[aprssig] Programming Language Advice

[Ray Wells]

I'm seeking advice from members of the list as to which would be the 
best programming language to use to massage a string of data so that 
it's suitable to upload as aprs weather info.

This is the data string I have to work with from a nearby professional 
weather station that posts the data to the internet.

> 15/05:30pm 29.4 29.4 19.7 56 6.3 E 19 26 10 14 1008.3 - 0.0
Using cut I can extract the fields of interest - 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12 and 
14 which are temperature, humidty, course, speed, gust, barometer and 
total rainfall since 9.00am (that's the standard we use).

I have a shell script to convert course in compass points to degrees, 
and I have a perl script to convert the metric figures to imperial, and 
round up/down.
 
I'd like to be able to handle the lot with a single programming language 
and end up with a line I can feed to xastir.

The question is, what should I be using, perl or awk? Armed with the 
answer I can devote my time in that direction.

Ray vk2tv