Awk Command in Linux with Examples

This lesson presents various necessary AWK commands and their related examples.

Consider a text file marks.txt to be processed with the following content ?

1) Amit Physics 80
2) Rahul Maths 90
3) Shyam Biology 87
4) Kedar English 85
5) Hari History 89

Printing Column or Field

You may command AWK to print just specified columns from the input field. The following example proves this

Example

[jerry]

$ awk '{print $3 "\t" $4}' marks.txt

On running this code, you get the following result

Output

Physics   80
Maths     90
Biology   87
English   85
History   89

In the file marks.txt, the third column carries the topic name, and the fourth column comprises the marks received in a given subject. Let us print these two columns using the AWK print command. In the given example, $3 and $4 represent the third and the fourth fields, respectively, from the input record.

Printing All Lines

By default, AWK prints all the lines that match the pattern.

Example

[jerry]

$ awk '/a/ {print $0}' marks.txt

On running this code, you get the following result ?

Output

2) Rahul Maths 90
3) Shyam Biology 87
4) Kedar English 85
5) Hari History 89

In the given an example, we are seeking form pattern a. When a pattern match succeeds, it performs commands from the body block. In the absence of a body block, the default action is executed to print the record. Hence, the following command yields the same result :

Example

[jerry]
$ awk '/a/' marks.txt

Printing Columns by Pattern

When a pattern match succeeds, AWK prints the complete record by default. But you may command AWK to print just particular fields. For instance, the following example publishes the third and fourth fields when a pattern match succeeds.

Example

[jerry]

$ awk '/a/ {print $3 "\t" $4}' marks.txt

On running this code, you get the following result ?

Output

Maths    90
Biology  87
English  85
History  89

Printing Column in Any Order

You may print columns in any sequence. For instance, the following example prints the fourth column followed by the third column.

Example

[jerry]

$ awk '/a/ {print $4 "\t" $3}' marks.txt

On running the code above, you get the following result ?

Output

90   Maths
87   Biology
85   English
89   History

Counting and Printing Matched Pattern

Let us explore an example where you may count and report the number of lines for which a pattern match succeeded.

Example

[jerry]
$ awk '/a/{++cnt} END {print "Count = ", cnt}' marks.txt

On running this code, you get the following result ?

Output

Count = 4

In this example, we increase the counter's value when a pattern match succeeds, printing this number in the END block. Note that there is no requirement to define a variable before using it, unlike other programming languages.

Printing Lines with More than 18 Characters

Let us publish just those lines that have more than 18 characters.

Example

[jerry]

$ awk 'length($0) > 18' marks.txt

On running this code, you get the following result ?

Output

3) Shyam   Biology   87
4) Kedar   English   85

Conclusion

AWK includes a built-in length function that returns the length of the string. $0 variable stores the entire line, and in the absence of a body block, the default action is taken, i.e., the print action. Hence, if a line contains more than 18 characters, the comparison returns true, and the line is printed.