Awk v Perl

"The AWK utility is a data extraction and reporting tool" - Wikipedia

"Perl was developed as a language to make report processing easier" - Wikipedia

So what's the difference?

Looking through all the lines of a file, report the 6th and 1st fields on each line that contains the string "pix" and report complete lines that contain the string "chamber":

In Awk:

awk '/pix/{print $6,$1};/chamber/{print}' extra_log

Read more about awk [here] on our website or find a full manual [here] on the Gnu site.

In Perl:

perl -na -e '/pix/ and print "$F[5] $F[0]\n"; /chamber/ and print' extra_log

Find out how to learn more about Perl [here] on our web site. Full Perl documentation can be found [here] on the official Perl web site.

The "trick" is that awk is a useful data extraction and reporting utility, but that Perl grew eclectically and is now so much more. The blogging software that I use to manage these articles is written in Perl, and I can't even imagine trying to do that in Awk. You can write a short utility in awk even shorter than in Perl, but Perl's extensibiity through subs, modules, and much much more means that it't there for the long haul of data analysis long after you've stretched the limits of awk.

Mind you ... if I have the off "one-liner" to write in haste to filter specific data from a log file, I'll probably use awk!
(written 2011-09-18)

Associated topics are indexed under

A166 - Web Application Deployment - Linux Utilities
  [3902] Shell - Grep - Sed - Awk - Perl - Python - which to use when? - (2012-10-22)
  [3764] Shell, Awk, Perl of Python? - (2012-06-14)
  [2638] Finding what has changed - Linux / Unix - (2010-02-17)
  [2484] Finding text and what surrounds it - contextual grep - (2009-10-30)
  [2320] Helping new arrivals find out about source code examples - (2009-08-03)
  [2145] Using the internet to remotely check for power failure at home (PHP) - (2009-04-29)
  [1690] Conversion of c/r line ends to l/f line ends - (2008-06-28)
  [1366] awk - a powerful data extraction and manipulation tool - (2007-09-25)
  [1361] Korn shell course - (2007-09-22)
  [71] Comparators in Linux and Unix - (2004-10-03)
  [63] Almost like old times - (2004-09-26)

P701 - What is Perl?
  [1753] Perl v PHP, choosing the right language - (2008-08-14)

5719

Back to
Perl and CGI - simple form, and monitoring script.

Previous and next
or
Horse's mouth home

Forward to
Needle in a haystack - finding the web server overload

Some other Articles

A threat in the post? Poor marketing practise from Smiletrain?
Apache Internal Dummy Connection - what is it and what should I do with it?
Checking all the systems on a subnet, using Expect and Tk
Needle in a haystack - finding the web server overload
Awk v Perl
Perl and CGI - simple form, and monitoring script.
Take the dog on a lead - do not carry her. Perl references.
Getting more log information from the Apache http web server
A demonstration of how many Python facilities work together
Pressing ^C in a Python program. Also Progress Bar.