gawkinet: Using Networking

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1 2 Networking With 'gawk'
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1 The 'awk' programming language was originally developed as a
1 pattern-matching language for writing short programs to perform data
1 manipulation tasks.  'awk''s strength is the manipulation of textual
1 data that is stored in files.  It was never meant to be used for
1 networking purposes.  To exploit its features in a networking context,
1 it's necessary to use an access mode for network connections that
1 resembles the access of files as closely as possible.
1 
1    'awk' is also meant to be a prototyping language.  It is used to
1 demonstrate feasibility and to play with features and user interfaces.
1 This can be done with file-like handling of network connections.  'gawk'
1 trades the lack of many of the advanced features of the TCP/IP family of
1 protocols for the convenience of simple connection handling.  The
1 advanced features are available when programming in C or Perl.  In fact,
1 the network programming in this major node is very similar to what is
1 described in books such as 'Internet Programming with Python', 'Advanced
1 Perl Programming', or 'Web Client Programming with Perl'.
1 
1    However, you can do the programming here without first having to
1 learn object-oriented ideology; underlying languages such as Tcl/Tk,
1 Perl, Python; or all of the libraries necessary to extend these
1 languages before they are ready for the Internet.
1 
1    This major node demonstrates how to use the TCP protocol.  The UDP
1 protocol is much less important for most users.
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