gawk: Invoking Summary
1
1 2.11 Summary
1 ============
1
1 * Use either 'awk 'PROGRAM' FILES' or 'awk -f PROGRAM-FILE FILES' to
1 run 'awk'.
1
1 * The three standard options for all versions of 'awk' are '-f',
1 '-F', and '-v'. 'gawk' supplies these and many others, as well as
1 corresponding GNU-style long options.
1
1 * Nonoption command-line arguments are usually treated as file names,
1 unless they have the form 'VAR=VALUE', in which case they are taken
1 as variable assignments to be performed at that point in processing
1 the input.
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1 * All nonoption command-line arguments, excluding the program text,
1 are placed in the 'ARGV' array. Adjusting 'ARGC' and 'ARGV'
1 affects how 'awk' processes input.
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1 * You can use a single minus sign ('-') to refer to standard input on
1 the command line. 'gawk' also lets you use the special file name
1 '/dev/stdin'.
1
1 * 'gawk' pays attention to a number of environment variables.
1 'AWKPATH', 'AWKLIBPATH', and 'POSIXLY_CORRECT' are the most
1 important ones.
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1 * 'gawk''s exit status conveys information to the program that
1 invoked it. Use the 'exit' statement from within an 'awk' program
1 to set the exit status.
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1 * 'gawk' allows you to include other 'awk' source files into your
1 program using the '@include' statement and/or the '-i' and '-f'
1 command-line options.
1
1 * 'gawk' allows you to load additional functions written in C or C++
1 using the '@load' statement and/or the '-l' option. (This advanced
1 feature is described later, in ⇒Dynamic Extensions.)
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