Info Catalog gawk: Constants gawk: Nondecimal-numbers

gawk: Scalar Constants

 
 6.1.1.1 Numeric and String Constants
 ....................................
 
 A "numeric constant" stands for a number.  This number can be an
 integer, a decimal fraction, or a number in scientific (exponential)
 notation.(1)  Here are some examples of numeric constants that all have
 the same value:
 
      105
      1.05e+2
      1050e-1
 
    A "string constant" consists of a sequence of characters enclosed in
 double quotation marks.  For example:
 
      "parrot"
 
 represents the string whose contents are 'parrot'.  Strings in 'gawk'
 can be of any length, and they can contain any of the possible eight-bit
 ASCII characters, including ASCII NUL (character code zero).  Other
 'awk' implementations may have difficulty with some character codes.
 
    ---------- Footnotes ----------
 
    (1) The internal representation of all numbers, including integers,
 uses double-precision floating-point numbers.  On most modern systems,
 these are in IEEE 754 standard format.  Arbitrary Precision
 Arithmetic, for much more information.
 

Info Catalog gawk: Constants gawk: Nondecimal-numbers