''The AWK Programming Language'' is a well-known 1988 book written by

Alfred V. Aho Alfred Vaino Aho (born August 9, 1941) is a Canadian computer scientist best known for his work on programming languages, compilers, and related algorithms, and his textbooks on the art and science of computer programming. Aho was elected into ...

, Brian W. Kernighan, and Peter J. Weinberger and published by

Addison-Wesley Addison-Wesley is an American publisher of textbooks and computer literature. It is an imprint of Pearson PLC, a global publishing and education company. In addition to publishing books, Addison-Wesley also distributes its technical titles throug ...

, often referred to as the gray book. The book describes the AWK programming language and is the ''

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with '' de jure'' ("by l ...

'' standard for the language, written by its inventors. W. Richard Stevens, author of several UNIX books including '' Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment'', cites the book as one of his favorite technical books. The book is translated to several languages and is cited by many technical papers in the ACM journals. According to the book's frontmatter the book was typeset "using an Autologic APS-5 phototypesetter and a DEC VAX 8550 running the 9th Edition of the UNIX operating system".

References

External links

The Awk Programming Language book review - IEEE
Computer books Computer_programming_books Addison-Wesley books {{compu-book-stub