An input line is normally made up of fields separated by white space, or by regular expression FS. The fields are denoted $1, $2, ..., while $0 refers to the entire line. If FS is null, the input line is split into one field per character.

To compensate for inadequate implementation of storage management, the -mr option can be used to set the maximum size of the input record, and the -mf option to set the maximum number of fields.

The -safe option causes awk to run in ``safe mode,'' in which it is not allowed to run shell commands or open files and the environment is not made available in the ENVIRON variable.

A pattern-action statement has the form

pattern { action }

A missing { action } means print the line; a missing pattern always matches. Pattern-action statements are separated by newlines or semicolons.

An action is a sequence of statements. A statement can be one of the following:

Statements are terminated by semicolons, newlines or right braces. An empty expression-list stands for $0. String constants are quoted " ", with the usual C escapes recognized within. Expressions take on string or numeric values as appropriate, and are built using the operators + - * / % ^ (exponentiation), and concatenation (indicated by white space). The operators ! ++ -- += -= *= /= %= ^= > >= < <= == != ?: are also available in expressions. Variables may be scalars, array elements (denoted x[i]) or fields. Variables are initialized to the null string. Array subscripts may be any string, not necessarily numeric; this allows for a form of associative memory. Multiple subscripts such as [i,j,k] are permitted; the constituents are concatenated, separated by the value of SUBSEP.

The print statement prints its arguments on the standard output (or on a file if >file or >>file is present or on a pipe if |cmd is present), separated by the current output field separator, and terminated by the output record separator. file and cmd may be literal names or parenthesized expressions; identical string values in different statements denote the same open file. The printf statement formats its expression list according to the format (see fprintf(2)). The built-in function close(expr) closes the file or pipe expr. The built-in function fflush(expr) flushes any buffered output for the file or pipe expr. If expr is omitted or is a null string, all open files are flushed.

The mathematical functions exp, log, sqrt, sin, cos, and atan2 are built in. Other built-in functions:

length

If its argument is a string, the string's length is returned. If its argument is an array, the number of subscripts in the array is returned. If no argument, the length of $0 is returned.

rand

random number on (0,1)

srand

sets seed for rand and returns the previous seed.

int

truncates to an integer value

utf

converts its numerical argument, a character number, to a UTF string

substr(s, m, n)

the n-character substring of s that begins at position m counted from 1. If n is omitted, it is taken to be the length of s from m.

index(s, t)

the position in s where the string t occurs, or 0 if it does not.

match(s, r)

the position in s where the regular expression r occurs, or 0 if it does not. The variables RSTART and RLENGTH are set to the position and length of the matched string.

split(s, a, fs)

splits the string s into array elements a[1], a[2], ..., a[n], and returns n. The separation is done with the regular expression fs or with the field separator FS if fs is not given. An empty string as field separator splits the string into one array element per character.

sub(r, t, s)

substitutes t for the first occurrence of the regular expression r in the string s. If s is not given, $0 is used. A & character in t will be replaced by the sub-string of s matched by r; it may be escaped with \ to substitute a literal &.

gsub

same as sub except that all occurrences of the regular expression are replaced; sub and gsub return the number of replacements.

sprintf(fmt, expr, ...)

the string resulting from formatting expr ... according to the printf format fmt

system(cmd)

executes cmd and returns its exit status

tolower(str)

returns a copy of str with all upper-case characters translated to their corresponding lower-case equivalents.

toupper(str)

returns a copy of str with all lower-case characters translated to their corresponding upper-case equivalents.

The ``function'' getline sets $0 to the next input record from the current input file; getline <file sets $0 to the next record from file. getline x sets variable x instead. Finally, cmd | getline pipes the output of cmd into getline; each call of getline returns the next line of output from cmd. In all cases, getline returns 1 for a successful input, 0 for end of file, and -1 for an error.

Patterns are arbitrary Boolean combinations (with ! || &&) of regular expressions and relational expressions. Regular expressions are as in regexp(6). Isolated regular expressions in a pattern apply to the entire line. Regular expressions may also occur in relational expressions, using the operators ~ and !~. /re/ is a constant regular expression; any string (constant or variable) may be used as a regular expression, except in the position of an isolated regular expression in a pattern.

A pattern may consist of two patterns separated by a comma; in this case, the action is performed for all lines from an occurrence of the first pattern though an occurrence of the second.

A relational expression is one of the following:

expression matchop regular-expression
expression relop expression
expression in array-name
(expr,expr,...) in array-name

where a relop is any of the six relational operators in C, and a matchop is either ~ (matches) or !~ (does not match). A conditional is an arithmetic expression, a relational expression, or a Boolean combination of these.

The special patterns BEGIN and END may be used to capture control before the first input line is read and after the last. BEGIN and END do not combine with other patterns.

Variable names with special meanings:

CONVFMT

conversion format used when converting numbers (default %.6g)

FS

regular expression used to separate fields; also settable by option -Ffs.

NF

number of fields in the current record

NR

ordinal number of the current record

FNR

ordinal number of the current record in the current file

FILENAME

the name of the current input file

RS

input record separator (default newline)

OFS

output field separator (default blank)

ORS

output record separator (default newline)

OFMT

output format for numbers (default %.6g)

SUBSEP

separates multiple subscripts (default 034)

ARGC

argument count, assignable

ARGV

argument array, assignable; non-null members are taken as file names

ENVIRON

array of environment variables; subscripts are names.

Functions may be defined (at the position of a pattern-action statement) thus:

function foo(a, b, c) { ...; return x }

Parameters are passed by value if scalar and by reference if array name; functions may be called recursively. Parameters are local to the function; all other variables are global. Thus local variables may be created by providing excess parameters in the function definition.

length($0) > 72 Print lines longer than 72 characters.

{ print $2, $1 } Print first two fields in opposite order.

Same, with input fields separated by comma and/or blanks and tabs.

Add up first column, print sum and average.

/start/, /stop/ Print all lines between start/stop pairs.