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Include other files in the GAWK program (using @include)

This is a feature that is specific to GAWK. The @include keyword can be used to read external AWK source files and load in your running program before execution. Using this feature, we can split large AWK source files into smaller programs and also reuse common AWK code from various AWK scripts. It is useful for grouping together various AWK functions in a file and creating function libraries, using the @include keyword and including it in your program. It is similar to the -i option, which we discussed earlier.

It is important to note that the filename needs to be a literal string constant in double quotes.

The following example illustrates this. We'll create two AWK scripts, inc1 and inc2. Here is the inc1 script:

$ vi inc1
BEGIN { print "This is inc1." }

And now we create inc2, which includes inc1, using the @include keyword:

$ vi inc2
@include "inc1"
BEGIN { print "This is inc2." }

$ gawk -f  inc2

On executing GAWK with inc2, we get the following output:

This is inc1.
This is inc2.

So, to include external AWK source files, we just use @include followed by the name of the file to be included, enclosed in double quotes. The files to be included may be nested. For example, create a third script, inc3, that will include inc2:

$ vi inc3
@include "inc2"
BEGIN {  print "This is inc3." }

$ gawk -f inc3

On execution of GAWK with the inc3 script, we get the following results:

This is inc1.
This is inc2.
This is inc3.

The filename can be a relative path or an absolute path. For example:

@include "/home/usr/scripts/inc1"

This can also be performed as follows:

@include "../inc1"

Since AWK has the ability to specify multiple -f options on the command line, the @include mechanism is not strictly necessary. However, the @include keyword can help you in constructing self-contained GAWK programs, and eliminates the need to write complex command lines repetitively.