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2 Running awk and gawk ¶

This chapter covers how to run awk, both POSIX-standard and gawk-specific command-line options, and what awk and gawk do with nonoption arguments. It then proceeds to cover how gawk searches for source files, reading standard input along with other files, gawk’s environment variables, gawk’s exit status, using include files, and obsolete and undocumented options and/or features.

Many of the options and features described here are discussed in more detail later in the Web page; feel free to skip over things in this chapter that don’t interest you right now.

• Invoking awk
• Command-Line Options
• Other Command-Line Arguments
• Naming Standard Input
• The Environment Variables gawk Uses
• gawk’s Exit Status
• Including Other Files into Your Program
• Loading Dynamic Extensions into Your Program
• Obsolete Options and/or Features
• Undocumented Options and Features
• Summary