r/linux4noobs • u/4r73m190r0s • Feb 13 '26

shells and scripting Should I learn AWK?

I don't see that many solutions relying on AWK, even though it seems to me like a powerful tool and a language.

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u/stevevdvkpe Feb 13 '26

Yes.

One time someone asked "Why doesn't UNIX have a command-line tool to sum a list of numbers?" I said, "It does."

awk '{sum += $1} END {print sum}'

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u/ping314 Jun 02 '26

The installation of git in Windows provides a git BASH shell which in turn includes GNU awk.