"Chris F.A. Johnson" <cfajohnson@gmail.com> (05-11-03 00:53:24):

>    Most systems have PERL and Python installed.


Most systems come with Perl, Python and TCL.  All GNU systems (therefore
almost all Linux distributions) come with M4 preinstalled, but it's not
a very practical language.  There are also special-purpose scripting
languages like 'bc', 'dc', 'sed', makefiles and, as you said, AWK.  bc,
dc, awk and sed are generally installed on all POSIX-compatible systems,
but may be missing on some minimal systems like rescue disks.  Also the
Bourne Shell language must be provided by any POSIX-compatible system.

There are much too many to list here.  Here is a small table:

POSIX MANPAGE      NAME         PURPOSE
----- ------------ ------------ --------------------------------------
yes   sh(1)        Bourne Shell System command processing
yes   bc(1)        bc           Arbitrary prec. arithmetic (algebraic)
yes   dc(1)        dc           Arbitrary prec. arithmetic (RPN)
yes   sed(1)       sed          Simple text manipulation
yes   awk(1)       AWK          Complex text manipulation
no    m4(1)        M4           Macro expansion
no    perlintro(1) PERL         General purpose
no    python(1)    Python       General purpose
no    Tcl(n)       TCL          General purpose
no    make(1)      Make         Automatic project updating
----- ------------ ------------ --------------------------------------

Regards.

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