How about awk?
Gnu AWK is pretty awesome! But can it be used for systems programming?
Click Here to find out! ==> https://github.com/arnoldrobbins/awk-sys-prog
I think GNU Awk (or MAWK??) is much better (and less harmful §) scripting language than Python when it's possible to use it (but sometimes it's not possible, for practical reasons). AWK is faster and the code is usually shorter (unless, Awk is not good for solving your problem). Awk is also part of POSIX, so it's present on all Lunix environments. The core POSIX Awk standard is also frozen, much like Common Lisp. And there just isn't a better language for pattern { action }
§ https://harmful.cat-v.org/software/
Some features of GAWK:
* POSIX Awk support plus Gnu Awk extensions
* network programming with sockets
* namespaces
* debugger and profiler
* Great manual that includes a tutorial (+ Effective AWK Programming book)
I recommend getting The AWK Programming Language 2nd edition: https://www.awk.dev/ (the O'reilly Sed & AWK book is also decent).
I also recommend these 2 sites:
* https://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Awk.html
* https://web.archive.org/web/20150205231223/http://awk.info/