From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 24317 invoked from network); 10 Sep 2023 19:41:57 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (2600:3c01:e000:146::1) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 10 Sep 2023 19:41:57 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6E37E40120; Mon, 11 Sep 2023 05:41:51 +1000 (AEST) Received: from freefriends.org (frenzy.freefriends.org [198.99.81.75]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 227B240112 for ; Mon, 11 Sep 2023 05:41:40 +1000 (AEST) X-Envelope-From: arnold@skeeve.com Received: from freefriends.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by freefriends.org (8.14.7/8.14.7) with ESMTP id 38AJfZwH019234 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Sun, 10 Sep 2023 13:41:35 -0600 Received: (from arnold@localhost) by freefriends.org (8.14.7/8.14.7/Submit) id 38AJfYOc019233; Sun, 10 Sep 2023 13:41:34 -0600 From: arnold@skeeve.com Message-Id: <202309101941.38AJfYOc019233@freefriends.org> X-Authentication-Warning: frenzy.freefriends.org: arnold set sender to arnold@skeeve.com using -f Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2023 13:41:34 -0600 To: tuhs@tuhs.org, meillo@marmaro.de References: <1qf3zQ-7oK-00@marmaro.de> In-Reply-To: <1qf3zQ-7oK-00@marmaro.de> User-Agent: Heirloom mailx 12.5 7/5/10 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID-Hash: 5FHOHUD5XSKZC7FBS2HP2QDDDXR633UZ X-Message-ID-Hash: 5FHOHUD5XSKZC7FBS2HP2QDDDXR633UZ X-MailFrom: arnold@skeeve.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: The AWK Programming Language, 2nd Ed.: What's new? List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: Hi. markus schnalke wrote: > Hoi, > > I just discovered that one of my favorite computer books about my > best liked programming language (besides C) releases in a second > edition. Does anyone know what the differences of 1st and 2nd > edition are? > > As the original book is almost perfect, the only rework and > extension direction I can think of is towards different > implementations like gawk, mawk, portability and such things. > > Does anyone know more about it? Maybe some inside information? ;-) > > meillo Inside information? As it happens, yes, I do have some. :-) (I was a reviewer.) [In the below, "awk" means Brian Kernighan's awk.] In the 36 (!) years since the first edition was published, awk has undergone, shall we say, a large number of small changes. These are listed in the FIXES file currently in the master branch of https://github.com/onetrueawk/awk. In addition, Brian Kernighan decided to add support for UTF-8 input, which is what awk now expects, and support for CSV input files when invoked with the --csv option. Furthermore, there is a new \u escape sequence which must be followed by 1-8 hexadecimal digits for specifying Unicode code points. The book itself has been carefully revised. The large second chapter which was a reference to the full language was moved to an appendix. Many of the example programs from the first edition were retained and updated, but there is also quite of lot of pleasing new material. There is mention of, and occasional comparison with, gawk, mawk and Ben Hoyt's GoAwk, but by and large the focus is on the authors' version. The new code is currently in the "csv" branch of the above Github repo. The maintainer is in the process of tidying up the repo (dealing with issues and pull requests) and will merge the csv branch into master sometime in the very near future. I'm told that the printed books with get to the publisher's warehouse towards the end of September. The book is available now on O'Reilly's Safari learning site (safari.oreilly.com) for anyone who has a subscription. Matching code (--csv and \u) are in gawk's master branch now. I will make a release this fall, after the new code has moved into master in BWK's awk. I heartily recommend the book; it is totally up to Brian Kernighan's usual very high standard. Enjoy, Arnold