HANDY ONE-LINERS FOR AWK 22 July 2003
USAGE:
Unix: awk '/pattern/ {print "$1"}' # standard Unix shells

DOS/Win: awk '/pattern/ {print "$1"}' # okay for DJGPP compiled

awk "/pattern/ {print \"$1\"}" # required for Mingw32
Take each line of a file and deliver the first field then a : then all the other fields space separated with 1 line per source item.
This solves the problem of concatenating awk outputs that sometimes come on multiple lines.
for i in `cat /etc/passwd | awk -F":" '{print $1}'`; do echo "${i} : `cat /etc/passwd | grep ^${i} | awk -F":" '{for (i=1; i<=NF; i++) if ($i < 0) $i = -$i; $1="";print}'`"; done
Here's another solution that's not reliant on the for loop and is much less wasteful of cycles:
awk {'printf $1;for (i=2; i<=NF; i++) printf $i" ";if (i=NF+1) print""}'
An interesting side note on the one above, if you happen to specify your field delimiter (-F":" to specify a colon), then the awk will automatically strip the delimiters out of the output and replace them with single spaces.


FILE SPACING:
# double space a file
awk '1;{print ""}'

awk 'BEGIN{ORS="\n\n"};1'


# double space a file which already has blank lines in it. Output file # should contain no more than one blank line between lines of text. # NOTE: On Unix systems, DOS lines which have only CRLF (\r\n) are # often treated as non-blank, and thus 'NF' alone will return TRUE.
awk 'NF{print $0 "\n"}'


# triple space a file
awk '1;{print "\n"}'


NUMBERING AND CALCULATIONS:

# precede each line by its line number FOR THAT FILE (left alignment). # Using a tab (\t) instead of space will preserve margins.
awk '{print FNR "\t" $0}' files*


# precede each line by its line number FOR ALL FILES TOGETHER, with tab.
awk '{print NR "\t" $0}' files*


# number each line of a file (number on left, right-aligned) # Double the percent signs if typing from the DOS command prompt.
awk '{printf("%5d : %s\n", NR,$0)}'


# number each line of file, but only print numbers if line is not blank # Remember caveats about Unix treatment of \r (mentioned above)
awk 'NF{$0=++a " :" $0};{print}'

awk '{print (NF? ++a " :" :"") $0}'


# count lines (emulates "wc -l")
awk 'END{print NR}'


# print the sums of the fields of every line
awk '{s=0; for (i=1; i<=NF; i++) s=s+$i; print s}'


# add all fields in all lines and print the sum
awk '{for (i=1; i<=NF; i++) s=s+$i}; END{print s}'


# print every line after replacing each field with its absolute value
awk '{for (i=1; i<=NF; i++) if ($i < 0) $i = -$i; print }'

awk '{for (i=1; i<=NF; i++) $i = ($i < 0) ? -$i : $i; print }'


# print the total number of fields ("words") in all lines
awk '{ total = total + NF }; END {print total}' file


# print the total number of lines that contain "Beth"
awk '/Beth/{n++}; END {print n+0}' file


# print the largest first field and the line that contains it # Intended for finding the longest string in field #1
awk '$1 > max {max=$1; maxline=$0}; END{ print max, maxline}'


# print the number of fields in each line, followed by the line
awk '{ print NF ":" $0 } '


# print the last field of each line
awk '{ print $NF }'


# print the last field of the last line
awk '{ field = $NF }; END{ print field }'


# print the second to last field of the last line
awk '{ field = $NF - 1 }; END{print field}'


# print the second to last field of all lines
awk '{ field = NF - 1 }; {print $field}'


# print every line with more than 4 fields
awk 'NF > 4'


# print every line where the value of the last field is > 4
awk '$NF > 4'




TEXT CONVERSION AND SUBSTITUTION:

# IN UNIX ENVIRONMENT: convert DOS newlines (CR/LF) to Unix format
awk '{sub(/\r$/,"");print}' # assumes EACH line ends with Ctrl-M


# IN UNIX ENVIRONMENT: convert Unix newlines (LF) to DOS format
awk '{sub(/$/,"\r");print}


# IN DOS ENVIRONMENT: convert Unix newlines (LF) to DOS format
awk 1


# IN DOS ENVIRONMENT: convert DOS newlines (CR/LF) to Unix format # Cannot be done with DOS versions of awk, other than gawk: gawk -v BINMODE="w" '1' infile >outfile

# Use "tr" instead. tr -d \r outfile # GNU tr version 1.22 or higher

# delete leading whitespace (spaces, tabs) from front of each line # aligns all text flush left
awk '{sub(/^[ \t]+/, ""); print}'
# delete trailing whitespace (spaces, tabs) from end of each line
awk '{sub(/[ \t]+$/, "");print}'
# delete BOTH leading and trailing whitespace from each line
awk '{gsub(/^[ \t]+|[ \t]+$/,"");print}'
awk '{$1=$1;print}' # also removes extra space between fields

# insert 5 blank spaces at beginning of each line (make page offset)
awk '{sub(/^/, " ");print}'

# align all text flush right on a 79-column width
awk '{printf "%79s\n", $0}' file*

# center all text on a 79-character width
awk '{l=length();s=int((79-l)/2); printf "%"(s+l)"s\n",$0}' file*

# substitute (find and replace) "foo" with "bar" on each line
awk '{sub(/foo/,"bar");print}' # replaces only 1st instance
gawk '{$0=gensub(/foo/,"bar",4);print}' # replaces only 4th instance
awk '{gsub(/foo/,"bar");print}' # replaces ALL instances in a line

# substitute "foo" with "bar" ONLY for lines which contain "baz"
awk '/baz/{gsub(/foo/, "bar")};{print}'

# substitute "foo" with "bar" EXCEPT for lines which contain "baz"
awk '!/baz/{gsub(/foo/, "bar")};{print}'

# change "scarlet" or "ruby" or "puce" to "red"
awk '{gsub(/scarlet|ruby|puce/, "red"); print}'
# reverse order of lines (emulates "tac")
awk '{a[i++]=$0} END {for (j=i-1; j>=0;) print a[j--] }' file*
# if a line ends with a backslash, append the next line to it # (fails if there are multiple lines ending with backslash...)
awk '/\\$/ {sub(/\\$/,""); getline t; print $0 t; next}; 1' file*
# print and sort the login names of all users
awk -F ":" '{ print $1 | "sort" }' /etc/passwd
# print the first 2 fields, in opposite order, of every line
awk '{print $2, $1}' file
# switch the first 2 fields of every line
awk '{temp = $1; $1 = $2; $2 = temp}' file
# print every line, deleting the second field of that line
awk '{ $2 = ""; print }'
# print in reverse order the fields of every line
awk '{for (i=NF; i>0; i--) printf("%s ",i);printf ("\n")}' file
# remove duplicate, consecutive lines (emulates "uniq")
awk 'a !~ $0; {a=$0}'
# remove duplicate, nonconsecutive lines
awk '! a[$0]++' # most concise script
awk '!($0 in a) {a[$0];print}' # most efficient script
# concatenate every 5 lines of input, using a comma separator # between fields
awk 'ORS=%NR%5?",":"\n"' file


SELECTIVE PRINTING OF CERTAIN LINES:
# print first 10 lines of file (emulates behavior of "head")
awk 'NR < 11'
# print first line of file (emulates "head -1")
awk 'NR>1{exit};1'
# print the last 2 lines of a file (emulates "tail -2")
awk '{y=x "\n" $0; x=$0};END{print y}'
# print the last line of a file (emulates "tail -1")
awk 'END{print}'
# print only lines which match regular expression (emulates "grep")
awk '/regex/'
# print only lines which do NOT match regex (emulates "grep -v")
awk '!/regex/'
# print the line immediately before a regex, but not the line # containing the regex
awk '/regex/{print x};{x=$0}'
awk '/regex/{print (x=="" ? "match on line 1" : x)};{x=$0}'
# print the line immediately after a regex, but not the line # containing the regex
awk '/regex/{getline;print}'
# grep for AAA and BBB and CCC (in any order)
awk '/AAA/; /BBB/; /CCC/'
# grep for AAA and BBB and CCC (in that order)
awk '/AAA.*BBB.*CCC/'
# print only lines of 65 characters or longer
awk 'length > 64'
# print only lines of less than 65 characters
awk 'length < 64'
# print section of file from regular expression to end of file
awk '/regex/,0'
awk '/regex/,EOF'
# print section of file based on line numbers (lines 8-12, inclusive)
awk 'NR==8,NR==12'
# print line number 52
awk 'NR==52'
awk 'NR==52 {print;exit}' # more efficient on large files
# print section of file between two regular expressions (inclusive)
awk '/Iowa/,/Montana/' # case sensitive

SELECTIVE DELETION OF CERTAIN LINES:
# delete ALL blank lines from a file (same as "grep '.' ")
awk NF
awk '/./'