The awk command can make it easy to remove duplicate characters from a string even when those characters aren’t sequential, especially when the process is turned into a script. First, the awk command ...

How to use awk to select data from commands and scripts Your email has been sent Image: iStock/Inimma-IS Must-read developer coverage What Powers Your Databases? Take This DZone Survey Today!

I use awk all the time, but generally only to conveniently pull a particular field out of data that I’m workin with. Regardless of the separator used, awk makes it easy to extract just what you need.

awk does a lot of common work for you when you use it to process text files. It reads files a record at a time. Normally, a record is a single line. Then it splits the line on fields using whitespace, ...

Can a curious Windows user find a Linux version without command lines, because I can’t find one that has 100% GUI. Is it because of techno snobbery, as in, you’re only allowed in if you learn command ...

I never used awk except when reading other people's scripts, because perl could do awk stuff almost as easily, while also allowing you to expand seamlessly into more complicated tasks that would be ...