Skipping grep when using AWK

Over the years, We've seen many people use this pattern (filter-map):

$ [data is generated] | grep something | awk '{print $2}'

but it can be shortened to:

$ [data is generated] | awk '/something/ {print $2}'

You (probably) don't need grep

Following this logic, you can replace a simple grep with:

$ [data is generated] | awk '/something/'

This will implicitly print lines that match the regular expression.

If you feel lost, Here are a series of posts about awk for you:

• Why Learn AWK
• Tutorial Part 1
• Tutorial Part 2
• Tutorial Part 3

Why would you want to do this?

There are a number of reasons:

• it's shorter to type
• it spawns one less process
• awk uses modern (read "Perl") regular expressions, by default - like grep -E
• it's ready to "augment" with more awk

What about grep -v?

grep -v can be done with:

$ [data is generated] | awk '! /something/'

Reference: jpalardy.com