Unix in a Nutshell, 4th Edition

Important gawk Options

Besides the standard command-line options, gawk has a large number of additional options. This section lists those that are of most value in day-to-day use. Any unique abbreviation of these options is acceptable.

--dump-variables[ = file ]

When the program has finished running, print a sorted list of global variables and their types and final values to file. The default file is awkvars.out.

--gen-po

Read the awk program and print all strings marked as translatable to standard output in the form of a GNU gettext Portable Object file. See the later section "Internationalization,” for more information.

--help

Print a usage message to standard error and exit.

--lint[ =fatal ]

Enable checking of nonportable or dubious constructs, both when the program is read, and as it runs. With an argument of fatal, lint warnings become fatal errors.

--non-decimal-data

Allow octal and hexadecimal data in the input to be recognized as such. This option is not recommended; use strtonum() in your program, instead.

--profile[ = file ]

With gawk, put a “prettyprinted” version of the program in file. Default is awkprof.out. With pgawk (see the "Profiling" section later in this chapter), put the profiled listing of the program in file.

--posix

Turn on strict POSIX compatibility, in which all common and gawk-specific extensions are disabled.

--source =' program text '

Use program text as the awk source code. Use this option with -f to mix command line programs with awk library files. ...