AWK is a scripting language used for manipulating data and generating reports in Linux/Unix systems. It is a powerful tool for text processing and data manipulation, and it is typically used for extracting and manipulating data from text files, generating reports, analyzing data, and more. The AWK command programming language requires no compiling and allows the user to use variables, numeric functions, string functions, and logical operators.

The basic syntax of the AWK command is as follows:

awk {action} your_file_name.txt

When you want to search for text that has a specific pattern or youre looking for a specific word in the text, the command would look something like this:

awk /regex pattern/{action} your_file_name.txt

Some of the available operations that can be performed using AWK are:

• Scan a file line by line.
• Split the input line/file into fields.
• Compare the input line or fields with the specified pattern(s).
• Perform various actions on the matched lines.
• Format the output.

AWK is mostly used for pattern scanning and processing. It searches one or more files to see if they contain lines that match the specified patterns and then performs the associated actions. AWK is abbreviated from the names of the developers – Aho, Weinberger, and Kernighan.