Editing AWK (section)

=== Match a range of input lines ===
<syntaxhighlight lang="awk">
NR % 4 == 1, NR % 4 == 3 { printf "%6d  %s\n", NR, $0 }
</syntaxhighlight>
The action statement prints each line numbered. The printf function emulates the standard C [[printf]] and works similarly to the print command described above. The pattern to match, however, works as follows: ''NR'' is the number of records, typically lines of input, AWK has so far read, i.e. the current line number, starting at 1 for the first line of input. ''%'' is the [[modulo operation|modulo]] operator. ''NR % 4 == 1'' is true for the 1st, 5th, 9th, etc., lines of input. Likewise, ''NR % 4 == 3'' is true for the 3rd, 7th, 11th, etc., lines of input. The range pattern is false until the first part matches, on line 1, and then remains true up to and including when the second part matches, on line 3. It then stays false until the first part matches again on line 5.

Thus, the program prints lines 1,2,3, skips line 4, and then 5,6,7, and so on. For each line, it prints the line number (on a 6 character-wide field) and then the line contents. For example, when executed on this input:
 Rome
 Florence
 Milan
 Naples
 Turin
 Venice

The previous program prints:
      1 Rome
      2 Florence
      3 Milan
      5 Turin
      6 Venice

==== Printing the initial or the final part of a file ====
As a special case, when the first part of a range pattern is constantly true, e.g. ''1'', the range will start at the beginning of the input. Similarly, if the second part is constantly false, e.g. ''0'', the range will continue until the end of input. For example,
<syntaxhighlight lang="awk">
 /^--cut here--$/, 0
</syntaxhighlight>
prints lines of input from the first line matching the regular expression ''^--cut here--$'', that is, a line containing only the phrase "--cut here--", to the end.