awk Linux Commands

What is Linux awk Command?

Explanation

awk COMMAND:
awk command is used to manipulate the text.This command checks each line of a file, looking for patterns that match those given on the command line.

SYNTAX:
The Syntax is
awk ‘{pattern + action}’ {filenames}

OPTIONS:

-W version Display version information and exit.

-F Print help message and exit.

EXAMPLE:
Lets create a file file1.txt and let it have the following data:

Data in file1.txt
141516
151511
5566
5251

To print the second column data in file1.txt

awk ‘{print $2}’ file1.txt

This command will manipulate and print second column of text file (file1.txt). The output will look like

15155625
To multiply the column-1 and column-2 and redirect the output to file2.txt:

awk ‘{print $1,$2,$1*$2}’ file1.txt > file2.txt

Command Explanation:
$1: Prints 1st column
$2: Prints 2ndcolumn
$1*$2: Prints Result of $1 x $2
file1.txt: input file
symbolfile2.txt: output file

The above command will redirect the output to file2.txt and it will look like,
14 15 21015 15 2255 56 2805 25 125

Enjoy !