gawk: Library Functions Summary

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1 10.8 Summary
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1    * Reading programs is an excellent way to learn Good Programming.
1      The functions and programs provided in this major node and the next
1      are intended to serve that purpose.
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1    * When writing general-purpose library functions, put some thought
1      into how to name any global variables so that they won't conflict
1      with variables from a user's program.
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1    * The functions presented here fit into the following categories:
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1      General problems
1           Number-to-string conversion, testing assertions, rounding,
1           random number generation, converting characters to numbers,
1           joining strings, getting easily usable time-of-day
1           information, and reading a whole file in one shot
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1      Managing data files
1           Noting data file boundaries, rereading the current file,
1           checking for readable files, checking for zero-length files,
1           and treating assignments as file names
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1      Processing command-line options
1           An 'awk' version of the standard C 'getopt()' function
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1      Reading the user and group databases
1           Two sets of routines that parallel the C library versions
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1      Traversing arrays of arrays
1           Two functions that traverse an array of arrays to any depth
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