README:

This is GNU Awk 3.0.4. It should be upwardly compatible with the Bell
Labs research version of awk.  It is almost completely compliant with
the 1993 POSIX 1003.2 standard for awk. (See the note below about POSIX.)

Patches 1 through 4 just fix bugs -- see NEWS and ChangeLog for details.

See the file INSTALL for installation instructions.

Known problems are given in the PROBLEMS file.  Work to be done is
described briefly in the FUTURES file.  Verified ports are listed in
the PORTS file.  Changes in this version are summarized in the NEWS file.
Please read the LIMITATIONS and ACKNOWLEDGMENT files.

Read the file POSIX for a discussion of how the standard says comparisons
should be done vs. how they really should be done and how gawk does them.
  
To format the documentation with TeX, use at least version 2.151 of
texinfo.tex. There is a usable copy of texinfo.tex in the doc directory.

The Info file now comes with the distribution.

The man page is up to date.

INSTALLATION:

Check whether there is a system-specific README file for your system
under the `README_d' directory.  If there's something there that you
should have read and didn't, and you bug me about it, I'm going to yell
at you.

See the file INSTALL.

If you have neither bison nor yacc, use the awktab.c file here.  It was
generated with bison, and has no proprietary code in it.  (Note that modifying
awk.y without bison or yacc will be difficult, at best.  You might want
to get a copy of bison from the FSF too.)
  
If you have an MS-DOS or OS/2 system, use the stuff in the `pc' directory.
Similarly, there are separate directories for Ataris, Amigas, and VMS.

Appendix B of The GNU Awk User's Guide discusses configuration in detail. The
configuration process is now based on Autoconf, so the whole business
should be considerably simpler than it was in gawk 2.X.Y.

After successful compilation, do 'make check' to run a small test
suite.  There should be no output from the 'cmp' invocations except in
the cases where there are small differences in floating point values,
and possibly in the case of strftime. Several of the tests ignore
errors on purpose; those are not a problem.  If there are other
differences, please investigate and report the problem.

PRINTING THE MANUAL

The 'doc' directory contains a recent version of texinfo.tex, which will be
necessary for printing the manual.  Use `make dvi' to get a DVI file from
the manual. In the `doc' directory, use `make postscript' to get a PostScript
version of the manual.

BUG REPORTS AND FIXES (Un*x systems):

Please coordinate changes through Arnold Robbins. In particular, see
the section in the manual on reporting bugs. Note that comp.lang.awk is
about the worst place to post a gawk bug report. Please, use the mechanisms
outlined in the manual.

Arnold Robbins
INTERNET:	arnold@gnu.org

BUG REPORTS AND FIXES (non-Unix ports):

MS-DOS:
	Scott Deifik
	scottd@amgen.com

	Darrel Hankerson
	hankedr@mail.auburn.edu

VMS:
	Pat Rankin
	rankin@eql.caltech.edu

Alpha/Linux:
	Michal Jaegermann
	michal@gortel.phys.ualberta.ca

OS/2:
	Kai Uwe Rommel
	rommel@ars.de

Amiga:
	Fred Fish
	fnf@ninemoons.com
