Awk is one of the oldest tools in the Unix and Linux user[he]#039[/he]s toolbox. Created in the 1970s by Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger, and Brian Kernighan (the A, W, and K of the tool[he]#039[/he]s name), awk was created for complex processing of text streams. It is a companion tool to sed, the stream editor, which is designed for line-by-line processing of text files. Awk allows more complex structured programs and is a complete programming language. This article will explain how to use awk for more structured and complex tasks, including a simple mail merge application.

Source: LXer – Advance your awk skills with two easy tutorials