String constants in AWK are sequences of characters enclosed between double quotes ("). 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 following the \x. As in ANSI 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 expressions (e.g., /[ \t\f\n\r\v]/ matches whitespace characters).

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

{ 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 ``,'', {, ?, :, &&, 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 will be 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 statements themselves.

BEGIN
END
/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 block. They are executed before any of the input is read. Similarly, all the END blocks are merged, and executed when all the input is exhausted (or when an exit statement is executed). BEGIN and END patterns cannot be combined with other patterns in pattern expressions. BEGIN and END patterns cannot have missing action parts.

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, otherwise 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 pattern1, and continuing until a record that matches pattern2, inclusive. It does not combine with any other sort of pattern expression.

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...]

character list, matches any of the characters abc....

[^abc...]

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 expression. 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.

Interval expressions are only available if either --posix or --re-interval is specified on the command line.

\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.

\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 below) are also valid in regular expressions.

Character classes are a new feature introduced in the POSIX standard. A character class is a special notation for describing lists of characters 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 keyword 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:]

Lower-case alphabetic characters.

[:print:]

Printable characters (characters that are not control characters.)

[:punct:]

Punctuation characters (characters that are not letter, digits, control characters, or space characters).

[:space:]

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

[:upper:]

Upper-case alphabetic characters.

[:xdigit:]

Characters that are hexadecimal digits.

For example, before the POSIX standard, to match alphanumeric characters, 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.

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 collating, or sorting, purposes. (E.g., in French, a plain ``e'' and a grave-accented e` are equivalent.)

Collating Symbols

A collating symbol is a multi-character collating element enclosed in [. and .]. For example, if ch is a collating element, 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,'' ``e','' and ``e`.'' In this case, [[=e=]] is a regular expression that matches any of e, e', or e`.

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

The \y, \B, \<, \>, \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 provide all the facilities of POSIX regular expressions and the GNU regular expression operators described above. However, interval expressions are not supported.

--posix

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

--traditional

Traditional Unix awk regular expressions are matched. The GNU operators are not special, interval expressions are not available, and neither are the POSIX character classes ([[:alnum:]] and so on). 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.

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.

< >

<= >=

!= == 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 was intended.

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 expression 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.

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 }

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.

getline <file

Set $0 from next record of file; set NF.

getline var

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

getline var <file

Set var from next record of file.

command | getline [var]

Run command piping the output either into $0 or var, as above.

command |& getline [var]

Run command as a co-process piping the output either into $0 or var, as above. Co-processes are a gawk extension.

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. If the end of the input data is reached, the END block(s), if any, are executed.

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 pattern in the AWK program. If the end of the input data is reached, the END block(s), if any, are executed.

print

Prints the current record. The output record is terminated with the value of the ORS variable.

print expr-list

Prints expressions. Each expression is separated by the value of the OFS variable. The output record is terminated with the value of the ORS variable.

print expr-list >file

Prints expressions on file. Each expression is separated by the value of the OFS variable. The output record is terminated with the value of the ORS variable.

printf fmt, expr-list

Format and print.

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, then standard output is flushed. If file is the null string, then all open output files and pipes have their buffers flushed.

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.

The getline command returns 0 on end of file and -1 on an error. Upon an error, ERRNO contains a string describing the problem.

NOTE: If using a pipe or co-process to getline, or from print or printf within a loop, you must use close() to create new instances of the command. AWK does not automatically close pipes 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

An ASCII 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

A floating point number of the form [-]ddd.dddddd.

%g , %G

Use %e or %f conversion, whichever is shorter, with nonsignificant 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.

NOTE: When using the integer format-control letters for values that are outside the range of a C long integer, gawk switches to the %g format specifier. If --lint is provided on the command line gawk warns about this. Other versions of awk may print invalid values or do something else entirely.

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 original 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, 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 even to non-numeric output formats. This flag only has an effect when the field width is wider than the value to be printed.

width

The field should be padded to this width. The field is normally padded with spaces. If the 0 flag has been used, it is padded with zeroes.

.prec

A number that specifies the precision to use when printing. For the %e, %E, 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 significant digits. For the %d, %o, %i, %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 ANSI 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 precision, supply the count$ after the * in the format string. For example, "%3$*2$.*1$s".

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:

/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

File for 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.

/inet/udp/lport/rhost/rport

Similar, but use UDP/IP instead of TCP/IP.

/inet/raw/lport/rhost/rport

Reserved for future use.

Other special filenames provide access to information about the running gawk process. These filenames are now obsolete. Use the PROCINFO array to obtain the information they provide. The filenames are:

/dev/pid

Reading this file returns the process ID of the current process, in decimal, terminated with a newline.

/dev/ppid

Reading this file returns the parent process ID of the current process, in decimal, terminated with a newline.

/dev/pgrpid

Reading this file returns the process group ID of the current process, in decimal, terminated with a newline.

/dev/user

Reading this file returns a single record terminated with a newline. The fields are separated with spaces. $1 is the value of the (2) system call, $2 is the value of the (2) system call, $3 is the value of the (2) system call, and $4 is the value of the (2) system call. If there are any additional fields, they are the group IDs returned by (2). Multiple groups may not be supported on all systems.