Book Excerpts:

If you are like many computer users, you would frequently like to make changes in various text files wherever certain patterns appear, or extract data from parts of certain lines while discarding the rest. To write a program to do this in a language such as C or Pascal is a time-consuming inconvenience that may take many lines of code. The job may be easier with awk.

The awk utility interprets a special-purpose programming language that makes it possible to handle simple data-reformatting jobs with just a few lines of code.

This book teaches you about the awk language and how you can use it effectively. You should already be familiar with basic system commands, such as cat and ls, and basic shell facilities, such as Input/Output (I/O) redirection and pipes. This book also serves as the user's guide for GNU awk (known as gawk), explaining the extensions and features that are unique to gawk. It includes a wealth of sample programs and library functions that demonstrate good awk programming style.

Reviews:

Amazon.com

:) "... I have to say that "Effective Awk Programming" is probably the best Awk tutorial on the market today."

UNIX Review - Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier

:) "It's what you need to have on hand when working with awk."

ACCU Book Review - Peter S Tillier

:) "The book is very well written and full of useful information for the awk/gawk programmer and so I rate it very highly."

Michael Brennan, author of mawk

:) "For the novice, this book is a clear introduction to AWK programming. For the expert, this book is the definitive reference to POSIX standard AWK."