Other Features (The GNU Awk User’s Guide)
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1.7 Other Features of awk
The awk
language provides a number of predefined, or built-in, variables that your programs can use to get information from awk
. There are other variables your program can set as well to control how awk
processes your data.
In addition, awk
provides a number of built-in functions for doing common computational and string-related operations. gawk
provides built-in functions for working with timestamps, performing bit manipulation, for runtime string translation (internationalization), determining the type of a variable, and array sorting.
As we develop our presentation of the awk
language, we will introduce most of the variables and many of the functions. They are described systematically in Predefined Variables and in Built-in Functions.