It's also worth mentioning that local variables can be simulated using additional formal parameters. In AWK, any missing parameter in a function call is initial

It's also worth mentioning that local variables can be simulated using additional formal parameters. In AWK, any missing parameter in a function call is initialized to zero. Let's say we have a function CharCount which takes a character and a line of text and returns the number of occurrences of that character: function CharCount(ch, line, n) { ... } The line break in the parameter list is an AWK convention and indicates that n is a "local variable."