xref: /freebsd/contrib/one-true-awk/README.md (revision 1ca63a8219b88b752b064d19bd3428c61dbcf1f9)
1# The One True Awk
2
3This is the version of `awk` described in _The AWK Programming Language_,
4Second Edition, by Al Aho, Brian Kernighan, and Peter Weinberger
5(Addison-Wesley, 2024, ISBN-13 978-0138269722, ISBN-10 0138269726).
6
7## What's New? ##
8
9This version of Awk handles UTF-8 and comma-separated values (CSV) input.
10
11### Strings ###
12
13Functions that process strings now count Unicode code points, not bytes;
14this affects `length`, `substr`, `index`, `match`, `split`,
15`sub`, `gsub`, and others.  Note that code
16points are not necessarily characters.
17
18UTF-8 sequences may appear in literal strings and regular expressions.
19Aribtrary characters may be included with `\u` followed by 1 to 8 hexadecimal digits.
20
21### Regular expressions ###
22
23Regular expressions may include UTF-8 code points, including `\u`.
24Character classes are likely to be limited to about 256 characters
25when expanded.
26
27### CSV ###
28
29The option `--csv` turns on CSV processing of input:
30fields are separated by commas, fields may be quoted with
31double-quote (`"`) characters, quoted fields may contain embedded newlines.
32In CSV mode, `FS` is ignored.
33
34If no explicit separator argument is provided,
35field-splitting in `split` is determined by CSV mode.
36
37## Copyright
38
39Copyright (C) Lucent Technologies 1997<br/>
40All Rights Reserved
41
42Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and
43its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby
44granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all
45copies and that both that the copyright notice and this
46permission notice and warranty disclaimer appear in supporting
47documentation, and that the name Lucent Technologies or any of
48its entities not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining
49to distribution of the software without specific, written prior
50permission.
51
52LUCENT DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE,
53INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS.
54IN NO EVENT SHALL LUCENT OR ANY OF ITS ENTITIES BE LIABLE FOR ANY
55SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
56WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER
57IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION,
58ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF
59THIS SOFTWARE.
60
61## Distribution and Reporting Problems
62
63Changes, mostly bug fixes and occasional enhancements, are listed
64in `FIXES`.  If you distribute this code further, please please please
65distribute `FIXES` with it.
66
67If you find errors, please report them
68to the current maintainer, ozan.yigit@gmail.com.
69Please _also_ open an issue in the GitHub issue tracker, to make
70it easy to track issues.
71Thanks.
72
73## Submitting Pull Requests
74
75Pull requests are welcome. Some guidelines:
76
77* Please do not use functions or facilities that are not standard (e.g.,
78`strlcpy()`, `fpurge()`).
79
80* Please run the test suite and make sure that your changes pass before
81posting the pull request. To do so:
82
83  1. Save the previous version of `awk` somewhere in your path. Call it `nawk` (for example).
84  1. Run `oldawk=nawk make check > check.out 2>&1`.
85  1. Search for `BAD` or `error` in the result. In general, look over it manually to make sure there are no errors.
86
87* Please create the pull request with a request
88to merge into the `staging` branch instead of into the `master` branch.
89This allows us to do testing, and to make any additional edits or changes
90after the merge but before merging to `master`.
91
92## Building
93
94The program itself is created by
95
96	make
97
98which should produce a sequence of messages roughly like this:
99
100	bison -d  awkgram.y
101	awkgram.y: warning: 44 shift/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-sr]
102	awkgram.y: warning: 85 reduce/reduce conflicts [-Wconflicts-rr]
103	awkgram.y: note: rerun with option '-Wcounterexamples' to generate conflict counterexamples
104	gcc -g -Wall -pedantic -Wcast-qual   -O2   -c -o awkgram.tab.o awkgram.tab.c
105	gcc -g -Wall -pedantic -Wcast-qual   -O2   -c -o b.o b.c
106	gcc -g -Wall -pedantic -Wcast-qual   -O2   -c -o main.o main.c
107	gcc -g -Wall -pedantic -Wcast-qual   -O2   -c -o parse.o parse.c
108	gcc -g -Wall -pedantic -Wcast-qual -O2 maketab.c -o maketab
109	./maketab awkgram.tab.h >proctab.c
110	gcc -g -Wall -pedantic -Wcast-qual   -O2   -c -o proctab.o proctab.c
111	gcc -g -Wall -pedantic -Wcast-qual   -O2   -c -o tran.o tran.c
112	gcc -g -Wall -pedantic -Wcast-qual   -O2   -c -o lib.o lib.c
113	gcc -g -Wall -pedantic -Wcast-qual   -O2   -c -o run.o run.c
114	gcc -g -Wall -pedantic -Wcast-qual   -O2   -c -o lex.o lex.c
115	gcc -g -Wall -pedantic -Wcast-qual   -O2 awkgram.tab.o b.o main.o parse.o proctab.o tran.o lib.o run.o lex.o   -lm
116
117This produces an executable `a.out`; you will eventually want to
118move this to some place like `/usr/bin/awk`.
119
120If your system does not have `yacc` or `bison` (the GNU
121equivalent), you need to install one of them first.
122
123NOTE: This version uses ISO/IEC C99, as you should also.  We have
124compiled this without any changes using `gcc -Wall` and/or local C
125compilers on a variety of systems, but new systems or compilers
126may raise some new complaint; reports of difficulties are
127welcome.
128
129This compiles without change on Macintosh OS X using `gcc` and
130the standard developer tools.
131
132You can also use `make CC=g++` to build with the GNU C++ compiler,
133should you choose to do so.
134
135## A Note About Releases
136
137We don't usually do releases.
138
139## A Note About Maintenance
140
141NOTICE! Maintenance of this program is on a ''best effort''
142basis.  We try to get to issues and pull requests as quickly
143as we can.  Unfortunately, however, keeping this program going
144is not at the top of our priority list.
145
146#### Last Updated
147
148Sun 15 Oct 2023 06:28:36 IDT
149