From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Mon Oct 5 21:44:57 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8CE8C9B9A47 for ; Mon, 5 Oct 2015 21:44:57 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from quartz@sneakertech.com) Received: from douhisi.pair.com (douhisi.pair.com [209.68.5.179]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 6D854DA4 for ; Mon, 5 Oct 2015 21:44:57 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from quartz@sneakertech.com) Received: from [10.2.2.1] (pool-108-49-223-195.bstnma.fios.verizon.net [108.49.223.195]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by douhisi.pair.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id DFC0A3F76F for ; Mon, 5 Oct 2015 17:44:55 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <5612EF57.10207@sneakertech.com> Date: Mon, 05 Oct 2015 17:44:55 -0400 From: Quartz MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: awk question References: <5611C922.4050007@hiwaay.net> <20151005042129.1f153ec6.freebsd@edvax.de> <5611F776.9090701@hiwaay.net> <56124479.9020505@sneakertech.com> <20151005165902.ad01c288.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <20151005165902.ad01c288.freebsd@edvax.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 05 Oct 2015 21:44:57 -0000 > The form "input | step1 | step2 | step3 | step4> result" usually > is more readable That's what I meant my being easier to understand conceptually. I agree about being more readable- even though this format sometimes needs the 'useless cat' it's often my preferred coding style, especially in scripts where the input might change around. > Additionally, awk isn't that hard to learn. Reading "man awk" will > provide you with a good background. And if you're already a C > programmer, you'll see that many things you can do in C will also > work similarly in awk, which _might_ not even be a good thing. :-) The problem with awk is the whole BEGIN/END/braces thing and how commas interact with the operands. It's not very much like sh or C syntax (or any other syntax) and new users tend to get really confused. Also, different versions of awk handle math (esp floating point) with different rounding/precision/overflow, making calculations vary between installations, only further adding to the confusion.