Awk pattern matching

AWK its big ... a full on programming language really

a GooD place to get more info is in the standard *nix 'man' command

Examples

to make a list of all the users and shell's that are in use on your box (not a verry practical example as there are non user enrtys in your passwd file but...)

cat /etc/passwd | awk -F: ' {print $1 " " $7 }'

Explanation

-F: = use : as the separator ie use -F, for a csv file awk uses a space as standard print = print to StdOut $1 = the first varible found...   " " = a space... well any string $7 = the 7th varible found

This example is nice in a file ... it will serch through InPut.txt and put all lines that match into OutPut.txt...
 * 1) !/bin/ksh

awk -F, ' { if ( $2 ~ /^StartString/ && $2 ~ /EndString$/ ) { print $2 } } ' InPut.txt > OutPut.txt

Explanation

-F = as above use, as separator if = well standard programing stuff really, if (this is true) { then do this} $2 = 2nd varible ~ = regexe ie patern matching (    ^ = start of varible     $ = end of string ) && = logical and (for strings)

basicly, if $2 starts with StartString and ends with EndString then print it out...

also see: Awk