gawk: Scalar Constants

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1 6.1.1.1 Numeric and String Constants
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1 A "numeric constant" stands for a number.  This number can be an
1 integer, a decimal fraction, or a number in scientific (exponential)
1 notation.(1)  Here are some examples of numeric constants that all have
1 the same value:
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1      105
1      1.05e+2
1      1050e-1
1 
1    A "string constant" consists of a sequence of characters enclosed in
1 double quotation marks.  For example:
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1      "parrot"
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1 represents the string whose contents are 'parrot'.  Strings in 'gawk'
1 can be of any length, and they can contain any of the possible eight-bit
1 ASCII characters, including ASCII NUL (character code zero).  Other
1 'awk' implementations may have difficulty with some character codes.
1 
1    ---------- Footnotes ----------
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1    (1) The internal representation of all numbers, including integers,
1 uses double-precision floating-point numbers.  On most modern systems,
11 these are in IEEE 754 standard format.  ⇒Arbitrary Precision
 Arithmetic, for much more information.
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