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GNU Info (gawk.info)One-shotOne-Shot Throw-Away `awk' Programs ---------------------------------- Once you are familiar with `awk', you will often type in simple programs the moment you want to use them. Then you can write the program as the first argument of the `awk' command, like this: awk 'PROGRAM' INPUT-FILE1 INPUT-FILE2 ... where PROGRAM consists of a series of PATTERNS and ACTIONS, as described earlier. This command format instructs the "shell", or command interpreter, to start `awk' and use the PROGRAM to process records in the input file(s). There are single quotes around PROGRAM so the shell won't interpret any `awk' characters as special shell characters. The quotes also cause the shell to treat all of PROGRAM as a single argument for `awk', and allow PROGRAM to be more than one line long. This format is also useful for running short or medium-sized `awk' programs from shell scripts, because it avoids the need for a separate file for the `awk' program. A self-contained shell script is more reliable because there are no other files to misplace. Note: Some Simple Examples, presents several short, self-contained programs. automatically generated by info2www version 1.2.2.9 |