Which scripting language is used for manipulating data and generating reports?

The choice of awk as the correct answer is based on its specific design and functionality for data manipulation and report generation. Awk is a powerful text-processing language that excels at pattern matching and data extraction from structured data files, such as CSV or TSV formats. It allows users to easily perform operations on input text streams, including searching, filtering, and transforming data.

Awk operates on a line-by-line basis, applying defined patterns and actions to each line, which is particularly useful for generating reports based on the processed input. For instance, you can easily sum columns, print specific fields, or format output to create structured reports, making it a favored tool for system administrators and data analysts.

While Python, bash, and Perl are also capable scripting languages used for data manipulation and report generation, their broader capabilities and complexity can make them less specialized for these tasks compared to awk. Python, for example, is a general-purpose programming language that requires external libraries for data manipulation tasks, and bash scripting is more oriented towards controlling workflows and executing commands in the Linux shell. Perl, while powerful in text processing, is generally seen as more complex than awk for straightforward data manipulation tasks.