The book is written from the beginners' point of view. It covers the basic to intermediate skills that are essential for text processing in a simple and effective manner. But at the same time, there is good amount of stuff that a seasoned AWK user shall find interesting. It covers a wide range of audience and shall be useful to the following people:
- Data scientists who need to extract and clean data for analysis
- Developers who perform parsing of flat text files, HTML files, XML files, or CSV files
- System administrators who parse log files for analysis
- Any GNU/Linux hobbyist or enthusiast who likes to play with GNU/Linux filters for data manipulation
It is written in such a manner that any user with a basic familiarity with the GNU/Linux command line can start using it. The only requisite for it is to have a GNU/Linux box for practicing the stuff covered. This book begins with the essentials of text processing, that is, regular expressions (followed by the structure of the AWK program), variables, constants, functions, arrays, printing options, control flow of the program, and use of different operators to carry out various text processing and mining tasks.
For advanced users, Chapter 9, GNU's Implementation of AWK – GAWK (GNU AWK), covers GAWK implementation in networking, inter-process communication, and debugging. It is followed by practical examples for text processing and pattern matching. For system administrators, we have covered quick one liners that they will find useful in their daily operations. This book has got something for every learner who is working on GNU/Linux.
