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Public service announcement about dependencies on gawk



I've seen a lot of cases over the years of packages depending on gawk
that do not need it.  If you only need a standard nawk (new awk), you do
not need to depend on gawk.  mawk is smaller and faster and sufficient
for almost all needs, and the existence of some awk on the system is
guaranteed by base-files.

If your script does require some feature that is not available in mawk
or original-awk, you explicitly need to call gawk, since /usr/bin/awk is
an alternative and you cannot assume that it will point to gawk.

-- 
brian m. carlson / brian with sandals: Houston, Texas, US
+1 832 623 2791 | http://www.crustytoothpaste.net/~bmc | My opinion only
OpenPGP: RSA v4 4096b: 88AC E9B2 9196 305B A994 7552 F1BA 225C 0223 B187

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