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Expressions are the basic building blocks of awk
patterns
and actions. An expression evaluates to a value, which you can print, test,
store in a variable or pass to a function. Additionally, an expression
can assign a new value to a variable or a field, with an assignment operator.
An expression can serve as a pattern or action statement on its own.
Most other kinds of
statements contain one or more expressions which specify data on which to
operate. As in other languages, expressions in awk
include
variables, array references, constants, and function calls, as well as
combinations of these with various operators.
- Constants: String, numeric, and regexp constants.
- Using Constant Regexps: When and how to use a regexp constant.
- Variables: Variables give names to values for later use.
- Conversion: The conversion of strings to numbers and vice
versa.
- Arithmetic Ops: Arithmetic operations (`+', `-',
etc.)
- Concatenation: Concatenating strings.
- Assignment Ops: Changing the value of a variable or a field.
- Increment Ops: Incrementing the numeric value of a variable.
- Truth Values: What is "true" and what is "false".
- Typing and Comparison: How variables acquire types, and how this
affects comparison of numbers and strings with
`<', etc.
- Boolean Ops: Combining comparison expressions using boolean
operators `||' ("or"), `&&'
("and") and `!' ("not").
- Conditional Exp: Conditional expressions select between two
subexpressions under control of a third
subexpression.
- Function Calls: A function call is an expression.
- Precedence: How various operators nest.
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