Keeping in mind that I'm relatively comfortable with programming in general but very new to unix and korn/bourne shell scripts..
I'm using awk on a CSV file, and then performing calculations and operations on specific fields within specific records. The CSV file I'm working with has about 600 records, with 30 fields.
Since I want to be able to cross-reference one record against all other records multiple times for different/specific records that need to be checked (for example if a record orders an amendment to a previous record, I'd like to check to see if the previous record still exists), and since, I think, awk only runs through each record once, I wanted to know if it's possible, and if so, if it's even a good idea to store all the fields from each record that I need (I don't need all of them, just maybe a third of the information) into an array in awk, and then return the array itself, outside of awk.
Possible? Good idea, bad idea? I'm open to all suggestions and advice.
Note: I don't know if it's possible to run the loop for each record again once you're in the awk program, for example: a nested awk where in the middle of the loop for the host awk, you can start a second awk to check the current record in the original awk against all other records.