[9fans] Duff's rc paper: Why awk?

[markus schnalke]

Hoi,

I've read [0], which is enlightening btw, but there is one thing,
in Section 27, which I don't understand: Why is awk(1) used there?

        fn read{
                $1=`{awk '{print;exit}'}
        }

[0] http://static.tobold.org/rc/rc-duff.html

I rather would have used sed(1), which is less distracting in this
case:

        fn read{
                $1=`{sed q}
        }

This use of awk is unexpected to me, it draws my attention on it,
thus I'm searching for the strange hidden detail that might be
emphasized. (Such as the use of `if not' instead of `else'.) But I
can't find it.

Maybe there is no such hidden detail. Maybe there is no real
reason behind the use of awk here. I'm not really sure ...


meillo