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I've just started learning awk and I'm a little confused about all those versions around. Is there any "version" which is found on all Unix-like systems? Like, you know, plain vi? Does the standard awk support the -F option?
awk, mawk, nawk, gawk... WHAT?
Answers
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awk - the most common and will be found on most Unix-like systems, oldest version and inferior to newer ones.
mawk - fast AWK implementation which it's code base is based on a byte-code interpreter.
nawk - while the AWK language was being developed the authors released a new version (hence the n - new awk) to avoid confusion. Think of it like the Python 3.0 of AWK.
gawk - abbreviated from GNU awk. The only version in which the developers attempted to add i18n support. Allowed users to write their own C shared libraries to extend it with their own "plug-ins". This version is the standard implementation for Linux, original AWK was written for Unix v7.
There are other versions like jawk (java implementation), bwk (Brian W. Kernighan's implementation) and so on.
John T
Posted 2009-11-27T09:49:47.423
Reputation: 149 037
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You can just use awk. It is defined by POSIX and therefore has to exist on all POSIX-conformant systems.
The -F parameter is mandated by that as well.
Joey
Posted 2009-11-27T09:49:47.423
Reputation: 36 381
1@dmckee, you can use gawk --posix to make gawk work according to POSIX standard. It also checks your script follows the standard. You could use awk --posix '' 2>/dev/null in Ubuntu no matter, if gawk, mawk or original-awk is used as awk, but the posix-option is only recognized by gawk. --posix has to be the last option for original-awk. You could use awk -W posix '' with gawk and mawk. – jarno – 2015-09-01T09:34:49.170
1@dmckee, oh mawk --posix '' fails, if you use mawk 1.3.3, but succeeds with error message, if you use mawk 1.3.4 – jarno – 2015-09-02T09:46:42.690
1...but take care to check with the standard to tell what you can use to insure compatibility with other version. Don't, for instance, use gensub(), test with awk --> gawk, and think you're good to go... – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten – 2009-11-28T02:47:58.707
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awk will be on just about every *NIX based system, but the exact specifics of what it supports will shift slightly as it's entirely possible it will simply be symlinked to a different version akin to how /bin/sh is often linked to a specific shell, often bash or one of its derivatives. (For the record, I also know alot of machines where vi is symlinked to vim as well.)
Matthew Scharley
Posted 2009-11-27T09:49:47.423
Reputation: 4 083
Needn't always be symlinked; sometimes it's hard-linked. – dubiousjim – 2012-04-19T10:47:23.600
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The Wikipedia AWK page is a good starter reference for beginning to understand AWK.
The Field Separator option '-F' is supported in all variants of AWK -- afaik.
nik
Posted 2009-11-27T09:49:47.423
Reputation: 50 788
I know this is late @WYSIWYG but mawk does have a few quirks, mainly with regexp's though you are best to install gawk if you want a portable implementation IMO. – Jordon Bedwell – 2015-08-11T09:50:54.240
2@JordonBedwell Yep.. There are: regex repetitions are not possible in mawk. It also doesn't support multidimensional arrays. – WYSIWYG – 2015-08-11T10:25:04.593
1@dubiousjim Ubuntu has original-awk in the universe repository. – jarno – 2015-09-01T09:19:20.353
@WYSIWYG Also some functions like
strtonumare missing. – phk – 2017-01-01T21:01:59.1203The original awk isn't present on any Unix-like system I have available. Often,
/usr/bin/awkwill run nawk, or gawk, or BusyBox awk (similar in behavior to gawk). – dubiousjim – 2012-04-19T10:46:11.87010As of late 2012, Ubuntu/Debian systems install mawk by default. The command line
file /etc/alternatives/awkreturnssymbolic link to /usr/bin/mawk– Mike Sherrill 'Cat Recall' – 2012-12-05T22:28:58.427does MAWK have all GAWK functionalities such as true multi-dimensional arrays ? – WYSIWYG – 2013-07-09T05:35:46.033