Using Conditional Statements

You’ve already been using if constructs without even knowing it. That’s because you don’t have to explicitly declare them as such. The simple /kernel/ command that you just saw in the awk_kernel1.awk script means that if the kernel string is found on a line, then print that line. However, awk also offers the whole array of programming constructs that you would expect to see in other languages. For example, let’s create the awk_kernel2.awk script, which will look like this:

#!/usr/bin/awk -f
{
        if (/kernel/) {
                print $0
        }
}

This is somewhat different from what you’re used to seeing in bash scripts, because in awk there’s no need to use then or fi statements. This is because awk uses C language syntax for its programming constructs. So, if you’re used to programming in C, rejoice!

Also, note how you need to surround the pattern with a pair of parentheses, and how...