# benhoyt/goawk

A POSIX-compliant AWK interpreter written in Go, with CSV support

Repository: https://github.com/benhoyt/goawk
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/goawk
Homepage: https://benhoyt.com/writings/goawk/
Language: Go
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: awk, go, interpreter, parser, csv
Last push: 2026-08-25T10:04:48+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 86/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 62, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3008, "days_push": 8, "days_rel": 253, "gap_med": 25.0, "n_releases_24m": 7}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2052, forks 97 (observed 2026-08-28T04:06:09.614622+00:00)

## What it is
GoAWK is a POSIX-compliant AWK interpreter written in Go, featuring a bytecode compiler and VM plus native CSV/TSV support. It can be used as a command-line tool or embedded in Go programs via its parser and interpreter packages.

## Use cases
- run awk one-liners on the command line
- process csv files with awk syntax
- embed an awk interpreter in a go application
- replace gawk with a portable posix awk
- parse and sum columns from tsv data

## When to choose
- you need a fast, portable AWK with no external dependencies
- you want to process CSV/TSV files with named fields in AWK
- you want to embed AWK scripting in a Go program

## When to avoid
- you rely on GNU AWK extensions like gawk's networking or profiling
- you need a full scripting language beyond POSIX AWK semantics

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: interpreter, parser, cli, csv
- domain: developer-tools, files, programming-languages
- platform: windows, go, cross-platform, cli
- tags: awk, text-processing, bytecode-vm, posix-compliant, command-line, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- benhoyt/goawk (main) score 86

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:09.614622+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 2026-08-30T08:19:38.732603+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/benhoyt/goawk (fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:09.614622+00:00, sha 59aab4a97156)
  - homepage: https://benhoyt.com/writings/goawk/ (fetched 2026-08-29T10:37:37.770475+00:00, sha 75204438c83f)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.