The AWK programming language is designed for text processing and is extremely
capable in this endeavor. However, the awk command is not ideal for rapid shell
use, with its requisite quoting of a line wrapped in curly braces, even for
the simplest of programs.
Likewise, cut is far from ideal for rapid shell use, because of its confusing
syntax. Field separators and ranges are just plain difficult to get right on
the first try.
It is for these reasons that I present to you choose. It is not meant to be a
drop-in or complete replacement for either of the aforementioned tools, but
rather a simple and intuitive tool to reach for when the basics of awk or cut
will do, but the overhead of getting them to behave should not be necessary.
568438cdc5