jmh wrote:
> I wondering if anyone in the group thinks there are
> a few key conepts that a beginer to AWK really needs
> to grasp to really appreciate the tool and make the
> most out of it.
>
> jmh
As one beginner to another...I found this useful
http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Awk.html
and also this
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/articles/l-awk1.xml
mainly because they have worked out examples in increasing order of
difficulty.
I found Aho Kerrigan and Weinberger can be easier reading than Robbins
when
you are starting out, but its not easy to come by. You can find Effective
Awk Programming on the web to leaf through and see if you like it at
http://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/
The Awk part of Sed and Awk might also be easier going than Effective Awk
Programming though there's a lot of overlap.
The first thing I found hard to grasp is what Ed speaks of, I had initial
trouble grasping that (a) it doesn't change files but extracts from then
(b) you don't have to tell it about reading in files, that's what it does
itself. Sounds crazy to be puzzled about this now. The second thing that
was hard to grasp, and I am not fully there yet, was how it does arrays,
which I suspect is also a critical element.
I think a key thing to bear in mind is that ease of use and ease of
learning
are independent dimensions. Its hardish to learn, but when you've learned
it, its easy to use. Unlike some, which are very easy to get started with
and then infuriating when you try to learn how to do anything
sophisticated.
Al
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