Gawk/Arrays

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8 Arrays in awk

An array is a table of values called elements. The elements of an array are distinguished by their indices. Indices may be either numbers or strings.

This chapter describes how arrays work in awk, how to use array elements, how to scan through every element in an array, and how to remove array elements. It also describes how awk simulates multidimensional arrays, as well as some of the less obvious points about array usage. The chapter moves on to discuss gawk’s facility for sorting arrays, and ends with a brief description of gawk’s ability to support true arrays of arrays.

• Array Basics		The basics of arrays.
• Numeric Array Subscripts		How to use numbers as subscripts in awk.
• Uninitialized Subscripts		Using Uninitialized variables as subscripts.
• Delete		The delete statement removes an element from an array.
• Multidimensional		Emulating multidimensional arrays in awk.
• Arrays of Arrays		True multidimensional arrays.
• Arrays Summary		Summary of arrays.