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  5. AWK vs JSON

AWK vs JSON

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

JSON
JSON
Stacks2.0K
Followers1.6K
Votes9
AWK
AWK
Stacks639
Followers49
Votes0
GitHub Stars2.1K
Forks181

AWK vs JSON: What are the differences?

# Introduction
This Markdown code will provide a comparison between AWK and JSON in terms of key differences.

1. **Data Structure**: AWK is a programming language specifically designed for text processing, allowing users to manipulate and extract data from structured text files. On the other hand, JSON is a lightweight data-interchange format that is used for transmitting data between a server and a web application in a readable format. 
   
2. **Usage**: AWK is often used for tasks like data extraction, reporting, and transforming text-based data, making it useful for processing log files or structured text. In contrast, JSON is primarily used for data communication between servers and web applications, providing a simple format for storing and exchanging data.

3. **Types of Data**: AWK deals with structured text data that can be pattern-matched and processed using its powerful text-processing capabilities. In contrast, JSON deals with unstructured data and is more commonly used for storing complex data structures like arrays and objects in a highly readable format.

4. **File Format**: AWK mainly operates on text files or streams, processing lines of text based on user-defined patterns and actions. JSON, on the other hand, can be stored in files with a .json extension and is often used to represent structured data in a more organized and hierarchical manner.

5. **Syntax**: AWK has a specific syntax with patterns, actions, and variables that allow users to filter and manipulate text data efficiently. JSON, on the other hand, follows a simple key-value pair structure with curly braces and colons to define objects and arrays.

6. **Extensibility**: AWK can be extended using user-defined functions, libraries, and modules to enhance its functionality and flexibility for complex text processing tasks. JSON is more rigid in its structure and does not support extensive modifications beyond its defined key-value pairs and data structures.

In Summary, AWK is tailored for text processing and data extraction from structured text files, while JSON is used for data interchange between servers and web applications in a readable format, differing in terms of data structure, usage, types of data, file format, syntax, and extensibility.

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Advice on JSON, AWK

Dhinesh
Dhinesh

architect

Jun 16, 2020

Needs adviceonJSONJSONPythonPython

Hi. Currently, I have a requirement where I have to create a new JSON file based on the input CSV file, validate the generated JSON file, and upload the JSON file into the application (which runs in AWS) using API. Kindly suggest the best language that can meet the above requirement. I feel Python will be better, but I am not sure with the justification of why python. Can you provide your views on this?

350k views350k
Comments
Justin
Justin

Open Source Program Manager at Reblaze

Aug 15, 2019

Review

If you have a file (demo.txt) that has 3 columns:

Column-1    Column-2    Column-3
Row-1a      Row-2a      Row-3a         
Row-1b      Row-2b      Row-3b
Row-1c      Row-2c      Row-3c
Row-1d      Row-2d      Row-3d
Row-1e      Row-2e      Row-3e

and you want to only view the first column of the file in your CLI, run the following:

awk {'print $1'} demo.txt

Column-1
Row-1a
Row-1b
Row-1c
Row-1d
Row-1e

If you want to print the second column of demo.txt, just replace $1 with $2

96.4k views96.4k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

JSON
JSON
AWK
AWK

JavaScript Object Notation is a lightweight data-interchange format. It is easy for humans to read and write. It is easy for machines to parse and generate. It is based on a subset of the JavaScript Programming Language.

A data-driven scripting language consisting of a set of actions to be taken against streams of textual data – either run directly on files or used as part of a pipeline – for purposes of extracting or transforming text, such as producing formatted reports.

Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
2.1K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
181
Stacks
2.0K
Stacks
639
Followers
1.6K
Followers
49
Votes
9
Votes
0
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 5
    Simple
  • 4
    Widely supported
No community feedback yet
Integrations
MongoDB
MongoDB
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL
MySQL
MySQL
JavaScript
JavaScript
JSON Server
JSON Server
JSONlite
JSONlite
GNU Bash
GNU Bash
Linux
Linux
macOS
macOS
Zsh (Z shell)
Zsh (Z shell)

What are some alternatives to JSON, AWK?

JavaScript

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

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