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From: guy%gorodish@Sun.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: AWK
Message-ID: <29192@sun.uucp>
Date: Sat, 26-Sep-87 00:32:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.29192
Posted: Sat Sep 26 00:32:11 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 27-Sep-87 09:43:35 EDT
References: <690@hsi.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Lines: 33
Keywords: awk, unix S5R3.1, 4.3BSD

> Does anyone know what the new features are in this "latest" version
> of awk ??  For example, are functions included ??
> It gets frustrating to keep encountering all of awk's new features
> in the CACM's "Programming Pearls" column, but not be able to get
> hold of the program !!

If you have the requisite 1) money and 2) source license, you need suffer no
more; the new "awk" is, indeed, the one used by Bentley and does have
functions, along with some new built-in functions and variables.  It also
supports 8-bit characters.

It is *not*, however, 100% compatible with the old "awk".  The S5R3.1 release
notes list these incompatibilites.  The new "awk" is "nawk" in S5R3.1; "awk" is
still the old one.  According to the release notes, in the next major S5
release the new "awk" will become "awk" and the old one will be renamed "oawk".

> Also, Guy Harris noted about a week ago that the version of awk
> supplied with S5R2 was "faster" than the 4.3 BSD version, so I went
> ahead and compiled the S5 version on our BSD VAX.

You may want to apply some of the bug fixes made in the 4.3BSD version to the
S5R2 version.  I'm reposting a list of bug fixes to the S5R2 version to
"comp.bugs.sys5"; they include those fixes, as well as some
null-pointer-dereference fixes.  I think the new "awk" has all those fixes.

> The S5 version turned out to be almost 3 times faster for a simple program
> (print $1) and 30% faster for a long (200 line) awk script.

Unfortunately, the new "awk" loses some of that speed advantage, at least in
the tests I ran.
	Guy Harris
	{ihnp4, decvax, seismo, decwrl, ...}!sun!guy
	guy@sun.com