It would look better if it wasn't all on one line (could be just the way HN is displaying it).
Essentially, awk is a C like syntax with a bit of built in parsing, and a built in loop. It breaks up each input line into fields (by default using whitespace as a delimiter). The fields are dereferenced using the '$' character ($1, $2, etc).
Then, for each line of the input, the entire program gets run. The awk program consists of a conditional (basically the body of an "if" statement -- the if is implied). If that conditional is matched, the C-like program segment following it (enclosed in curly braces) gets executed. And the contents of the curly braces is basically interpreted/scripted C.
Two special conditions exist in awk -- BEGIN and END. They are evaluated (and the contents of their matching curly braces are executed) before, and after (respectively) any lines of input are read.
Hope that helps give you a start on awk -- it is a really powerful tool.
Edit: so as a quick walkthrough:
Before any lines of the input text are read in, RS and FS variables get set. Then, for each line where field 1 matches the regular expression L337.*9$, and field 2 contains the word Honda, etc... it prints (outputs) the contents of field 4 (print $4).
Ok, so in addition to normal C like syntax, this example contains regular expression matching too. But other than that (and some other variables that automatically get set, like NR for number of records, NF for number of fields in the current line), most of awk programs look like C.
Essentially, awk is a C like syntax with a bit of built in parsing, and a built in loop. It breaks up each input line into fields (by default using whitespace as a delimiter). The fields are dereferenced using the '$' character ($1, $2, etc).
Then, for each line of the input, the entire program gets run. The awk program consists of a conditional (basically the body of an "if" statement -- the if is implied). If that conditional is matched, the C-like program segment following it (enclosed in curly braces) gets executed. And the contents of the curly braces is basically interpreted/scripted C.
Two special conditions exist in awk -- BEGIN and END. They are evaluated (and the contents of their matching curly braces are executed) before, and after (respectively) any lines of input are read.
Hope that helps give you a start on awk -- it is a really powerful tool.
Edit: so as a quick walkthrough: Before any lines of the input text are read in, RS and FS variables get set. Then, for each line where field 1 matches the regular expression L337.*9$, and field 2 contains the word Honda, etc... it prints (outputs) the contents of field 4 (print $4).
Ok, so in addition to normal C like syntax, this example contains regular expression matching too. But other than that (and some other variables that automatically get set, like NR for number of records, NF for number of fields in the current line), most of awk programs look like C.