# onetrueawk/awk

One true awk

Repository: https://github.com/onetrueawk/awk
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/awk
Language: C
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Last push: 2026-08-19T08:27:54+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 76/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 98, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5002, "days_push": 14, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2221, forks 184 (observed 2026-08-28T04:06:27.603501+00:00)

## What it is
The canonical implementation of the AWK programming language, maintained by its original authors (Aho, Kernighan, Weinberger) and described in The AWK Programming Language, Second Edition. It is a small C program for pattern scanning and text processing, now with UTF-8 string handling and CSV input support.

## Use cases
- process and transform text files from the command line
- parse CSV files with quoted fields and embedded newlines
- extract and reformat columns from structured text
- write small one-off scripts for log analysis
- learn AWK from the second edition of the book with a matching implementation
- handle UTF-8 text with code-point-aware string operations

## When to choose
- you want the reference AWK implementation matching the 2024 second-edition book
- you need CSV-aware field splitting in awk
- you need correct Unicode code-point handling in string functions
- you prefer a small, portable, dependency-free text-processing tool

## When to avoid
- you need GNU awk extensions like arrays of arrays, network sockets, or gawk-specific features
- you want a scripting language with large ecosystems and libraries
- you need high-performance big-data processing rather than line-oriented text processing

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: parser, cli, csv, interpreter
- domain: developer-tools, text-editors
- platform: windows, bsd, cli, cross-platform
- tags: awk, text-processing, unix, utf-8, csv-processing, programming-language, kernighan, command-line, automation, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- onetrueawk/awk (main) score 76

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:27.603501+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T02:45:47.860183+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/onetrueawk/awk (fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:27.603501+00:00, sha 0e050ac46288)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.