AWK as glue for programs

摘要

AbstractAlthough AWK is usually presented as a language for simple data retrieval and formatting, it is also well suited to writing program generators. This use gives AWK much more power as a means of communicating among programs than its usual role as reformatter suggests. This paper discusses features of AWK that are especially useful for program generation. As an extended example, it presents a complete AWK program for typesetting charts in TROFF documents.