Control flow statements

awk provides if, if-else, while, do-while, for, and ? statements, and statement grouping with braces. The syntax of these constructs is similar to that of the C programming language, but their usage is similar to the shell constructs covered in ``Automating frequent tasks''. In particular, if, if-else and ? are branching constructs and while, do-while, and for are looping constructs. There is no equivalent of the shell case and select statements.