                                                        February 10, 1994

     This is GAWK version 2.15.4, released February, 1993.  GAWK is the
Free Software Foundation's implementation of the ``awk'' programming
language.  This version of GAWK is faster and more robust than the
previous ones (2.15.3, Nov., 1993; 2.14, Nov., 1992; 2.13.2, July, 1991;
2.11.1, Fall, 1989).

     'awk' is an interpretive programming language specializing in
pattern matching and text reformatting; it's a standardly available
tool on Unix systems.  Programs as short as a single line can perform
useful tasks.  Several examples are contained in _The_GAWK_Manual_.

     GAWK was compiled using VAX C V3.2 on a VMS V5.5-2 system, then
linked against VAX/VMS V5.1-1 run-time libraries.  It should be usable
as-is on VMS V5.1 and up.  The sources can be recompiled with VAX C
(version 2.3 or later), with GNU C (tested using 1.42 and 2.5.7), or
DEC C, for VAX/VMS, Alpha/VMS (aka OpenVMS AXP), or VMS POSIX.  It can
also be built as-is for a variety of Unix platforms, AtariSTs running
TOS, or PCs and compatibles running MSDOS.

     Documentation (_The_GAWK_Manual_, in TeX format) is in source file
[.src]gawk.texi.  The formatted output is roughly 210 pages.  There is
also a separate VMS help entry (found in [.src.vms]gawk.hlp) which tries
to summarize both the awk language and the gawk implementation.

     This software distribution is covered by the GNU Public License;
see the file COPYING in [.src].  The files in [.src...] are the complete
gawk-2.15.4.tar distribution.  The files [.obj] are the files created
while building the program.

                        Pat Rankin
                        Pactech Data and Research, Inc
                        c/o Environmental Quality Laboratory, Caltech
               Internet:  rankin@eql.caltech.edu
                 Bitnet:  rankin%eql@HAMLET.bitnet
             NSI/DECnet:  EQL::RANKIN  (EQL==14.970 or 15306)

