{"id":54512,"date":"2022-08-24T03:00:02","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T03:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/unix-legend-who-owes-us-nothing-keeps-fixing-foundational-awk-code\/"},"modified":"2022-08-24T03:00:02","modified_gmt":"2022-08-24T03:00:02","slug":"unix-legend-who-owes-us-nothing-keeps-fixing-foundational-awk-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/unix-legend-who-owes-us-nothing-keeps-fixing-foundational-awk-code\/","title":{"rendered":"Unix legend, who owes us nothing, keeps fixing foundational AWK code"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"intro-image intro-left\">\n  <figcaption class=\"caption\">\n<div class=\"caption-text\">enlarge <span class=\"sep\">\/<\/span> Brian Kernighan speaking at a tribute to his Bell Labs coworker and <em>The C Programming Language<\/em> co-author Dennis Ritchie in 2012. Ritchie&#8217;s visage in dominoes is behind Kernighan.<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside id=\"social-left\" class=\"social-left\" aria-label=\"Read the comments or share this article\">\n<\/aside>\n<p><!-- cache hit 902:single\/related:b09845ae3bcf586400656d9153266b0e --><!-- empty --><\/p>\n<p>A Princeton professor, finding a little time for himself in the summer academic lull, emailed an old friend a couple months ago.  Brian Kernighan said hello, asked how their US visit was going, and dropped off hundreds of lines of code that could add Unicode support for AWK, the text-parsing tool he helped create for Unix at Bell Labs in 1977.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have tested this a fair amount but clearly more tests are needed,&#8221; Kernighan wrote in the email, posted in late May as a kind of pseudo-commit on the onetrueawk repo by longtime maintainer Arnold Robbins.  &#8220;Once I figure out how &#8230; I will try to submit a pull request. I wish I understood go better, but in spite of your help, I still don&#8217;t have a proper understanding, so this may take a while.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Kernighan is the &#8220;K&#8221; in AWK, a special-purpose language for extracting and manipulating language that was key to Unix&#8217;s pipeline features and interoperability between systems.  a working <code>awk<\/code> function (AWK is the language, <code>awk<\/code> the command to invoke it) is critical to both Standard UNIX Specification and IEEE POSIX certification for interoperability.  There are countless variants of <code>awk<\/code>\u2014including modern derivations with support for Unicode\u2014but &#8220;One True AWK,&#8221; sometimes known as <code>nawk<\/code>is a kind of canonical version based on Kernighan&#8217;s 1985 book <em>The AWK Programming Language<\/em> and his subsequent input.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"image shortcode-img center full\" style=\"width:300px\"><img alt=\"Copies of <em>The C Programming Language<\/em> in their native campus bookstore environment, written by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie (RIP).&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/c-programming.jpg&#8221; width=&#8221;300&#8243; height=&#8221;169&#8243;\/><figcaption class=\"caption\">\n<p>copies of <em>The C Programming Language<\/em> in their native campus bookstore environment, written by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie (RIP).<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Kernighan is also the &#8220;K&#8221; in &#8220;K&#038;R C,&#8221; the foundational 1978 book <em>The C Programming Language <\/em>he cowrote with Dennis Ritchie that sticks with programmers, mentally and in dog-eared paper form.  C&#8217;s roots go much deeper.  Kernighan had been teaching C to workers at Bell Labs and convinced its creator, Ritchie, to collaborate on a book to spread the knowledge.  That book gave birth to &#8220;the one true brace style,&#8221; the endless debate that goes with it, and the structure underpinning every modern programming language.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad_wrapper\" aria-label=\"In Content advertisement\">\n    <span class=\"ad_notice\">Advertisement <\/span>    <\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Kernighan also named Unix and first demonstrated the &#8220;Hello, world&#8221; code example.  He spoke with Ars Technica&#8217;s Richard Jensen for a 50th anniversary history of Unix.<\/p>\n<p>The onetrueawk repository, where Kernighan appeared in late May, is a relatively quiet place, with 21 contributors, 46 GitHub users watching, and commits coming every few months.  As noted by The Register, Kernighan&#8217;s Unicode fix came to light mostly because it was mentioned in an interview with the professor by YouTube channel Computerphile.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"video\">\n<p><div class=\"ast-oembed-container\" style=\"height: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Coffee with Brian Kernighan - Computerphile\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GNyQxXw_oMQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<figcaption class=\"caption\">\n<p>My favorite video.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s always been an embarrassment that AWK only worked with ASCII, or maybe 8-bit inputs, but it doesn&#8217;t really handle Unicode at all,&#8221; Kernighan tells interviewer professor David Brailsford.  &#8220;A few months ago, I spent some time working with (laughs) an incredibly old program. I have it at this point where it will actually handle UTF-8 input and output so that you can have regular expressions that, you know, pick up Japanese characters, things like that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Kernighan, now 80, offhandedly mentions in the interview that he has also patched something &#8220;quick and dirty&#8221; to let AWK handle CSV files.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>enlarge \/ Brian Kernighan speaking at a tribute to his Bell Labs coworker and The C Programming Language co-author Dennis Ritchie in 2012. Ritchie&#8217;s visage in dominoes is behind Kernighan. A Princeton professor, finding a little time for himself in the summer academic lull, emailed an old friend a couple months ago. Brian Kernighan said &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/unix-legend-who-owes-us-nothing-keeps-fixing-foundational-awk-code\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Unix legend, who owes us nothing, keeps fixing foundational AWK code<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9035,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/brian-maclellan-says-trade-of-vitek-vanecek-the-first-step-in-the-process-to-make-a-change\/","url_meta":{"origin":54512,"position":0},"title":"Brian MacLellan says trade of Vitek Vanecek the &#8216;first step in the process to make a change&#8217;","date":"July 9, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Washington Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan spoke from the floor of Bell Center after the 2022 NHL Draft ended. The biggest news from the Capitals' two days north of the border was that they dealt Vitek Vanecek to division rival New Jersey for two draft picks. According to Mac, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sports&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":46054,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/machine-learning-concluded-did-the-no-code-tools-beat-manual-analysis\/","url_meta":{"origin":54512,"position":1},"title":"Machine learning, concluded: Did the \u201cno-code\u201d tools beat manual analysis?","date":"August 15, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Aurich Lawson | Getty Images I am not a data scientist. And while I know my way around a Jupyter notebook and have written a good amount of Python code, I do not profess to be anything close to a machine learning expert. So when I performed the first part\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"Examples of the different kernel containers available in Studio.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/sean-aiml3-01.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14278,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/leveon-bell-hints-at-retirement-suggests-hed-like-a-time-machine-to-handle-2018-divorce-from-steelers-differently\/","url_meta":{"origin":54512,"position":2},"title":"Le&#8217;Veon Bell hints at retirement, suggests he&#8217;d like &#8216;a time machine&#8217; to handle 2018 divorce from Steelers differently","date":"July 14, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"A day after saying he'd be staying away from football this year to concentrate on boxing, former Steeler Le'Veon Bell now sounds like a player who is on the cusp of retirement. He also sounds like a man with a lot of regrets. In a long Instagram post Wednesday, Bell\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sports&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":40257,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/lamont-dozier-motown-songwriter-of-countless-classics-dead-at-81\/","url_meta":{"origin":54512,"position":3},"title":"Lamont Dozier, Motown Songwriter of Countless Classics, Dead at 81","date":"August 9, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Lamont Dozier, the Motown songwriter and producer who helped craft hits for artists such as the Supremes, the Four Tops, and the Isley Brothers, has died. He was 81. The news was confirmed by his son, Lamont Dozier Jr., who wrote on Instagram, \u201cRest in Heavenly Peace, Dad!\u201d A cause\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Entertainment&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":60393,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/brian-daboll-kenny-golladay-has-done-what-weve-asked-him-to-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":54512,"position":4},"title":"Brian Daboll: Kenny Golladay has done what we&#8217;ve asked him to do","date":"August 30, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"\r \r \r Getty Images Kenny Golladay surely will remain on the Giants' roster Tuesday evening but because of his contract. The receiver's $17.5 million salary for the 2022 season is fully guaranteed.But the fact that he played in the third preseason game when most of the team's starters had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sports&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"NFL: DEC 26 Giants at Eagles","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/profootballtalk.nbcsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2022\/08\/GettyImages-1237438473-e1659440212469.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/7984191331_7273bf4173_o-760x380.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54512"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}