GNU Info

(gawk.info)Manual History

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The GNU Project and This Book
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     Software is like sex: it's better when it's free.
     Linus Torvalds

   The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a non-profit organization
dedicated to the production and distribution of freely distributable
software.  It was founded by Richard M. Stallman, the author of the
original Emacs editor.  GNU Emacs is the most widely used version of
Emacs today.

   The GNU(1) Project is an ongoing effort on the part of the Free
Software Foundation to create a complete, freely distributable,
POSIX-compliant computing environment.  The FSF uses the "GNU General
Public License" (GPL) to ensure that their software's source code is
always available to the end user. A copy of the GPL is included for
your reference (Note: GNU General Public License.).  The GPL
applies to the C language source code for `gawk'.  To find out more
about the FSF and the GNU Project online, see the GNU Project's home
page (http://www.gnu.org).  This Info file may also be read from their
web site (http://www.gnu.org/manual/gawk/).

   A shell, an editor (Emacs), highly portable optimizing C, C++, and
Objective-C compilers, a symbolic debugger and dozens of large and
small utilities (such as `gawk'), have all been completed and are
freely available.  The GNU operating system kernel (the HURD), has been
released but is still in an early stage of development.

   Until the GNU operating system is more fully developed, you should
consider using GNU/Linux, a freely distributable, Unix-like operating
system for Intel 80386, DEC Alpha, Sun SPARC, IBM S/390, and other
systems.(2) There are many books on GNU/Linux. One that is freely
available is `Linux Installation and Getting Started', by Matt Welsh.
Many GNU/Linux distributions are often available in computer stores or
bundled on CD-ROMs with books about Linux.  (There are three other
freely available, Unix-like operating systems for 80386 and other
systems: NetBSD, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. All are based on the 4.4-Lite
Berkeley Software Distribution, and they use recent versions of `gawk'
for their versions of `awk'.)

   The Info file itself has gone through a number of previous editions.
Paul Rubin wrote the very first draft of `The GAWK Manual'; it was
around 40 pages in size.  Diane Close and Richard Stallman improved it,
yielding a version that was around 90 pages long and barely described
the original, "old" version of `awk'.

   I started working with that version in the fall of 1988.  As work on
it progressed, the FSF published several preliminary versions (numbered
0.X).  In 1996, Edition 1.0 was released with `gawk' 3.0.0.  The FSF
published the first two editions under the title `The GNU Awk User's
Guide'.

   This edition maintains the basic structure of Edition 1.0, but with
significant additional material, reflecting the host of new features in
`gawk' version 3.1.  Of particular note is Note: Sorting Array Values
and Indices with `gawk', as well as Note: Using `gawk''s
Bit Manipulation Functions, Note:
Internationalization with `gawk', and also Note:
Advanced Features of `gawk', and Note: Adding New
Built-in Functions to `gawk'.

   `GAWK: Effective AWK Programming' will undoubtedly continue to
evolve.  An electronic version comes with the `gawk' distribution from
the FSF.  If you find an error in this Info file, please report it!
Note: Reporting Problems and Bugs, for information on submitting
problem reports electronically, or write to me in care of the publisher.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) GNU stands for "GNU's not Unix."

   (2) The terminology "GNU/Linux" is explained in the Note: Glossary.