QEQem·Dec 19, 2024
There was actually attempts to recreate Awk inside Python. See https://github.com/alecthomas/pawk
In Half My Life with Perlalecthomas
pawk
Python2013–2024
alecthomas / pawk
pawk
PAWK - A Python line processor (like AWK)
11Distinct people
14Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
524GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
PAWK - A Python line processor (like AWK)
GitHub
Where it is used
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What people are saying
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Also in these discussions
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 12:54:37 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year14 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2013-02-21 02:37:49 UTC to 2024-12-19 15:51:00 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 2 | 3 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
What Hacker News says
14 sourcesUsing C would tie the run-time/compiled implimentation to specific set of platforms/hardware. aka each hardware platform would have it's own specific compiled C quirks/issues to deal with. aka big endian / little endian; 16/32 bit; etc.
A virutal machine is typically what is used when not targeting an actual machine/hardware. aka runtime environment.
Transpiling the language to java or webassembly would provide for wider range of hardware/platform support without requiring specific knowlege compiled C platform quirks -- big endian/little endian machine. Although, transpiling to awk with system() & named pipes/netcat, perl, javascript, and/or creating an excell 16 bit cpu[7]/virtual pc could work too.
"1st class"[0] concept implies there are no restrictions on where given language construct/concept can be used. for example: which side of
Read the rest
the assignment operator a programming language concept/construct can be used.
"type inference"[1] is typically an interpreted/virtual machine language feature. aka C++ run time type inference (rtti) is done via instance of a virtual machine.
namespace / scoping is important aspect of modularity / avoiding code coloring issues / automatic translation between formats / 'reactivity'[2]
XL[3], oils/ysh[4], unicorn[5]/unicorn.js[6], awkgo[8], pawk[9] might be of interest.
Would suggest using ' JS/Ocaml/Rust' implimented/running under python (and/or bindings to ocaml/rust).
A related example/demo of this approach would be awk running under go[8] or python[9].
This approach would make it bit easier to experiement with doing modifications/customizations/extensions to 'js/ocaml/rust'.
Permits leveraging things that have already been written. aka editors/debuggers/graphics libraries etc.
Instead of going the 'super' environment, gawk extentions/additions to awk take the extend the 'sub-environment' direction[10] via extensions support for c/c++
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[0] : https://medium.com/ryanjang-devnotes/who-is-first-class-citi...
[1] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_inference
[2] : https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/reactive-programming-principl...
[3] : https://xlr.sourceforge.io/
[4] : https://www.oilshell.org/
[5] : http://www.unicon.org/
[6] : https://alexaltea.github.io/unicorn.js/
[7] : https://github.com/InkboxSoftware/excelCPU
[8] : https://benhoyt.com/writings/goawk/
[9] : https://github.com/alecthomas/pawk
[10] : https://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/html_node/Dynamic-E...
"From Memex to Hypercard"[0][1] might be insiteful digression related to 'spreadsheet architecture'.
Just keep in mind how libraries worked before the advent of the computer.
Decker[2][3] current modern take on hypercard.
various types of spreadheets with user interface (vs. use editor with a plain tabular text file):
teapot : https://www.syntax-k.de/projekte/teapot/
visicalc : https://www.visidata.org/
sc-m : https://github.com/andmarti1424/sc-im
or mix files & manipulating 'spreadsheet' text files, gawk[4], webawk[5], python awk[6].
not as compact as excel, but diy gui for awk[7] with screen[8]/menu[9] or gui design courses[10]
informal discussion about moving beyond 'text' files: https://twitter.com/llama_index/status/1733653470987825452
--------
[0] : https://elearningindustry.com/memex-hypercard
[1] : https://en.wikipedia
Read the rest
.org/wiki/As_We_May_Think
[2] : https://beyondloom.com/decker/index.html
[3] : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33377964
[4] gawk : https://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/
[5] webawk :
a) https://github.com/agordon/webawk / https://agordon.github.io/webawk/
b) https://www.npmjs.com/package/awkjs
c) 'awk driven iot' : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14737978
[6] pawk : https://github.com/alecthomas/pawk
[7] https://github.com/chriskiehl/Gooey
[8] screen: https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-use-linux-screen/
[9] menu : https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/menu-driven-shell-script/
[10] HN suggested gui design courses : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38591437
https://github.com/alecthomas/pawk is also great, & auto imports any module that you use
In Show HN: Pypipe – A Python command-line tool for pipeline processingAlec Thomas wrote a script like this called pawk.py (https://github.com/alecthomas/pawk). It reads input automatically, and for each line, defines "n" and "f" to the line number and fields list (among other things). It even supports /regex/ patterns. Even the print is implicit. So the example above would be:
pawk '/^[A-Za-z]/ (n, f[1])'
By the way, triple backticks don't work on HN. You have to indent by 2 spaces to get a code block.
In The Awk book’s 60-line version of MakePAWK – A Python line processor (like Awk)
2 points · Open discussionPAWK: Full power of Python via Awk-like line-processing
2 points · Open discussionThere's also this for the Python fans:
https://github.com/alecthomas/pawk
In Frawk: A fast, JITted, statically-typed AWK written in RustName is already taken by python awk substitute:
https://github.com/alecthomas/pawk
In Running Awk in parallel to process 256M records> I would never want to write a python program for quick analysis of a log file when I can grep/sed/awk/sort/uniq my way to a solution.
Yeah but I would wager very few people actually know awk. I would also wager 90+% of awk programs are pasted directly from StackOverflow.
That's why I like the idea of pawk[1] - it's like awk, except with python syntax instead of some esoteric syntax that nobody knows.
[1] https://github.com/alecthomas/pawk
In Learn Just a Little Awk (2010)You may consider adding to awk-like group of programs pawk:
https://github.com/alecthomas/pawk
It gives you a more readable and concise way to select a colum, split it and sau snip out few characters.
In Magritte: A Language for Pipe-Based Programming [pdf]Good to have these things. See also https://github.com/Russell91/pythonpy and https://github.com/alecthomas/pawk
In Show HN: JPipe – sed/awk using js expressionsPAWK - A Python line processor (like AWK)
63 points · Open discussionI recently wrote PAWK (https://github.com/alecthomas/pawk) in order to give me Python at the command line. It's exactly what you think it is: Python AWK.
It's served me well so far.
In Python command line oneliners