Language History (The GNU Awk User’s Guide)

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Part IV:Appendices

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Appendix A The Evolution of the awk Language

This Web page describes the GNU implementation of awk, which follows the POSIX specification. Many longtime awk users learned awk programming with the original awk implementation in Version 7 Unix. (This implementation was the basis for awk in Berkeley Unix, through 4.3-Reno. Subsequent versions of Berkeley Unix, and, for a while, some systems derived from 4.4BSD-Lite, used various versions of gawk for their awk.) This chapter briefly describes the evolution of the awk language, with cross-references to other parts of the Web page where you can find more information.

• V7/SVR3.1		The major changes between V7 and System V Release 3.1.
• SVR4		Minor changes between System V Releases 3.1 and 4.
• POSIX		New features from the POSIX standard.
• BTL		New features from Brian Kernighan’s version of awk.
• POSIX/GNU		The extensions in gawk not in POSIX awk.
• Feature History		The history of the features in gawk.
• Common Extensions		Common Extensions Summary.
• Ranges and Locales		How locales used to affect regexp ranges.
• Contributors		The major contributors to gawk.
• History summary		History summary.