GoAWK is a great tool. Added benefit of POSIX-compliance, it builds FAST, and is just generally much more reliable and enjoyable to work with. I'll be honest,

GoAWK is a great tool. Added benefit of POSIX-compliance, it builds FAST, and is just generally much more reliable and enjoyable to work with. I'll be honest, I'm still quick to reach for perl/python for most awk-able tasks, but, I'm often impressed with Awk and its ilk.