[ Thanks to Kellie
for this link. ]
“In this conclusion to the awk series, Daniel introduces you to
awk’s important string functions, and then shows you how to write a
complete checkbook-balancing program from scratch. Along the way,
you’ll learn how to write your own functions and use awk’s
multidimensional arrays. By the end of this article, you’ll have
even more awk experience, allowing you to create more powerful
scripts.”
“While awk’s print statement does do the job most of the time,
sometimes more is needed. For those times, awk offers two good old
friends called printf() and sprintf(). Yes, these functions, like
so many other awk parts, are identical to their C counterparts.
printf() will print a formatted string to stdout, while sprintf()
returns a formatted string that can be assigned to a variable. If
you’re not familiar with printf() and sprintf(), an introductory C
text will quickly get you up to speed on these two essential
printing functions. You can view the printf() man page by typing
‘man 3 printf’ on your Linux system.”