[TUHS] Re: The AWK Programming Language, 2nd Ed.: What's new?

[arnold@skeeve.com]

Hello All.

For whoever's interested, the csv code has been merged into the master
branch of the Git repo.  Have fun!

Arnold

> From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
> Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2023 13:41:34 -0600
> Subject: [TUHS] The AWK Programming Language, 2nd Ed.: What's new?
>
> Hi.
>
> markus schnalke <meillo at marmaro.de> 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
>