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AWK - AWK Commands

Commands used by AWK can come from two locations:

They can be specified on the command line.
Alternatively they can come from a source file. If such is the case, AWK is alerted to this occurrence by means of the -f option.

Assuming a file, test.txt, exists with the following contents:

10   Peter     Terence   Roux        45
11   Virginia  Genevieve  Roux       45
12   Felix     Devon     Roux         5
13   David     Bruce     Stevenson   48
14   Bob       James     Smith       16
48   Adam      Winter    Ridley      23

Simple Command File

Assuming a command file exists with following contents:

awklist

{print $2,$3}
{print $4,$5,"\n"}

Issue the following command:

awk -f awklist test.txt

which will display something like:

Peter Terence
Roux 45

Virginia Genevieve
Roux 45

Felix Devon
Roux 5

David Bruce
Stevenson 48

Bob James
Smith 16

Adam Winter
Ridley 23

Notice that the apostrophes are not used anywhere within the source file or when calling it at the command line.

They are only for use in differentiating the commands on the command line from file names.