6.1.1 Numeric and String Constants

A numeric constant stands for a number. This number can be an integer, a decimal fraction, or a number in scientific (exponential) notation.(20) Here are some examples of numeric constants that all have the same value:

105 1.05e+2 1050e-1

A string constant consists of a sequence of characters enclosed in double quote marks. For example:

"parrot"

represents the string whose contents are `parrot'. Strings in gawk can be of any length, and they can contain any of the possible eight-bit ASCII characters including ASCII NUL (character code zero). Other awk implementations may have difficulty with some character codes.