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AWK Source Code Blocks in Org Mode

Org Mode support for AWK

Introduction

AWK is a task-specific language optimized for regular expression record data manipulation. It is a little language that is Turing complete, efficient to execute, reasonably simple to express, powerful within its scope, and pathologically cryptic.

A natural Org mode representation of the record data AWK was designed to manipulate is the table.

Requirements and Setup

There are many well-maintained AWK compatible languages. The variable org-babel-awk-command holds the name of AWK executable. The default is "awk".

To configure AWK source code blocks in Org mode, add the appropriate dotted pair to org-babel-load-languages

(org-babel-do-load-languages
 'org-babel-load-languages
 '((awk . t)))

Org Mode Features for AWK Source Code Blocks

Header Arguments

There are three AWK-specific header arguments.

:cmd-line
takes command line arguments to pass to the AWK executable
:in-file
takes a path to a file of data to be processed by AWK
:stdin
takes an Org-mode data or code block reference, the value of which will be passed to the AWK process through STDIN

Sessions

AWK does not support sessions.

Examples of Use

Two examples from GNU Awk User's Guide show simple uses of AWK.

Given the table bbs-list

aardvark 555-5553 1200/300 B
alpo-net 555-3412 2400/1200/300 A
barfly 555-7685 1200/300 A
bites 555-1675 2400/1200/300 A
camelot 555-0542 300 C
core 555-2912 1200/300 C
fooey 555-1234 2400/1200/300 B
foot 555-6699 1200/300 B
macfoo 555-6480 1200/300 A
sdace 555-3430 2400/1200/300 A
sabafoo 555-2127 1200/300 C

this AWK source code block

#+begin_src awk :stdin bbs-list
/foo/ { print $0 }
#+end_src

returns a subset of the original table

fooey 555-1234 2400/1200/300 B
foot 555-6699 1200/300 B
macfoo 555-6480 1200/300 A
sabafoo 555-2127 1200/300 C

Given the table inventory-shipped

Jan 13 25 15 115
Feb 15 32 24 226
Mar 15 24 34 228
Apr 31 52 63 420
May 16 34 29 208
Jun 31 42 75 492
Jul 24 34 67 436
Aug 15 34 47 316
Sep 13 55 37 277
Oct 29 54 68 525
Nov 20 87 82 577
Dec 17 35 61 401
         
Jan 21 36 64 620
Feb 26 58 80 652
Mar 24 75 70 495
Apr 21 70 74 514

this bit of AWK code

#+begin_src awk :stdin inventory-shipped :exports results
$1 ~ /J/
#+end_src

returns this subset of the table

Jan 13 25 15 115
Jun 31 42 75 492
Jul 24 34 67 436
Jan 21 36 64 620

Documentation from the orgmode.org/worg/ website (either in its HTML format or in its Org format) is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License version 1.3 or later. The code examples and css stylesheets are licensed under the GNU General Public License v3 or later.