKPATH environment variable can be  used  to  provide  a  list  of
       directories that gawk searches when looking for files named via the -f,
       --file, -i and --include options.  If the  initial  search  fails,  the
       path is searched again after appending .awk to the filename.

       The  AWKLIBPATH  environment  variable can be used to provide a list of
       directories that gawk searches when looking for files named via the  -l
       and --load options.

       The  GAWK_READ_TIMEOUT  environment  variable  can be used to specify a
       timeout in milliseconds for reading input from a terminal, pipe or two-
       way communication including sockets.

       For  connection to a remote host via socket, GAWK_SOCK_RETRIES controls
       the number of retries, and GAWK_MSEC_SLEEP  and  the  interval  between
       retries.   The interval is in milliseconds. On systems that do not sup-
       port usleep(3), the value is rounded up to an integral number  of  sec-
       onds.

       If POSIXLY_CORRECT exists in the environment, then gawk behaves exactly
       as if --posix had been specified on the command line.   If  --lint  has
       been specified, gawk issues a warning message to this effect.

EXIT STATUS
       If  the  exit  statement is used with a value, then gawk exits with the
       numeric value given to it.

       Otherwise, if there were no problems during execution, gawk exits  with
       the value of the C constant EXIT_SUCCESS.  This is usually zero.

       If  an  error  occurs,  gawk  exits  with  the  value of the C constant
       EXIT_FAILURE.  This is usually one.

       If gawk exits because of a fatal error, the exit status is 2.  On  non-
       POSIX systems, this value may be mapped to EXIT_FAILURE.

VERSION INFORMATION
       This man page documents gawk, version 4.1.

AUTHORS
       The original version of UNIX awk was designed and implemented by Alfred
       Aho, Peter Weinberger, and Brian Kernighan of Bell Laboratories.  Brian
       Kernighan continues to maintain and enhance it.

       Paul  Rubin  and  Jay  Fenlason, of the Free Software Foundation, wrote
       gawk, to be compatible with the original version of awk distributed  in
       Seventh  Edition  UNIX.   John Woods contributed a number of bug fixes.
       David Trueman, with contributions from Arnold Robbins, made  gawk  com-
       patible  with  the new version of UNIX awk.  Arnold Robbins is the cur-
       rent maintainer.

       See GAWK: Effective AWK Programming for a full list of the contributors
       to gawk and its documentation.

       See the README file in the gawk distribution for up-to-date information
       about maintainers and which ports are currently supported.

BUG REPORTS
       If you find a  bug  in  gawk,  please  send  electronic  mail  to  bug-
       gawk@gnu.org.   Please  include your operating system and its revision,
       the version of gawk (from gawk --version), which C compiler you used to
       compile  it,  and a test program and data that are as small as possible
       for reproducing the problem.

       Before sending a bug report, please do the  following  things.   First,
       verify  that  you  have the latest version of gawk.  Many bugs (usually
       subtle ones) are fixed at each release, and if yours is  out  of  date,
       the  problem  may already have been solved.  Second, please see if set-
       ting the environment variable  LC_ALL  to  LC_ALL=C  causes  things  to
       behave  as  you  expect. If so, it's a locale issue, and may or may not
       really be a bug.  Finally, please read this man page and the  reference
       manual  carefully  to  be  sure that what you think is a bug really is,
       instead of just a quirk in the language.

       Whatever you do, do NOT post a bug report in comp.lang.awk.  While  the
       gawk  developers  occasionally read this newsgroup, posting bug reports
       there is an unreliable way to report bugs.   Instead,  please  use  the
       electronic mail addresses given above.  Really.

       If you're using a GNU/Linux or BSD-based system, you may wish to submit
       a bug report to the vendor of  your  distribution.   That's  fine,  but
       please send a copy to the official email address as well, since there's
       no guarantee that the bug report will be forwarded to  the  gawk  main-
       tainer.

BUGS
       The  -F option is not necessary given the command line variable assign-
       ment feature; it remains only for backwards compatibility.

       Syntactically invalid single character programs tend  to  overflow  the
       parse  stack, generating a rather unhelpful message.  Such programs are
       surprisingly difficult to diagnose in the completely general case,  and
       the effort to do so really is not worth it.

SEE ALSO
       egrep(1),   sed(1),   getpid(2),   getppid(2),  getpgrp(2),  getuid(2),
       geteuid(2), getgid(2), getegid(2), getgroups(2), usleep(3)

       The AWK Programming Language, Alfred V. Aho, Brian W. Kernighan,  Peter
       J. Weinberger, Addison-Wesley, 1988.  ISBN 0-201-07981-X.

       GAWK:  Effective  AWK  Programming,  Edition 4.1, shipped with the gawk
       source.  The current version of this document is  available  online  at
       http://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual.

EXAMPLES
       Print and sort the login names of all users:

            BEGIN     { FS = ":" }
                 { print $1 | "sort" }

       Count lines in a file:

                 { nlines++ }
            END  { print nlines }

       Precede each line by its number in the file:

            { print FNR, $0 }

       Concatenate and line number (a variation on a theme):

            { print NR, $0 }

       Run an external command for particular lines of data:

            tail -f access_log |
            awk '/myhome.html/ { system("nmap " $1 ">> logdir/myhome.html") }'

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
       Brian  Kernighan provided valuable assistance during testing and debug-
       ging.  We thank him.

COPYING PERMISSIONS
       Copyright (C) 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994,  1995,  1996,  1997,  1998,
       1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013,
       2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

       Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim  copies  of  this
       manual  page  provided  the copyright notice and this permission notice
       are preserved on all copies.

       Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of  this
       manual  page  under  the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that
       the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms  of  a
       permission notice identical to this one.

       Permission  is granted to copy and distribute translations of this man-
       ual page into another language, under the above conditions for modified
       versions,  except that this permission notice may be stated in a trans-
       lation approved by the Foundation.



Free Software Foundation          Mar 08 2014                          GAWK(1)
