(gawk.info.gz) When

 
 1.8 When to Use `awk'
 =====================
 
 Now that you've seen some of what `awk' can do, you might wonder how
 `awk' could be useful for you.  By using utility programs, advanced
 patterns, field separators, arithmetic statements, and other selection
 criteria, you can produce much more complex output.  The `awk' language
 is very useful for producing reports from large amounts of raw data,
 such as summarizing information from the output of other utility
 programs like `ls'.  ( More Complex.)
 
    Programs written with `awk' are usually much smaller than they would
 be in other languages.  This makes `awk' programs easy to compose and
 use.  Often, `awk' programs can be quickly composed at your keyboard,
 used once, and thrown away.  Because `awk' programs are interpreted, you
 can avoid the (usually lengthy) compilation part of the typical
 edit-compile-test-debug cycle of software development.
 
    Complex programs have been written in `awk', including a complete
 retargetable assembler for eight-bit microprocessors ( Glossary,
 for more information), and a microcode assembler for a special-purpose
 Prolog computer.  While the original `awk''s capabilities were strained
 by tasks of such complexity, modern versions are more capable.  Even
 Brian Kernighan's version of `awk' has fewer predefined limits, and
 those that it has are much larger than they used to be.
 
    If you find yourself writing `awk' scripts of more than, say, a few
 hundred lines, you might consider using a different programming
 language.  Emacs Lisp is a good choice if you need sophisticated string
 or pattern matching capabilities.  The shell is also good at string and
 pattern matching; in addition, it allows powerful use of the system
 utilities.  More conventional languages, such as C, C++, and Java, offer
 better facilities for system programming and for managing the complexity
 of large programs.  Programs in these languages may require more lines
 of source code than the equivalent `awk' programs, but they are easier
 to maintain and usually run more efficiently.
Info Catalog
(gawk.info.gz) Other Features
(gawk.info.gz) Getting Started
automatically generated by info2html