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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