From funtoo.org
In this series of articles, I’m going to turn you into a proficient awk coder. I’ll admit, awk doesn’t have a very pretty or particularly “hip” name, and the GNU version of awk, called gawk, sounds downright weird. Those unfamiliar with the language may hear “awk” and think of a mess of code so backwards and antiquated that it’s capable of driving even the most knowledgeable UNIX guru to the brink of insanity (causing him to repeatedly yelp “kill -9!” as he runs for coffee machine).
Sure, awk doesn’t have a great name. But it is a great language. Awk is geared toward text processing and report generation, yet features many well-designed features that allow for serious programming. And, unlike some languages, awk’s syntax is familiar, and borrows some of the best parts of languages like C, python, and bash (although, technically, awk was created before both python and bash). Awk is one of those languages that, once learned, will become a key part of your strategic coding arsenal.
