record

The awk utility divides its input into records and fields.

By default, each line of input is treated as a single record

By default, the awk processor treats each line of its input as a single record (or rows of data).

Records are separated by a record separator character

Records are actually separated according to the record separator character. This has a default value of [[newline?]], which is why awk treats each line as a record by default.

It is possible to change the record separator

By changing the value of the record separator, it is possible to change the way that input is divided into records.