File: gawk.info,  Node: Using extensions,  Next: wc program,  Prev: Bytes vs. Characters,  Up: Wc Program

11.2.7.2 A Brief Introduction To Extensions
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Loadable extensions are presented in full detail in *note Dynamic
Extensions::.  They provide a way to add functions to 'gawk' which can
call out to other facilities written in C or C++.

   For the purposes of 'wc.awk', it's enough to know that the extension
is loaded with the '@load' directive, and the additional function we
will use is called 'mbs_length()'.  This function returns the number of
bytes in a string, not the number of characters.

   The '"mbs"' extension comes from the 'gawkextlib' project.  *Note
gawkextlib:: for more information.