Regular expressions in AWK

Regular expressions in AWK are patterns used to identify specific text within data. Think of them as search tools that match strings based on rules, such as certain characters, words, or formats. When processing text, AWK uses regular expressions to find lines or parts of lines that fit these patterns, enabling powerful data filtering, extraction, or manipulation. They are flexible and can range from simple matches like a specific word to complex patterns representing dates, phone numbers, or other structures. Overall, regular expressions help AWK efficiently analyze and process text-based data.