File: gawk.info,  Node: Extracting,  Next: Distribution contents,  Prev: Getting,  Up: Gawk Distribution

B.1.2 Extracting the Distribution
---------------------------------

'gawk' is distributed as several 'tar' files compressed with different
compression programs: 'gzip', 'bzip2', and 'xz'.  For simplicity, the
rest of these instructions assume you are using the one compressed with
the GNU Gzip program ('gzip').

   Once you have the distribution (e.g., 'gawk-5.2.1.tar.gz'), use
'gzip' to expand the file and then use 'tar' to extract it.  You can use
the following pipeline to produce the 'gawk' distribution:

     gzip -d -c gawk-5.2.1.tar.gz | tar -xvpf -

   On a system with GNU 'tar', you can let 'tar' do the decompression
for you:

     tar -xvpzf gawk-5.2.1.tar.gz

Extracting the archive creates a directory named 'gawk-5.2.1' in the
current directory.

   The distribution file name is of the form 'gawk-V.R.P.tar.gz'.  The V
represents the major version of 'gawk', the R represents the current
release of version V, and the P represents a "patch level", meaning that
minor bugs have been fixed in the release.  The current patch level is
1, but when retrieving distributions, you should get the version with
the highest version, release, and patch level.  (Note, however, that
patch levels greater than or equal to 60 denote "beta" or nonproduction
software; you might not want to retrieve such a version unless you don't
mind experimenting.)  If you are not on a Unix or GNU/Linux system, you
need to make other arrangements for getting and extracting the 'gawk'
distribution.  You should consult a local expert.