Fun with awk

Recently I was wrangling with a few log files and sed and grep din't cut it and I had to use awk. I've always dreaded the use of awk as it was a programming language onto itself and hence I din't want to burden myself with learning another language that I rarely use. But, my latest interaction with awk left me satisfied and intrigued. Its almost like perl except that it follows a strict structure for just manipulating text and perl as I've learnt the hard way can be used to do anything (its been described as the duct tape that holds the internet together!!)

PERL update

After almost 4 months of PERL this is what I have to say.

• Its extremely handy for short and snappy stuff


• Everything under the sun is available in CPAN but figuring out which is best suited for your needs is a bitch


• While developing webapps with CGI not knowing use Carp::qw(fatalsToBrowser); is the last thing you want to do (coz I did that)


• Why ? Oh why do warnings and use strict; exist if you can write stuff faster without it :((

PERL

Have been messing around a lot with PERL recently. Got involved in a project where only PERL can be used due to hosting environment restrictions enforced by the client. PERL seems a lot like shell scripting without the hassle of strict spacing considerations. Adding $/@/% before each variable occassionaly bugs me though it has its advantages. Hoping to become a professional perl programmer soon :)