UNIX Pattern Tools

Duration:   3 days

Participants:   Technical users, applications programmers, and systems programmers.

Objectives:   Upon successful completion of this course you will be able to: -  Use the stream editor sed as a filter within a UNIX shell pipeline. -  Describe and use special regular expression characters in sed addresses and substitutes. -  Specify the features of and uses for awk. -  List the components of an awk program. -  Define and code awk patterns and actions. -  Use awk built-in functions. -  Use awk arrays and associative memory. -  Code and execute a complete awk program which reads an input file and produces a simple report. -  Interface awk with other UNIX tools to perform data validation, extraction, and reporting functions.

Overview:   This course presents the basic concepts and operation of UNIX commands which use pattern matching and regular expressions. Included in the course are explanations of the stream editor (sed), as well as the pattern scanning and processing language (awk). The course provides an understanding of how to use these powerful pattern matching tools for information retrieval, data manipulation, and report generation.

Prerequisites:   Introduction to UNIX and Shell Programming courses or equivalent experience.

Format:   Lecture and discussion with lab sessions.

Topic Outline:   -  Stream Editor SED         What is SED?         Commands              General Syntax              Specific Commands              Substitute Command         CUT Command         Regular Expressions -  awk Introduction         awk Features         Records and Fields         Input Files         Command Line         Patterns and Actions         Comments         Simple Print Statement -  Simple Actions and Patterns         User Defined Variables/Constants         Special Variables         Operators              Numeric              Alternative              Relational and Logical          Regular Expression              Operators              Metacharacters         Patterns              Ranges              Special Pattern BEGIN              Special Pattern END         Changing Field Separators -  Complex Actions         Formatted Printing with printf              Format Specification              Output Format Control         Operator Review              Binary              Assignment              Unary              Concatenation         Variables and Fields         Flow of Control Statements              if              while              for              break              continue -  Built-In Functions         Function Format         String Functions              length              index              substr              sprintf         Mathematical Functions -  Arrays and Shell         Arrays and Array Use         for Statement and Arrays         Associative Memory         Current FILENAME         split Function         Additional Statements              next              getline              exit         NULL Record Separator         Output Redirection         Pipes and Pipelines              Filters              Internal Pipes         Command Line Parameters         Interaction with Shell -  awk Conclusions         Advantages         Disadvantages         Where awk fits

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