The AWK utility is a data extraction and reporting tool that uses a data-driven scripting language consisting of a set of actions to be taken against textual data (either in files or data streams) for the purpose of producing formatted reports.
The AWK utility is a data extraction and reporting tool that uses a data-driven scripting language consisting of a set of actions to be taken against textual data (either in files or data streams) for the purpose of producing formatted reports. The language used by awk extensively uses the string datatype, associative arrays (that is, arrays indexed by key strings), and regular expressions.
AWK was created at Bell Labs in the 1970s, and its name is derived from the family names of its authors — Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger, and Brian Kernighan.
