B.3.3.5 Using gawk In The Cygwin Environment

gawk can be used “out of the box” under Windows if you are using the Cygwin environment.¹ This environment provides an excellent simulation of Unix, using the GNU tools, such as bash, the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), GNU Make, and other GNU tools. Compilation and installation for Cygwin is the same as for a Unix system:

     tar -xvpzf gawk-3.1.4.tar.gz
     cd gawk-3.1.4
     ./configure
     make

When compared to GNU/Linux on the same system, the `configure' step on Cygwin takes considerably longer. However, it does finish, and then the `make' proceeds as usual.

NOTE: The `|&' operator and TCP/IP networking (see TCP/IP Networking) are fully supported in the Cygwin environment. This is not true for any other environment for MS-DOS or MS-Windows.