[Leaplist] How many of you use awk?

[Steve Litt]

On Sunday 22 April 2007 09:02, Jesse Goerz wrote:

> 7.  It's a fantastic code generator
> In no time at all you can create a _simple_ "specification language"
> that you parse with awk and using functions, turn into, well, whatever
> you want...  I used this technique at my old job, parsing csv files that
> had border values (supplied by system engineers) into test programs that
> tested those values.

Hi Jesse,

I'd REALLY like to hear more about your point #7. 

I tried to rewrite my EMDL to UMENU parser in awk, and although it worked, 
inserting the error and warning detection got too complicated (and I ran out 
of time). Reading your point #7, perhaps there's a different/better way to do 
it. My EMDL to UMENU parser, is, in my opinion, on a per-line basis the most 
complex and challenging code I ever wrote. I've written it in Perl twice (the 
first version was an affront to the concept of development), and now in awk.

SteveT