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  5. AWK vs PHP

AWK vs PHP

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

PHP
PHP
Stacks147.4K
Followers82.9K
Votes4.6K
GitHub Stars39.6K
Forks8.0K
AWK
AWK
Stacks639
Followers49
Votes0
GitHub Stars2.1K
Forks181

AWK vs PHP: What are the differences?

Introduction

AWK and PHP are both powerful programming languages, each with its own unique features and applications. Understanding the key differences between the two can help developers choose the right tool for their specific needs.

  1. Syntax: One significant difference between AWK and PHP is their syntax. AWK uses a simple and concise syntax for text processing, making it ideal for tasks such as pattern matching and data extraction. On the other hand, PHP is a server-side scripting language with a more complex syntax that allows for dynamic content generation and interaction with databases.

  2. Primary Use: Another key difference between AWK and PHP is their primary use case. AWK is primarily used for text processing and manipulation, making it a popular choice for tasks such as data extraction, report generation, and log file analysis. In contrast, PHP is commonly used for web development, allowing developers to create dynamic websites, web applications, and interactive content.

  3. Platform Compatibility: AWK is a cross-platform tool that is available on most Unix-like operating systems, including Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD. It is also available on Windows through various ports. PHP, on the other hand, is designed specifically for web development and is widely supported on various web servers, including Apache and Nginx, making it a popular choice for building dynamic websites and web applications.

  4. Data Types: In terms of data types, AWK is primarily designed for handling text data, with built-in support for strings, numbers, and arrays. PHP, on the other hand, supports a wide range of data types, including strings, integers, floats, arrays, objects, and booleans, making it more versatile for handling complex data structures and operations.

  5. Extensibility: PHP offers a wide range of built-in functions and libraries for web development, allowing developers to easily extend the language's capabilities and integrate with various databases, frameworks, and external APIs. AWK, while powerful for text processing, lacks the same level of extensibility and may require additional scripting or external tools for more complex tasks.

  6. Community Support: PHP has a large and active community of developers, contributing to a vast ecosystem of libraries, frameworks, and resources that make it easier to find solutions to common problems and stay up-to-date with the latest developments in web development. AWK, while widely used for text processing, may have a smaller and more specialized community, which could impact the availability of support and resources for new users.

In Summary, understanding the key differences between AWK and PHP in terms of syntax, primary use, platform compatibility, data types, extensibility, and community support can help developers choose the right tool for their specific needs.

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Advice on PHP, AWK

Kyle
Kyle

Web Application Developer at Fortinet

Jun 2, 2020

Decided

Node continues to be dominant force in the world of web apps, with it's signature async first non-blocking IO, and frankly mind bending speeds. PHP and Python are formable tools, I chose Node for the simplicity of Express as a good and performant server side API gateway platform, that works well with Angular.

394k views394k
Comments
Octavian
Octavian

Software Engineer

May 26, 2020

Decided

Both PHP and Python are free but when it comes to web development PHP wins for sure. There is no doubt that Python is a powerful language but it is not optimal for web. PHP has issues... of course; but so does any other language.

Another reason I chose PHP is for community - it has one of the most resourceful communities from the internet and for a good reason: it evolved with the language itself.

The fact that OOP evolved so much in PHP makes me keep it for good :)

377k views377k
Comments
Davit
Davit

Apr 11, 2020

Needs advice

Hi everyone, I have just started to study web development, so I'm very new in this field. I would like to ask you which tools are most updated and good to use for getting a job in medium-big company. Front-end is basically not changing by time so much (as I understood by researching some info), so my question is about back-end tools. Which backend tools are most updated and requested by medium-big companies (I am searching for immediate job possibly)?

Thank you in advance Davit

390k views390k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

PHP
PHP
AWK
AWK

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

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
39.6K
GitHub Stars
2.1K
GitHub Forks
8.0K
GitHub Forks
181
Stacks
147.4K
Stacks
639
Followers
82.9K
Followers
49
Votes
4.6K
Votes
0
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 954
    Large community
  • 820
    Open source
  • 767
    Easy deployment
  • 487
    Great frameworks
  • 387
    The best glue on the web
Cons
  • 21
    So easy to learn, good practices are hard to find
  • 16
    Inconsistent API
  • 8
    Fragmented community
  • 6
    Not secure
  • 3
    No routing system
No community feedback yet
Integrations
Laravel
Laravel
JavaScript
JavaScript
GNU Bash
GNU Bash
Linux
Linux
macOS
macOS
Zsh (Z shell)
Zsh (Z shell)

What are some alternatives to PHP, 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.

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.

Swift

Swift

Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C.

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