sed & awk, 2nd Edition

Writing Your Own Functions

With user-defined functions, awk allows the novice programmer to take another step toward C programming^[3] by writing programs that make use of self-contained functions. When you write a function properly, you have defined a program component that can be reused in other programs. The real benefit of modularity becomes apparent as programs grow in size or in age, and as the number of programs you write increases significantly.

A function definition can be placed anywhere in a script that a pattern-action rule can appear. Typically, we put the function definitions at the top of the script before the pattern-action rules. A function is defined using the following syntax:

function name (parameter-list) {
	statements
}

The newlines after the left brace and before the right brace are optional. You can also have a newline after the close-parenthesis of the parameter list and before the left brace.

The parameter-list is a comma-separated list of variables that are passed as arguments into the function when it is called. The body of the function consists of one or more statements. The function typically contains a return statement that returns control to that point in the script where the function was called; it often has an expression that returns a value as well.

return expression

The following example shows the definition for an insert( ) function:

function insert(STRING, POS, INS) { before_tmp = substr(STRING, 1, POS) after_tmp = substr(STRING, POS + 1) return ...